Christina’s Hand Painted Glass

Born in Hollywood, California to Katharina and Andreas Wippler, post-World War 2 European immigrants, Christina was first introduced to nature by her parents. “My mother planted a victory garden in our front yard filled with vegetables and surrounded by flowers while my father’s concord grapes spiraled up the back walls of our house overlooking a homemade waterfall.” Her parents had created a magical world of flora and fauna for her to enjoy, bringing a sense of beauty and nature to her urban surroundings. When she was seven, her family moved to northern California to a little town called Paradise, a rural area bordered by abundant fields of wild flowers that she often picked to create bouquets. After graduating high school, she spent 2 years in Germany working in the art field while studying business. After returning to the states she earned her degree in Interior Design and began pursuing her career. For extra income she started painting on rocks and attending local craft shows and events. Her canvas turned from rocks to glass while enjoying a cool beverage featured in a blue glass bottle. “I recall thinking that these blue bottles are lovely and would be great to paint!” Her success selling these bottles led to the launch of her glass painting business in 1994 called Forget Me Not Gifts. While contemplating the designs on a pending vase order, she noticed that her flowerbed was empty and looked quite gloomy. Suddenly, a thought occurred to her: “You don’t always have flowers in your garden so why not paint them on vases?” From that day forward, Christina altered her style, painting flowers as if they were growing out of the ground onto the glass, creating an everlasting bouquet. Within two years her hand painted glass vases were distributed nationwide in all the gift galleries of a major department store chain and have continued to flourish ever since..