Our History

Our history involves two decades of business experience at shops you may have visited in the Midwest. Karl's family started making kaleidoscopes out of stained glass at Wisconsin's #1 tourist attraction in the 1982; the House on the Rock. Karl was 16 at this time. From there, we added a second store at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and a third in Galena, Illinois. During college, Karl opened a fourth location in Red Wing, Minnesota called The Glass Scope. Karl's degree is a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a Glass Blowing and Painting emphasis and ultimately decided to represent many of my friends' kaleidoscopes in our galleries. In 1994, we opened Crystal Kaleidoscope, a kaleidoscope store specializing just in kaleidoscopes at the Mall of America. We closed our Mall of America operation in 1997 as we saw the rise and potential of the internet. We went online in 1998 as Kaleidoscopes To You. We have been smiling ever since. We merged into Jean's family business of florist and greenhouse in 1997 and this gave us a base to build our internet business. After closing the florist and greenhouse in 2007, we are growing and refocusing on kaleidoscopes of all types more than ever. Now in 2011, we are remodeling and expanding our warehouse facilities. We intend to be here in another 20 years by growing our company stronger each year.

With this wealth of experience, we can suggest kaleidoscopes in various price ranges, or help you find a really fantastic hand made kaleidoscope by a skilled artisan.

We are members of the Brewster Kaleidoscope Society and regularly attend events to stay up to date with the latest and greatest designs and new, emerging artists. We feel we try our best to understand the entire scope industry. We've even traveled the world extensively in search of new and old kaleidoscopes, which are rather rare. We appear in various kaleidoscope books and publications as a shop featuring fine kaleidoscopes, and as Cozy Baker (a recognized authority) says in her book, "Kaleidoscope Renaissance".