We're glad that you found us, out here in cyberspace. And since you took the time to see what we make, we thought that we'd share a little bit about ourselves. Bottle Benders was started in 1970 by Jean and Ted Chalfant. They started out with one little kiln, a conversion van and two young daughters. The business has grown and expanded over the years, and even gone through a move. Jean and Ted used to make chimes in central Florida (in a little town named Geneva), but times are a changing and they moved to northeast Georgia (to another no name place called Toccoa, well more properly we live in Eastanollee, but it's even harder to find on the map) in the early 80s. So that brings us up to now. Jean and Ted are still working away on the business. Their oldest daughter, Donna, helps to keep things going. Their middle daughter, Kim, makes chimes on her own in north Florida, and their youngest (thanks to a little accident upon moving to Georgia) Roxann, works with them as well. Now that you have an idea of who's involved I'll tell you a little bit about each of us.

Jean is our commander in chief. She is the motivation behind all of us. Every morning she wakes up with one goal- to produce as much as possible. At 60 she's a spry and lively little lady. In addition to keeping up with what all of us need to do, and making sure that we're doing it, Jean also is the creative life blood of the business. All of the Wind Dancers and Ribbon Glass chimes are hand made by Jean. She also does all of the painting on the impression chimes. When she gets tired of working for Bottle Benders, she makes a few things for Roxy Kay, namely fantastic clocks and vases. On an average day Jean probably spends 12 hours a day working on wind chimes. The rest of the time she's thinking up new things to do with glass.
Ted is in charge of production. He's the one that Jean gives her ideas to and says "here, make this work." At which point he drops everything he's working on and does it. In addition to that Ted touches every bottle on every chime. He washes all the dirty bottles we get (that's right we go dumpster diving), then prepares them for cutting, fires them in the kiln and ships them over to the assembly studio. Also he cuts all our float glass for the impressions, ribbon glass, and vases. Basically, Ted works from the time he gets up to the time that he goes to bed. I know, it sounds terrible. But, if he doesn't work he gets grumpy and hard to live with. So we prefer to keep him busy.
Donna is the president of Bottle Benders. But we usually don't listen to her. She's in charge of cutting the bottles, doing decals, making all the tins and wooden signs, and hanging all the bottle chimes. Donna does a lot of stuff but none of us are quite sure what that stuff is. Donna has two kids, and each wind chime you purchase goes towards furthering their education.
Okay, now a little bit about myself, your dear and faithful narrator as well as the web designer. I'm Roxann, the youngest of Jean and Ted's daughters. I graduated from the University of Georgia in 2006 with a Bachelor's of Fine Art. My concentration is in fabric design. My job at Bottle Benders consists of many hanging all the circle chimes, and painting all the rainbow and fall colors. I usually help do the odd jobs- driftwood hunting and dumpster diving being two of my favorites. I know there's nothing like seeing a college grad digging bottles out of a dumpster. When I'm not working for Bottle Benders, I spend my time trying to develop my own business- Roxy Kay. I make glass vases, earrings, clocks, silk scarves, and handwoven cotton scarves. You can check out my work at www.Roxykay.com. I hope you like the website and find it easy to navigate. If you have any comments or questions, or if you just want to tell me that the website is impossible to use, please feel free to email us.
What's life if you can't take your pet to work? Well, that's how we feel anyway. If you drop by the shop you'll probably see these friendly little critters. From top to bottom- Pico is Roxann's partner in crime, he's a two year old Quaker Grey; Oreo is Donna's little buddy, she's some form of high breed mutt; and Marty is Ted's dog. Marty is an old, temperamental poodle. He has diabetes and cataracts (just so you don't think his eyes really glow like that). But we love him and hope that he'll make it to be 14 (on his next birthday).