Miranda Adkins | So Salem

Chad Trent works on a project at Soleil et Lune.

Amanda Janney and Chad Trent have their day jobs -- she works as a human resources specialist at Carilion, and he works at Dooley Printing, his family business --but her after-hours include beads and wire, while his involve flame and glass.

On the couple's first Mother's Day together in 2004, they made bracelets as gifts. They've been hooked ever since.

"When you get into something, you start haunting those [local] stores...we would show them some of the stuff we made and they started inviting us to teach classes," Janney said. The couple visited Beadfest in Philadelphia, a jewelry-making instructional bazaar and show, later that year--that's when they began torching and melding glass beads.

Now, more than four years later, they own Soleil et Lune Studio and Gallery on East Fourth Street in Salem.

"We opened originally intending to be a teaching studio. The more and more customers we got, they started requiring more beads and wire... then we became a bead shop and studio," Janney said. After she and Trent really began excelling in their favorite mediums, hers in wire and beading and his in glass work, people wanted them to sell some of it, too.

With six torches, proper ventilation, and safety goggles to go around, Trent is well-equipped to teach torch classes at the studio. He even posts "how-tos" for intermediate and glass bead makers online. After mentions in specialist magazines and an article in "Glassline," he's becoming well-known within the online community of glass torch-wielders.

Trent has even had out-of-towners come in to take special classes with him -- one came all the way from South Africa. But the two don't let that scare away local artisans -- they rent out torch and kiln time (to those who have taken their advanced class) and provide customers a place to keep their glass.

Janney is also enjoying her share in the craftworking limelight. Touted by regular customer Vicky Strum as "somebody who can take anything and set it in jewelry," she's featured in the Winter 2008 edition of "Step by Step Wire Jewelry" for a mosaic ring she designed.

She'll even share tips with customers, and for the cost of materials, she teaches anyone how to make earrings. "A lot of people that come back and take classes ... start with something more easy and then go on to something more complicated," Janney said.

Strum, a regular since the shop opened on New Year's Day in 2007, is hooked. A former frequenter of traditional jewelry stores, she's more excited to learn how to make her own. "This is just a cool place to come ... there's always projects that you can do and different things that you can make," she explained while showing off her sterling and gold build bracelet, a result of her most recent class with Janney.