My Story

Hi! My name is Mandy Yates, and I'm a stained glass addict.  I am also a Mother to 2 kids and 5 dogs, a partner to a very supportive guy, and Monarch butterfly conservationist... among other things.

I have always loved stained glass, and the beauty it brings to a space.  I dove into it back in 2014. I messed around a little bit trying to learn the basics of cutting simple shapes with the basic tools I had.  Things went slow, and then life got in the way.  

I found myself  at a  job in the Oil Field Industry, and it ended up stressing me out so much I started experiencing physical effects. It was a toxic environment that, thankfully, pushed me to my next chapter in life.   

I decided I never wanted to go back to a desk job or office environment.  I wanted to serve others somehow.  I thought Occupational therapy would be a fulfilling career, so I enrolled in college and set out down that path.  After 2 semesters, I realized that my brain wasn't designed to retain and memorize everything Anatomy and Physiology had to offer, so that career path sadly came to a halt.  

However, that time spent in college taught me some invaluable things about myself I never knew after 30 something years.  One, is that I can actually do algebra.  The other cool thing I learned was through a Photoshop class.  My teacher kept telling me how talented I was (which I had never heard in my life) and she let me bring my electronic drawing tablet to class where I realized I could draw patterns for stained glass using Photoshop.   That tablet had been sitting in a drawer for a while, unused.  I think I was going to try to design t-shirts with it or something. 

Christmas 2016 came around and I was so busy with school, I had to make some gifts for close friends and family.  I ended up pulling out my stained glass and made some butterflies and other designs out of stained glass and put them on concrete pavers.  One of my friends posted hers on her Facebook page and someone saw it and asked me for a custom stone.  About 6 months later, July 2017, I officially started my business and things have just snowballed into what it is today. 

I now get to help people create meaningful memorials to honor their pets and loved ones on the other side.  I couldn't ask for a more rewarding act of service.