Dreams come true at Art Glitter

Barbara Trombley, who designed greeting cards before creating her own line of glitter, has expanded her Art Glitter retail space for an art gallery. Verde (Independent/Vyto Starinskas)

By Vyto Starinskas

Originally Published: January 30, 2022 12:15 a.m.

https://www.verdenews.com/news/2022/jan/30/dreams-come-true-art-glitter/

COTTONWOOD – Barbara Trombley said she dreams in glitter.

Her face even sparkles as she explains that she puts those dreams in her paintings which are now hanging at her Art Glitter arts and crafts store in Old Town.

Trombley has expanded her Art Glitter retail store to include an art gallery with her large oil, acrylic and watercolors, and she describes them as “glittering.”

Art Glitter is better known for having the largest line and selection of designer glitter colors, over 1,200 super-high quality colors, Trombley explained.

The glitter is used on all kinds of things such as calligraphy, art, quilts, paintings, musical instruments, cards, cosmetics, fingernails, clothing, shoes and glitter tattoos. (Verde Independent/Vyto Starinkskas)

The important thing is that it’s a high-quality glitter. “It doesn’t feel like sand, it feels like silk, satin.”

The glitter comes in many different cuts and sizes, and they distribute glitter, adhesives, and accessories all over the world.

People are surprised when they come into the retail store in Old Town at the bend and see the expansiveness, Trombley said while touring the space where she also gives classes and demos in glittering. She said she gets both retail and wholesale customers coming into her store.

She also has greeting cards, dog and pet beds, a large, paper-mache Pegasus and works by other artists including quilts with glitter.

Next to the retail business, they have a production building. She employs 12 people for the entire glitter operation.

Her customers are hobbyists, artists, rubber stamp/scrap book stores and stationery stores, and they get Internet sales from their website at ArtGlitter.com.

The glitter is used on all kinds of things such as calligraphy, art, quilts, paintings, musical instruments, cards, cosmetics, fingernails, clothing, shoes and glitter tattoos.

Trombley was asked if there was anything that can’t be glittered? She said she wasn’t sure.

One person in Sedona did their entire driveway in their glitter, she said. Some people have glittered their entire houses.

Trombley said she moved to Cornville in 1987 for the clean air with her daughter, Shannon, when she was 4 years old.

(Verde Independent/Vyto Starinskas)

She was hand-making greeting cards using glitter. She made 1,500 greeting cards a day for 10 years selling them at tradeshows and craft shows. “I probably made a half million.”

She had glitter made for greeting cards and then she started designing her own line of glitter colors. She created the kind of craft glitter product she wanted. She was the first to come up with the silky, ultra-fine glitter.

After a lot of research, she came up with her own glue, which she now sells. The different glues make the glitter appear differently, she said.

Trombley also teaches classes in glitter. Customers can start with the basic Glitter 101 class to get started. Art Glitter is open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at 720 N. Balboa St, on the bend off Main Street in Old Town, Cottonwood. Contact the store at 928-639-0805

Oak Creek Vineyards

(Verde Independent/Vyto Starinskas)

By Raquel Hendrickson

Originally Published: December 21, 2021 8:09 p.m.
Copyright 2021 Verde News.

CORNVILLE – Oak Creek Vineyards & Winery is looking to expand again. And the effort may eventually change the way Yavapai County operates in Page Springs.

Gary and Nathalie Carruthers are asking for an amendment to the property’s use permit with a 15-year extension. Their plan is to expand and renovate the tasting room, winery and parking lot. The changes would occur in three phases.

The county itself has asked them to consider a zoning map change to make life easier for everyone.

“We think it’s the right thing to do,” Gary Carruthers said, but he said he wanted to get the current use permit through before the Board of Supervisors starts debating the larger issue of an area zoning change.

While the winery is nearing its 20th anniversary, the Carruthers couple has owned it less than two years, their planned opening coinciding with the beginning of COVID-19 closures in 2020. So they have been familiar with the unpredictable from the beginning.

Rendering of some of the planned expansion of Oak Creek Vineyards & Winery by Architecture Works Green Inc.

The property came with some history, and that reflected what’s happened in Page Springs the past two decades. By the county’s count, there have been more than 20 use permit applications in the area, all for commercial development, as it has grown into a tourism haven.

County staff has been frustrated with repetitive paperwork for even small changes. Use permits are restricted to the site plan. Any change not on the site plan must have an approved amended use permit, even “the addition of a walk-in freezer or a deck.” The result, they said was owners building without getting the proper permits, becoming an enforcement headache.

In the case of Oak Creek Vineyards, it was first approved for a 10-year use permit in 2002 for construction of the winery and tasting room. In 2007, the owners asked for a use permit to add a restaurant, which was not allowed at the time. In 2012, the original use permit was extended another 10 years.

Two years later, the county granted a use permit to expand the tasting room, but that was revoked when no building permit was obtained within two years. In 2018, the county did approve a use permit amendment for an expanded seating area.

In supporting its most recent amendment application, county staff recommended all commercial property owners in the area, primarily wineries, get together and pursue a conditional use zoning map change. That would allow the owners to simply get a building permit for any changes.

Carruthers agreed that would help mitigate the shortcuts some property owners may take to get around a lot of the public processes. He said the Cornville Community Association also wanted more time to discuss it and its ramifications.

“We don’t know how much latitude we would have to make changes,” he said.

