Tumblers, perfect for summer.

Hi everyone! It's been a super busy summer so far, I hope your all enjoying it. I know it will be gone before we know it so celebrate while you can. My favorite summer piece this year is the tumbler. Not only is it perfect for an icy cold glass of tea or a tall bubbly beer, it holds the beautiful wildflowers you pick along your morning walk. The tumbler is just one of those pieces I reach for over and over again and I know you will too!

Garden Markers!

These babies will be available at Artfest tomorrow! I've been using the blackboard stakes in my garden and they are super cute. Write with chalk and change your message, use a china marker to make it more permanent! Both are made from terracotta and will last many seasons. Only available through shows right now:)

Mugs are out!

I've finally started to unpack and photograph my work from Crafty Bastards. You can check it out in my etsy shop! Lots of new pieces are being unpacked so be sure to check back in the next couple of days to see what's new.

More white pots

Hi again! Two days in a row...aren't you impressed? Here are some photos I took quickly today of the porcelain pots I pulled out of the kiln last night. Like I said yesterday, still not there yet. I need the glaze to be thin but when it's thin enough to not pull the prints, it's too thin on the rim. Maybe my rims are just to thin structure wise? It's different from working with the red clay for sure. Any advice on glazing? I was thinking about a slightly more matt glaze on the interior and rim in the hopes that it won't break as thin. Any ideas or recipes for a good liner glaze?
I was also thinking of leaving the exterior bare with just a liner spilling over the edge like in these pots but I'm not sure how they will hold up to daily use.
This one came out nice, it most resembles my work in the red clay. I really prefer some sort of color on the interior.

Blue Water Lily

Hi there! I just wanted to share some new designs I have been working on. These dishes are made from my usual red clay, painted with white slip and printed with a vintage blue water lily and black stitch design. They are now available in my shop or you can come see me in Chicago at the Renegade Craft Show...more info on that soon:)
Hope you enjoy!

Single Serving Coffee Maker

Artscape is finally over! For those who don't know, Artscape is the biggest arts festival in the USA an it takes place right here in Baltimore! It's 3 days of scorching heat, thousands of people and long hours of standing at your booth. I was lucky enough to have some wonderful booth mates and my super awesome mom who came for the weekend to help me survive. I met some wonderful people and sold lots of pots, thanks to everyone who came out for the weekend! Now that it's over I'm taking a couple of days to recover on the couch and get some work listed on etsy.
One of my favorite new items is this single serving coffee maker. Just add a #2 coffee filter, a few scoops of your favorite ground coffee or loose tea and set on top of your favorite mug (fits all my handmade mugs as well as standard commercial mugs). Slowly pour hot water over the grounds and let the coffee maker drip your hot fresh coffee into your mug. This is a perfect way to make just one cup of coffee without all the waste (and expense!) of a commercial pod coffee maker. Keep one at your desk so you can have a fresh cup of coffee anytime you like!

Adventures in White Stoneware

I know a while back I promised to share some of my white stoneware work with you and today I finally have some pieces (espresso cups thrown off the hump) that work and that I have pictures of. I forgot how different this white clay behaves. My first batch I applied the glaze the same as I have been doing for the red clay and it ran all over! Low fire stays put but mid range runs when it's thick....duh! So I thinned out my glaze, added a pretty Celadon interior and got printing. I'm so excited that this is finally working out. I really love the throwing body (I use a white stoneware similar to a porcelain) and the way the final pot feels in your hand. It's such a pleasure to work with. There are still some kinks to work out but I'm having fun playing with the surfaces and experimenting with different slips and underglazes. Now I just need to see if my hand building techniques will still work on the white clay without major warping and cracking. What do you think? Any suggestions for hand buliding with a porcelain like body?

Berry Strainer

New product! This cute little bowl will wash up your fresh berries and catch the water drips while the drain. Each bowl washes about 1.5 cups of fresh berries but can hold a little more. You can use them to wash up cherry tomatoes, peas, herbs or any small produce. Perfect for the home gardener. Check 'em out in my etsy shop!

Planter Vases

My friend Jon is great at giving me ideas for new products to try, he's very creative. The last show we did together in Philly he suggested that I make these hollow stakes that are unglazed at the tip and decorated at the top. The idea is that you stick them into a potted plant, fill them up with water which slowly seeps out of the unglazed part and keeps your plant watered. Great idea. As soon as I was back in my studio I thought I'd give it a shot. The first batch really didn't work out. For one thing, they are way to small to keep a plant watered. The water would last about a day. Second, the top layer of glaze ran all the way down the interior sealing the inside of the tube. That totally defeats the point of the object. So I'm left with a few of these weird stakes that I'm not really sure what to do with. My best idea is to use them as mini flower vases to spruce up some potted plants. Sadly I don't have any potted plants in my house since my kitty is partial to eating them up. This looks like another "mom gift", she loves my rejects and can always find something to do with them!
On the plus side, I tried a new stain on top and really like how the unglazed surface came out. That may be showing up in my real work soon....not sure if I will give these plant stakes another go or not.

Terrasig Tests

Good morning! I wanted to share some dishes that I tested my terrasig on last week. I like the way they came out and how they reacted nicely with my glaze. I am able to print easily on the surface and there are a few more texture possibilities since the sig is so much thinner than the slip I was using. It also seems to work nicely with the underglaze. I still need to do a little more testing but so far I am liking it. If nothing else I really like the red sig on the bottoms of pots to give a smoother texture without glaze. Today I have lots of decorating to do and hopefully a kiln to unload. I might take a break this weekend to paint our upstairs and if I get a chance I will share some pics of the process since I think it will be a major change (it is soon to be our office/guest room) for that space!

