Meet the Vendor: Sage House Glass

By Sarah Hurley

Samantha Martin of Greensboro, North Carolina, is a children’s librarian at the Asheboro Public Library by day and a stained-glass art aficionado by night. Originally from California, Samantha relocated to the Tar Heel State in 2015 in search of better opportunities for work, quickly discovering her passion for promoting early literacy within the public library system. Now an honorary NC native, Samantha’s cozy sage green house in the triad serves not only as her family’s home, but also as an artist’s studio where she brings her beautiful stained-glass creations to life.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic sent homebound individuals worldwide into a crafting frenzy. Sourdough-making, fiber arts, calligraphy, and YouTube yoga were adopted as new hobbies at a rapid pace. “It seemed like everyone was learning new things on Instagram,” Samantha says of that time. “I was seeing lots of stained-glass online and decided that was something I really wanted to try to do.” She signed up for a stained-glass-making class at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem and fell in love with the artform.

Soon after, she constructed a small studio in her garage at home to pursue the craft more seriously, beginning with 3-D objects crafted from other artists’ designs. However, as she continued to expand her artistry, she realized that her favorite part of the creative process was designing the items she made herself, directing the creative process from beginning to end. She loved the feeling of designing the items she would use to decorate and fill her own home with light.

As a stained-glass artist, Samantha’s first step to creating her beautiful wall and window hangings, suncatchers, plant stakes, and other items is sourcing large sheets of glass from which to work, often purchasing these from online distributors. “Glass can kind of be rare itself, so when you use glass, you might be saying goodbye to that kind of texture or color. You might not see it again… So, when I use a rare piece in a design, it usually becomes my favorite piece for a while because it just seems so temporary.”

After selecting the perfect piece or pieces of glass, Samantha brings her ideas to life using the creative software Procreate, then transfers the digital designs onto vinyl stickers using a Cricut machine. After cutting the glass itself, she grinds each individual piece using a glass grinder, wraps those pieces in copper tape, and solders them together. Lastly, she shines and polishes the glass, and she might patina the solder lines to achieve a different finish. Requiring anywhere from a few hours to a few days to finish a piece depending upon the complexity of the design, Samantha says the time-consuming, detail-oriented process induces a Zen-like state of creativity and flow.

Upon encouragement from her family and friends, Samantha decided to pour her love for stained-glass making into a small side-business in 2024. Naming Sage House Glass after the love-and-light-filled house she and her family call home, Samantha first ventured into the stained-glass business with a small market in Greensboro. Offering suncatchers, plant stakes, and a few other small designs her friends and family had previously admired, she quickly sold out. “It was an incredible feeling,” she says, seeing her art resonate with total strangers for the first time.

Since then, she has participated in five or six more markets and begun selling her products on Etsy. She became a vendor at Minkology in July of 2025 and was excited to see her items in a brick-and-mortar shop for the first time—especially one from which she has so often purchased items to adorn her own home throughout the years. “It’s great to be a part of the club,” she says, and an honor to know that people are choosing her artwork to “become a part of their mantle—their window—their home.”

To connect with Samantha or commission a custom project, visit the contact portal on her website or message her on Instagram.