Artiste: Lisa Married: to Jeffy Graduated: Colorado State Children: girl, boy, boy Pets: Lucia Maria Likes: loud music, good 'n plenty's, lobstah's with buttah & party crashers Dislikes: stability, Lucia Maria's breath, Thule’s in parking garages and “no salt”
Has been known to: dip her paintbrush in her morning coffee.
Artiste: Jen Graduated: Hartwick College Children: girl, girl Likes: Red Sox, "are you ready to rum ball?", large social gatherings, the great outdoors & la musica... oh, and Guinness Dislikes: re-runs, lobstah gunk, packing light and “salt”
Has been known to: wipe out in slippery, overpriced sandals.
Sales, Sales, Sales: Kathy Married: to Timmer Graduated: Plymouth State Children: girl, girl Pets: Sam, Blackie, Mamacita, and Rappie (grandson to Seattle Slew) Likes: “Your table is ready”, product testing, muck boots & a "houseful" Dislikes: an easy sell, spontaneous large recreational vehicle purchases, “salt”
Has been known to: nest small animals in her hair.
HuePhoria's two Syracuse, NY artists, Jen and Lisa, met at a "Mom's Coffee" in 1998. While staying home to raise their children, they both had found outlets to feed their creative souls...and to keep their sanity. Their common interests would eventually come in very handy for their future endeavor: throwing fun and spontaneous parties, experiencing retail therapy outings and, of course, painting anything they could get their hands on. The two quickly became great friends and decided to paint furniture and glassware to try to make some extra cash. Lisa and Jen began selling their HuePhoria hand painted goods at local fundraisers and through word of mouth to get their hobby-turned-business into motion.
The HuePhoria "ball" concept was born in 1999 out of necessity. The wine glass supply in their cupboards seemed to be dwindling (probably from the fun and spontaneous parties) and they saw this as an opportunity to paint some new ones for themselves that would be much more creative than the glasses they were seeing in stores. Not only that, the idea of each person having their own unique ball design on their glass would solve the ongoing dilemma of remembering who's drink was who's! Lisa and Jen got to work, painting each glass and baking them in their ovens, and selling them to the loyal customer base they had built locally. (Unfortunately for their families it was about the only baking being done in their kitchens!)
After selling more than 5,000 glasses in 2 years, they hit a point where could not keep up with demand, nor could they offer the glasses to retail stores at a wholesale price that would keep them in business. (Not to mention that they were both going blind from the tiny detail painting!) However, this was their dream and they were not ready to hang up their paintbrushes just yet. In 2005, grassroots HuePhoria took a leap...they partnered with dear friend Kathy (a NH businesswoman) to help jump start HuePhoria glassware into mass production.
HuePhoria LLC was formed with a goal to design, manufacture and distribute unique glassware to upscale gift boutiques, party throwers and cocktail queens across the country. The partners designed a whole new glass, bigger and sturdier to appeal to all wine lovers, beer drinkers (this wine glass was built to hold a full one), cocktail drinkers and milk drinkers alike.
With a high quality line of hand-blown, hand-painted, dishwasher safe stemware, HuePhoria hit the retail market. Jen, Lisa & Kathy have been "having a ball entertaining" ever since!