Carruthers wants to add 729 square feet to the tasting room, renovate the seating area and wine bar, build a new commercial kitchen with walk-in cooler and pantry, add 1,914 square feet to the patio, renovate the parking lot and make an exhaustive list of other changes.

“It’s pretty exciting,” he said.

The Cornville Community Association sent in a letter of support of the project.

Carruthers said Oak Creek Vineyards would like to have the changes to the tasting room complete by 2023 and the winery building finished by the fall harvest in 2024.

In the long term, he would like to go back to the county with the request for a zoning change.

Bike School

 By Vyto Starinskas Originally Published: November 22, 2021 4:31 p.m.

(Editor's Note: This story appeared in the "Verde Independent" newspaper on Wednesday, 11/24/2021.  It is Copyright Verde News and located behind a paywall.  Occasionally, we feel a Verde News article needs and deserves much wider local circulation that the paywall permits.  Therefore, we occasionally take the liberty of reformatting an article so that it can be shared with the proper credit and this disclaimer. We realize this may cause some heartburn at Verde News but we are proceeding under the mantra, "It's easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.")

CORNVILLE – The late Sen. John McCain will be remembered for spending summers by the Oak Creek with his family in Page Springs.

Now the community is remembering the late statesman by naming a new mountain bike park at the Oak Creek School after him.

The Trek Trails at the John S. McCain III Memorial Bike Skills Park is set to be open next Earth Day, 2022, explained Principal Naya Persaud of the Oak Creek School in Cornville.

“The McCain family did give us permission to name it that,” Persaud said. Trek donated a significant amount of money to get the park up and running.

Persaud said they have just put the fence in, obtaining final permits and hopes to have the park open on April 22, 2022.

They will be breaking ground later this year assuming they get all the county permits, to Verde Valley Wheel Fun Treasurer Kevin Adams said.

This is the second bike park built by the nonprofit group, Verde Valley Wheel Fun. The Mountain View Preparatory Bike Skills Park, possibly the first such park at any Arizona public school, was completed last year.

Verde Valley Wheel Fun raised the funds to build both parks and the projects did not cost taxpayers any money. Both parks will be open to the community as well as student riders.

Trek was the biggest funder of the Oak Creek School project with a $60,000 donation, Adams said. There were numerous corporate contributors and private contributors such as Rural Arizona Healthcare and the Arizona Community Foundation of Yavapai County and Sedona.

The Cornville trails will be built by Flagline Trails LLC in Flagstaff, which worked for six to eight weeks at the MVP Park, according to Adams. The company builds bike trails all over the western U.S.

He said the skills park at MVP cost about $110,000. The Oak Creek skills park will cost about $145,000, Adams said on Thursday, Nov. 11.

The Oak Creek bike park will be fenced, have two zones, downhill and cross-country, he said. It will be open to the community as well as students just like MVP.

Adams attended the Oak Creek School’s Earn a Bike Program flag raising on Thursday, during which bikes were presented to students by the Wheel Fun organization.

They awarded six bikes on Thursday to students who needed bikes and did well in attendance, citizenship and conduct, during a flag-raising ceremony.

The group raises the money for the bikes and purchases the discounted Trek Bikes through Verde Valley Bicycles in Cottonwood.

The nonprofit group has presented bikes at other schools this year – Dr. Daniel Bright, Mingus High School, Mountain View Prep - and has five more schools still to go.

Verde Valley Wheel Fun, an IRS-designated, nonprofit organization, began going into schools in the Verde Valley to teach kids bike skills in 2018 and 2019, Adams said.

The group runs after-school bike clubs and provides everything the school needs – bikes, helmets and hydration packs

This fall they will be in 13 schools, including the six clubs at the different Cottonwood schools, he added. They are also in Camp Verde and Sedona.

Email Vyto Starinskas at vstarinskas@verdenews.com or call 928-634-2241, ext. 6031.

Source: https://www.verdenews.com/news/2021/nov/22/cornville-school-name-bike-park-after-late-sen-joh/

Beaver Creek Watershed

The Verde River is The Heart & Soul of The Verde Valley.  Likewise, each of The Verde River's tributaries offer their own allure and special magic to this place we call home.  Here are some of the many online resources describing The Beaver Creek Watershed.

The website above is an excellent introduction to The Beaver Creek Watershed:
http://beavercreek.nau.edu/Hydrology/hydrology.htm

This is a somewhat longer look at the Beaver Creek Watershed.
http://www.azheritagewaters.nau.edu/loc_beaver_creek.html

The USDA Forest Service has put together some awesome

resources pertaining to The Beaver Creek Watershed:
https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/boise/AWAE/labs/awae_flagstaff/highlands/watersheds/beavercreek/index.html

The USGS stream flow gage for Wet Beaver Creek is located at a very

picturesque site alongside the famous Bell Trail a few miles away.
Here is the USGS website for the Wet Beaver Creek gaging station:
https://waterdata.usgs.gov/az/nwis/uv/?site_no=09505200&PARAmeter_cd=00065,00060

Wet Beaver Creek really shines on The Bell Trails to The Crack.
Here is the link to the Hike Arizona description of that classic day hike.
https://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=7

Below are a few of the 100's of  photos you will find on the above website.

After you have perused one or more of the above websites, you will be equipped with plenty of "key word search strings" with which to do your own independent investigation(s) into The Beaver Creek Watershed.