A tasteful baby shower gift

Oh boy! Look what I found! The baby shower trinket I custom made for my sister and had cast in pewter... I completely forgot about it!  I believe that I'm loving it even more today then I ever did before... I guess it's because it has been a while and I had a chance to get it out of my ultra self criticizing brain, which means that now I can look at it as if someone else had done it.

Anyhow, I made a bunch of them and threaded a lovely pink ribbon through the hoop, creating a bow.  They were a real hit!  Actually, when it comes to special gift giving, it really pays to be an artist and a designer.  I can design exactly what I want and then produce it just the way I like it!  The guests could later put them on key chains, or around their necks.

I think that if you're looking for something beautiful and really different for your baby shower, a custom piece like this is THE a way to go.

I made sure that if the guests chose to use this gift as a pendant on a chain, they could do so without it being so specific to this particular baby shower, but at the same time, the present did have a deep meaning to my beautiful sister.

I love finding my designs on Houzz.com

I love Houzz.com
Houzz happens to be one of my all time favorite places online.  I love it so much that I actually invited Liza Houzman over to our studio when she was in town.  (Didn't work out so well for me because I ended up sick in bed with the flu, but heyyy... at least everyone else at the studio got to say hello.)

In any case, I was surfing Houzz the other day and happened across this gorgeous photo by Harold Leidner, a Dallas landscape architect, which shows off his wonderful landscape architecture, and also happened to catch the drive gate and exterior lanterns I designed for the property and which we custom forged for our client.

I clicked on it, and all these other fabulous photos started popping up... so, I thought I'd share them with you.

Mediterranean Landscape by Dallas Landscape Architect Harold Leidner Landscape Architects.  Custom ornamental metalwork and lighting by Potter Art Metal Studios in Dallas.  The interior designer on the project was Kelli Otey.

Here is a photo which captured the copper and wrought iron gas lanterns I custom designed for the Mediterranean style estate.

We also designed and forged this exterior wrought iron chandelier.

And this shot shows a peak of the beautiful tail lanterns which we matched to the rest of the exterior lighting.



Of course we made a whole lot more for the home, but it sure was fun to see bits and pieces here and there on Harold's Houzz page.

written by Izabela Wojcik
Your personal ornamental metalwork and lighting designer at Potter Art Metal Studios in Dallas, TX.

Hi-End Custom Metalwork on a Budget

If you have an appreciation for hi-end custom metalwork and lighting, but are on a budget, don't get discouraged... good things can happen to those who are willing to sit down and discuss things with their designer.  I have been designing custom metalwork and lighting for over seven years, which makes me kind of an expert on what to do in order to end up with a pretty piece of metalwork at a lower price.  In our business, it all comes down to the time it takes to custom forge a piece.  It doesn't really matter how large it is, or how small... sometimes the smallest and simplest looking piece takes far longer to make then something which is larger and more elaborate looking.  The key thing in designing on a budget is flexibility.  Just by changing a type of scroll end on a stair railing, or using a different material for a lantern body, or simply by doing a different finish, money can be saved.  So next time you've got the perfect piece in mind, which turns out to be out of your budget, have a talk with your designer, tell them what your budget actually is and give them the opportunity to figure out if your goal is attainable after all.

This wrought iron pendant is a perfect example of custom design on a budget.  You could have brought me an idea for a round fixture with side panels rised to arches and this fixture would have cost twice as much as it did.  Custom round glass is expensive to start with, and shaping it costs even more, not to mention that we would have to put even more work into rounding the metalwork which the glass would be set into.  This 28" tall and 15" wide pendant ended up costing $2150, and included solid brass leaves and finials and a lovely German Antique glass.  It's a fixture which will look great for generations to come, just like all of the fixtures we have been building for almost a 100 years; nice, heavy, well built pieces, designed and forged to your specifications.  There's a real difference in the way our pieces look and feel when compared with other metalwork on the market.  As Benjamin Franklin pointed out, "The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten."  There are lots of nightmare stories we hear from time to time, so I'd like to also point out that we actually stand behind our products and won't drop the ball on you.

So lets get creative... Hope to see you soon!

Izabela
Your personal custom ornamental metalwork and and lighting designer at Potter Art Metal Studios in Dallas, Tx.

Ornamental Metalwork and Lighting Designs by Izabela Wojcik... The Process...

I always get this question:

"What programs do you use to design
with?”

I have to say that I do not use only one
program... depending on what I want
to do, I will utilize a pen, a pencil,
markers, Adobe Illustrator,
Adobe Photoshop, and even clay or
paper cutouts... what ever it takes
to get my point across.

I hand drew the lantern on the top left
corner, I used Illustrator to create
the chandelier design on the top right
corner, and used Photoshop to create
my business card; the sconce on the
back wall was not in the original
photo, I superimposed it.  I also used
Photoshop to superimpose the gate
between existing columns to show my
client what it would look like.