New Platters

Just a quick post today as I am super busy rushing to the bank, post office, supply store, grocery store and vet for cat food (Mex is on a special diet) all before 7 when I have a Mafia meeting to attend. But I did want to post the finished platters from the last post so you could see how they turned out. I'm pretty happy with them and am liking the new layers I am working with. I started using some new colors for some of my images. What do you think? The long tray would be great for tapas or bread and the shorter tray is just begging for some freshly steamed green beans or spring asparagus! Yum.... pots always make me hungry:)

Still here!

Hi guys, sorry I dropped off the blogging world for a week or so! It was my 30th birthday last week and we were super busy doing a bit of celebrating... dinner out , friends over for dinner and then a birthday bash on Saturday which was so lovely because it was in the 70's all day! We spent the day cleaning up the house and outside areas. Our outdoor furniture didn't make it through the snow this year so we had to replace it. I'm trying to do everything on the cheap side since being away for a month also resulted in no income for a month. I'm still getting orders ready and pushed through the kiln but man, is it taking a while to get back on my feet! I have quite a few shows coming up, gallery work and orders to fill and I am still trying to get some new designs out in between all the production. Sometimes your brain just needs to be creative and free for a day. Here is a new platter form I have been working on. It's all painted and waiting for me to unload it from the kiln today. I can't wait to see it finished! I'll share some pics as soon as it's done:)
Oh, and here is a picture of M and I at the beach last year...it just popped up on my facebook and I had to share it because I can't wait for summer again!

Ready for spring already!

That's it. I'm soooo ready. I'm done with the cold dampness that has been hanging over us for the last couple of days. I can see some bulbs starting to poke out of the dirt and I can barely contain myself from shouting "go little bulb, go!". I have been stocking my shop with some garden markers to celebrate the season and to encourage a little more green growth to free itself from the frosty ground. Hope you enjoy!

Keping one for myself...

It's not very often that I keep a pot for myself that hasn't been somehow damaged in the process or has an ugly glaze. Most of the pots in my kitchen are pretty ugly and I'm actually a little ashamed when I pull them out for guest. There is always the "this one isn't my best work" disclaimer to go with the mug of coffee. Recently I have started a really nice collection of other potters work as I travel to shows and workshops, some of which I reach for everyday and some have special homes on a high shelf where the cat *hopefully* won't knock them over. These beauties are making my own collection look even worse! So this round of pots I'm keeping one. And not because it's ugly or glazed wrong or a little too wonky. I just like this pot and it now has a home in my kitchen.... happy birthday to me:)

New work is out!

Finally today I pulled out my first batch of pots this year! I can't believe it's been this long since I had new work out. I'm in the process of getting them listed on etsy so be sure to check in this week and see the new pots.

Spring sneak peek!

I finally got my thermocouples in today, yay! That means tomorrow I will be taking my kiln apart to try and replace the old ones. Then maybe I can get some of this new work through and listed in the shop. This is just a teaser but you can see some of my new designs for garden markers. I have both the kind that sticks right in the dirt and some that will hang from a wire. All of them are designed for you to write on. Can you tell I'm ready for spring???
Don't forget to check out my post on the Lillyella blog today. I highlighted some of my favorite ceramic soup bowls on etsy.

February is a bust.

I thought that February would be a little more productive than January but alas...not so much. As soon as I got going on my huge back order of work my kiln gave out on me. I am 99% sure it is the thermocouples which I have on order and hopefully will get here before the next snow storm hits. As of right now my bisque shelf is filled to the brim with work waiting to be fired and I'm going to have a mountain of glazing to do soon.

I did however give myself permission to try out this scoop I saw illustrated in the new issue of Clay Times magazine. The one they made was thrown but I used my hand building techniques to create my own version. I have been wanting to make a scoop for a while now and am pretty excited to have a prototype. I have also been working on some garden markers for spring! I'm ready for it to be here already!! Hopefully I will have pictures of the new designs soon.

Place Settings

I don't have too much time to post right now as I am about to head out the door for my class this morning but I wanted to share a quick picture of these place settings I just started working on. they include an appetizer plate, a salad plate and a dinner plate. They all have themes as well. This one follows science/ natural history. I'll share more new stuff later when I have a little more time:)

New batch of tiny vases, just out!

Today I'm listing a new batch of tiny vases that I just pulled from the kiln. Get 'em while their hot!

Tiny Vases

First of all thank you so much to everyone for their kind words and a really big thanks to all my new and returning customers:) I have almost finished packaging and sending out the orders that were in stock so yours should be on the way soon. I had been so busy trying to catch up from Chicago that I really haven't been blogging that often. Now we have to catch up! I'll start by saying that last week I went to a workshop with Jenny Mendes who I have been a big fan of for several years now. I love love her work and I think you will too so be sure to click on her link and check out her stuff. She is a really sweet person as well as a great artists. She taught us a method of coil building which I just had to come home and try. She simply took a long coil and wound it around a dowl then worked the coils together. Here is a picture of some tiny vases I made using her technique. You will be seeing the set of them show up in my etsy shop real soon!