While traveling the world as a design consultant, in 1995 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. "I decided that I needed to stop putting off things I really wanted to do," Shull says. "But I knew nothing about how to make jewelry myself." Her husband, Glenn, taught her how to use a drill press and she felt that, "the power was now in my hands," she explains. Her signatures Mardi Gras Princess Pins started then, but were made of found objects. After classes in metalsmithing and basic jewelry techniques, a friend suggested that she try fused glass in 1998, and with that, she was "hooked."

Gaining experience in glass at a local Los Angeles studio, specializing in decorative slumped glass, Shull sold artwork to her friends and did occasional shows. "Whenever I wasn't working at the glass company, I was firing glass in my own kiln," she says. "Finally, my husband said 'I think you have a new job. Go out and make your art full time.' " With his support, she founded Shull Design Studio in 2001. Today she works in a suburban Los Angeles garage/studio overlooking Santa Monica and the Pacific Ocean.