My name is Jen, I’m the artist and owner behind Olive Can Fly, and I thought I’d start my journey into blogging (who knows how long this journey will last as I’m not great at regular updates) with the origin story of the business name.

When I’m trading at markets I get asked “are you Olive?” a lot. I’m not Olive, but there is an Olive in our family. She’s approximately 16 months old, has beautiful kind eyes, an extremely nervous disposition and looks like a kangaroo fell in love with a dingo and Olive popped out.

Olive is one of our many rescue dogs. She was originally from Romania and was in a kennel in Yorkshire. The kennel was about to get some much needed repairs so she was one of a few dogs that needed a temporary foster home. As soon as I saw her I offered us up to be that temporary foster home. Mike & I drove over to Yorkshire to collect her.

We’d adopted a Romanian rescue called Ripley a week earlier from the same charity to add to the 5 rescue sled dogs we already had so Olive took that number to 7 dogs.

That’s a lot of dogs. We also added Birdie a couple of months later taking it to 8 but that’s another story haha!

Olive © Jen Newton-Prosser

Olive came to stay with us and initially Beth & Lewis (eldest daughter and her lovely other half) were interested in adopting her but it soon became clear that Olive needed to stay with me. She has to be near me at all times, she instantly loved Ripley, was cautiously interested in the younger children we’ve got but terrified of everyone else.

We installed stair gates in the living room doorway and on the stairs so we could keep the dogs in or out depending on what was needed. It’s handy to have something that can hold them all back when the poor postman rings the bell..

Olive had no issue vaulting the living room gate (or the one that was already in the back room doorway we’d installed for the huskies) but we thought for sure that she’d never get over the stair gate. It’s 4 feet high and two stairs up from the bottom. She couldn’t jump that.

Turns out she she could. With ease. We found that out the first time I closed it behind me and went upstairs without her. Remember earlier when I said she has to be near me at all times? Well this gate wasn’t going to stop her from that whatsoever. She flew over it with space to spare!

Olive & Ripley © Jen Newton-Prosser

The phrase ‘Olive can fly’ was said in our house for months. Way before this business was ever a twinkle in my eye! I always said it would be a brilliant name for a band but I’m not musical and Mike spends his working days working with bands rather than being in them.

Then when stained glass became something that I was going to try to make a living from I didn’t even have to ponder a suitable name, we already had one.

I love it. It’s unique, it’s got a story behind it and I get to honour the sweetest rescue pup who even as I type this is STILL glued to my side.

If you made it this far, well done! There’s more rescue dog content in the highlights on Olive Can Fly’s Instagram account @olivecanfly where you can see all kinds of stained glass too!

Glad to have you join us in this new journey,

Love Jen (& Olive) x

Olive & Ripley © Jen Newton-Prosser