Going to market!

Deciding whether to take my pottery to the market each week was a huge decision for me.  I knew it would require a lot of time and strength, neither of which I felt I had.  I like the easy life of having my studio in my home!  However the market has been the best experience I have had with pottery thus far.  Yes it is A LOT of work, packing, unpacking, packing and unpacking, I am definitely stronger at the end of the market season.

  In this picture I have 8 crates, each week I figured out how to fit more crates in my little Ford Focus, now I am up to 11 crates.  You have to bring your own tent, tables and chair, so that's a lot of packing.  Also when you live in Saskatchewan you never know what the weather will bring and there were a few scary Saturdays for sure, one day I had complete strangers come and grab the legs of my tent because they could see it lifting off the ground even with the weights on each leg.
I have absolutely loved getting to know different people, my life feels so much richer!!  Speaking of richer, the market was also very good to me that way as well, which was awesome.  Kept me very busy each week trying to replenish my stock though.
Two more weeks left and I will actually treasure each moment it has really been a gift to me to be part of this wonderful community event.  The atmosphere is beautiful, with live music each week, food, special events and great people!!

When functional meets beauty

I love bringing texture into my pottery!  For the last year I have been doing slab work and the possibilities never end!

My latest obsession is my Vintage collection, I just love the lace!  After the pieces come out of the bisque load, I paint oxides or underglaze on them and then rub off the extra with a wet sponge. 

The bowls took me awhile to figure out as they kept cracking at the seems.  I have realized that you need to be very careful with the bowls, let them dry slowly and pick them up very carefully until they have been fired.

At the moment I am working on dinnerware for this collection, so excited!!

New essential oil jewelry

At the beginning of the year I decided I would post regularly to my blog but as you can see 6 months later that didn't happen.  I really work hard keeping my facebook page up to date and I don't seem to have anything left for the blog or Instagram.  I will continue where I left off and update you on my jewelry.
A couple of months ago I started mixing up low fire glazes; I wanted my jewelry to have some color but in order for the clay to remain porous, so the pendants could be used for essential oils, the glaze needed to be a low fire formula  The formula is very simple, 95% Frit 3134 and 5% EPK, then add the mason stain of your choice.  This formula will cause crackles which for jewelry is awesome!

 I also started stamping on metal, a fun way to add a little extra to each piece.  The white pendant is glazed with a low fire glaze that I bought.  The dragonfly is glazed with my glaze, with the addition of 7% Robins egg blue mason stain.

 The heart is glazed with my glaze, with the addition of Bermuda green at 7%

 This pendant is a combination of the two stains.

These little car fresheners are a new idea, put a little essential oil on the back and car will smell wonderful.

I will be experimenting with more colors this  coming up week, there are endless possibilities! 

Essential oil jewelry!

I am enjoying the whole jewelry making business, it really is addicting!  I had a nice relaxing Sunday evening making some new pieces.  It is starting to feel more natural, at first I felt completely out of my element but now they just seem to come together.  Here are a few pieces that I made.

Each of the unglazed pieces are to be used for essential oils.  I fire the pendants to cone 05, this leaves them porous making them the perfect vessel for essential oils.  All of the pendants have been stamped with rubber stamps.  Most of the pendants in the photos have been painted with underglaze, with the exception of the two glazed pieces.

I was finding that my feathers were breaking where the wire was attached, so I redid all of my feathers, wrapping them with very thin flexible wire.  In this picture you can kind of see the green wire.  I actually got this wire from Stampin Up years ago.

These two pendants have been glazed on both sides.

Jumping off the cliff into the sea of jewelry making!

I love being creative and to be honest I get bored easily!  The thing I love about pottery is that there is endless different ways you can use clay.Just recently I have taken up jewelry making.  I don't usually wear jewelry, to speak of and have never made anything beyond a stretchy bracelet with kids. So I felt a bit out of my element in the jewelry making isle at Micheal's.  Actually, I went to Micheal's a month earlier and the selection overwhelmed me so much so that I didn't buy anything. So this last time that I was there, I did quite a bit of research ahead of time, although I still felt I was jumping off a cliff.  Not a big cliff mind you, just a $200., cliff. which by now has grown to $300-$400 because if you don't know what you are doing you kind of need a bit of everything.  Thankfully I didn't need to buy beads!

Here is a picture of some of the pendants I made.  I first rolled out the clay and then stamped the clay with some rubber stamps.  You need to first sprinkle the clay with corn starch, to do this I put some corn starch in an old sock and when I tap the clay with it a little comes out.  For these pendants I made holes using the kemper hole punch and I also used high fire wire.  I wasn't sure how the wire would work but they all turned out except for one that cracked.

In this picture you can see how I fired the pieces that I glazed.  You need to use high fire wire and something else I learned the hard way, you need to have some weight on top of the wire or it will slump and your pendants with fuse to the kiln shelve.

For a lot of my pendants I decorated them with underglaze so I wouldn't have to high fire the pendants leaving them somewhat porous so they can be used for essential oils.

The bird and the feather, in this necklace are made with a brown clay with grog, it is a sculpting clay.  I wanted to be able to paint it with underglaze and then be able to sand it to reveal the brown clay; i was going for the rustic look.

My bird is a bit big but hey I will get better.

We have a few peacocks, two are under a year old so I don't know yet if they are male or female.  Just the males produce these beautiful amazing feathers.  Each fall they lose their feather and they grow back over the winter; so I have an endless supply.  We also have chickens in all different colors, I may have to raid the coop,lol!

Each of these pendants have only been fired to bisque 05, meaning they are still somewhat porous, I have done that so they could be used for essential oils.

The yellow bead in this picture is also clay but has been glazed.

To create the rough edges on these pendants I actually ripped the clay, like you would a piece of paper.

I have also been soldering some of my broken pottery which I will share in a future post.

Commissioned work!

Over the last year I have had a few orders for commissioned pieces.  Commissioned work always scares me a bit, afraid that what I am seeing and what the customer wants is two different things.  So far in every situation it has been a good thing and usually the item gets added to the studio.  I had a lady order kids plates and she wanted funny animal, so I practiced on my Grand kids and niece.

Rolling with the punches!

My days are filled with joy and disappointments.  I made this beautiful tray, it was 18" x 12", I attached lace impressed detailed clay to make ruffles.  I would show you this beautiful tray but it is in pieces, my shoulder caught it and broke off a chunk.  This morning I was checking the drying pieces and noticed a crack forming on one of my plates.  If I am going to go with the whole punch metaphor thing, then the platter was an all out fight, punches to the gut head and a kick to the knee, the plate was a punch in the arm.  Before pottery, I would paint and make cards, everything turned out every time which is the way I like it!  At the same time, I never ventured very far out of my little box of perfectionism!  I will make the platter again, probably today, well maybe not I am still too raw but when I do, it will be even better then before.  Nothing is for sure with pottery but I do find I am getting better and at some point I won't be afraid to try anything!

My bucket of punches!