Almost Ready for Next Week

Our kiln is now just about full of jugs, giant butterflies, dragons and all sorts of bits and pieces ready for next weeks's Butterfly Lounge workshop and an upcoming season of craft fairs.

Snowmen, masks and snails are already finished and fired ready for Christmas although a few more of this that and the another won't go amiss.

Never a dull moment eh  - hope to see you at the Butterfly Lounge next week!

Craft Fair, Neath Saturday September 10th

Despite the turmoil of the beginning of term, the Scholastic conference and me getting back on the road,
we're still going to be at the Neath Craft Fair (the little hall between St. David's Church and Alderman Davies School) this Saturday.

The butterflies came out a treat  - from bisque, to painted to glazed is quite a difference!  Don't forget the Butterfly Lounge workshop on September 26th, where I'll be on hand to help you to paint your own beautiful butterfly (or whatever else you fancy really .....)

Meanwhile, we'll be bringing some jugs and dragons to the Craft Fair

Great Christmas presents for dragon lovers, we'll be starting to take Christmas orders this week.  With ceramics, you really do need to shop early for Christmas, as each item is hand crafted and has to go through at least five time consuming processes before it's finished.

Once upon a time, the little ceramics fairies (me and my gang) used to work ridiculous hours up to the Christmas wire, but the Three Wise Men popped in and told us not to be so silly, so now we stop taking orders in late November, so that we can enjoy Christmas without worrying about the kiln.....

Hope to see you in Neath on Saturday!

Very Hot 1st September

I'm waiting for the kiln to cool.

We put it on last night at about seven o'clock and normally it would be cool by now.  But it was packed full of jugs, butterflies, dragons and teddies and also last night was quite warm and so is today ...... so it's taking forever to get down to a reasonable temperature.

If you open the kiln when it's too hot, the thermal shock will very likely crack your lovely glazes.

I wish I had time to paint a massive salad bowl, but no chance of that as I'm back on the road tomorrow and term starts on Monday.  Buying school clothes for a non-standard sized child is a nightmare!

I wonder if the kids will paint  "presents for the teacher" again this year after the school play. That's always a fun little end of term session.

Can't wait to open the kiln and see how the butterflies turned out!