Artist / Owner

Each original piece of jewelry is hand-crafted and fused by me, Andrea Cruz, in my garage studio in Winter Haven, Florida.

I also teach fused glass classes in a yarn shop in downtown Winter Haven called Four Purls.

A friend first introduced me to dichroic jewelry years ago and I was immediately enchanted. I began to seek out dichroic jewelry artists and vendors at craft markets. However, not being able to afford much at these shows, my dichroic jewelry collection didn’t grow as fast as I would have hoped. Fast forward to 2010: I was working a full-time office job and needed a creative outlet.

So, I decided to take the plunge and invest in learning how to fuse glass. I took that class, started buying supplies online here and there, and saved my money to buy a kiln. By 2011 I was a fused glass vendor on the weekends.

One of the philosophies I have is to keep my pieces affordable. My pieces range from $5-55. Matching pendant and earring sets generally range from $20-35. I will only charge more if there is something super special about the piece or set, such as the work or amount of dichroic glass that went into it, or even the type of glass (i.e. vintage glass that is no longer manufactured).

I still sell on the weekends at markets in Central Florida, mainly in Winter Haven. You can also find my creations for sale on Etsy and every once in a while I put a piece or two up on “auction” on Facebook. Like my FB page and indicate you’d like to receive notifications of when I post status updates so you never miss anything!

By the way, mariposa (pronounced ma-ree-poe-za) means “butterfly” in Spanish. I chose this as my business name to honor the memory of my grandmother, who loved butterflies, and also because my husband’s first language is Spanish. Also, I think it’s just a beautiful word.

Learn how to make dichroic fused glass jewelry!

Have a question or specific request? Check out this FAQ, and/or contact: Andrea@MariposaFusedGlass.com