Photo Shoot at Home in the Kitchen

When it comes to taking photos of pots, my style of photography for the past ten years or so has favoured a plain white or minimalist background. I like the simple look of this style so it's always been a 'go to' choice for me. Also magazines prefer to use such images when publishing a feature.

But it does have drawbacks. The main one is that people can't tell at a glance how big or small a pot is. This is a concern when some of my pots might look exactly the same but come in different sizes - like my modern pourer jugs, bird tail bowls and pouring bowls. Also, some of my pots (like the garlic grater bowls for instance) don't translate very well on a plain white background. Some pots just need a bit more visual explanation!

So recently I decided I needed to do a photo shoot using 'styled' settings to give some of my pots a context. The setting I chose was my kitchen at home. Most of my pots are kitchenware or food related in some way, so it seemed an obvious choice.

Luckily there's enough daylight coming in through the kitchen window in the morning to allow me to take photos without the need for any additional lighting. I do have a reflector though (made from aluminium foil wrapped over a piece of cardboard) to help kick back some light into the shadows. I just prop it up where I need it.

And talking of props...sometimes this is the best part of planning a shoot. In this selection of photos I have some new props to play with. They include an old wooden board which I've painted using pale grey emulsion on one side. This board is movable so it can be used both as a surface or a backdrop for pots (as seen in the photo at the top of this post).

The unpainted wooden surface in the rest of these photos is actually my normal kitchen table and the little chopping board is one I use all the time for preparing food (it's handmade by CottageCoppicing). A jar of local honey, some garlic bulbs (also from the Isle of Wight) and other food props all help to set the scene. I'm hoping these photos will give some idea of scale and show the pots 'in action'.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new photos. As always, these pots are available to purchase from my Etsy and Folksy shops. Thanks for reading!

Spring Things - Making Bells, Jugs and Bowls

 

The kiln is on again. This time another bisque. It seems the only time I write a blog post these days is when the kiln is on! But I've been taking photos of some of the things I've been making this past month. Above and below are a batch of new bells or wind chimes I've made for an order. As you can see, each one is handthrown on a wheel just like a bowl and then the base is turned and rounded off. Then I attach little strap handles for hanging them up in the garden or for holding as a hand bell.

These chimes were featured in a great blog post on Remodelista back in March - so they've proved a bit of a hit lately (I've sold out at the moment.) These ones are in the kiln as I speak ready to be glazed hopefully in a few days time.

I've also been making a batch of large jugs for another order and a few one-off pieces including some low cylinder bowls suitable as fruit bowls or serving bowls. Everything was going swimmingly for a while and I made quite a few pieces when suddenly the weather changed. Spring arrived overnight and we had a very dry, warm spell which meant all the pots started drying out too quickly...

Normally during winter I can leave pots out in the studio uncovered and they can dry out nice and slowly in the damp atmosphere. But I took my eye off the ball and forgot to cover the pots overnight when the weather changed...and before I knew it, handles were cracking off and bottoms were splitting! Sometimes it's so easy to forget the obvious stuff. So I lost about four big pots: I had to hit them with hammers to break them up and put them in the recycling bucket. All very upsetting and disappointing, especially as I had to make them all over again!

Above are photos of the doomed pots! The ones that got away. I forgot to photograph the damage (it was much too traumatic). But I've remade all these now and fingers crossed they've dried out properly this time and they're in the kiln being bisque fired as I type.

Finally, here's some little porcelain eggs I made especially for Spring this year. They come in three colours: plain white, pale blue and sage green. Inspired by the little blackbirds I starting making last year, I thought I'd make some eggs to go with them. And because you can't have eggs on their own, I've hand knitted and felted some little nests for them too. These are made using a gorgeous soft Alpaca wool sourced locally on the Isle of Wight. The result is a very cute little set available in my Folksy and Etsy shops. Enjoy!

Valentine's Day Ideas

 

It's been a busy 2015 already - mostly with finishing a spill-over of Christmas orders and re-stocking on some essential pots (bird bowls are back in stock btw!). The kiln has been bisque fired once and glaze fired twice already before January had a chance to put its feet up!

I think the kiln was wondering what on earth was going on - especially as it had to contend with some chilly temperatures out in the studio recently. As a precaution I brought all my bags of clay indoors from the outside store, just in case they froze. One day I switched on the electricity to the kiln and the themocouple plummeted immediately to zero. I'm sure if it could display any temperature below freezing then it would have...

Anyway, enough about the cold studio conditions! Here's some new items I managed to make in-between all the other pots in January: just a few ideas for Valentine's Day. I made some very cute little bottles with cork stoppers which you can see in the photos above, and I made some ceramic heart tags to go with them with 'love potion' written on them. 

These bottles are small enough to sit in the palm of your hand and make a lovely gift. They can be used as a bathroom accessory to hold oils and salts for instance and because the glazes are food safe and dishwasher safe, they can be used in the kitchen too. The glazing is plain white so they can even be used as little bud vases without the stopper and tag. They are available in both my Etsy and Folksy Shop.

In the process of bringing in all the stoneware clay out from the cold, I also found some porcelain - so I made this pair of love birds. These are hand shaped and left unglazed to show the pure white porcelain body, while their eyes were picked out by brushing on dots of blue/black oxide. This unique pair of love doves is available in my Etsy Shop. Enjoy!

 

Coffee Set and Coffee Bowls

What a busy summer! Since my last post I've been potting away making lots of pots for wholesale orders and a few private commissions too. And it seems to be a quirk of making pots that sometimes different people ask for similar things. 

This past month the theme was coffee and I was asked to make a coffee set (as seen in the photos above). This included a coffee pot (complete with lid and pouring lip) a lidded sugar bowl and a set of four coffee mugs. Although I've made each of these items separately before this was the first time I've made them together as a matching coffee set. 

The most tricky thing to do was the coffee pot itself of course as it required so many composite elements. The body of the pot is essentially a big jug, but since it was a part of a set, I had to make it big enough to hold a liquid capacity that would pour out and fill at least four of the matching mugs' worth of coffee! Then it had to have a handle strong enough to hold the weight of it plus all that liquid, while at the same time being comfortable to use and pour. And finally it had to have a lid which not only fitted but allowed pouring through the lip or spout whilst in place. As you can see in the photo I also cleaned back the glaze from the rim of the coffee pot to leave a section of un-glazed bare clay. This makes sure the lid doesn't stick to the pot permanently when fired in the kiln.

In the end I was very pleased with the result because everything matched and all the elements worked: and most importantly my customer was happy too! The glaze I used for the coffee set was a new version of my wood ash glaze. This has proved such a popular glaze and works especially well with rustic style coffee themed items! Below is another wholesale order I finished recently: a batch of coffee bowls using another version of my wood ash glaze. I actually have two of these coffee bowls left spare - and both are available in my Folksy Shop now. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Spring Flowers and Jugs

Spring is definitely here; I've been sneezing all day and the local blackbird hasn't stopped singing all week. It's been lovely to hear him while I'm in the studio - he's picked a tree at the end of the garden to call from (he's very loud...), and so far he's been pretty inventive with his tunes too, trying out all sorts of variations. Sometimes though while I'm throwing pots or trying to concentrate on something fiddly, he can be a bit distracting; chirping in at exactly the wrong moment and putting me off...!

Last week the latest jugs were finally finished and came out of the kiln. These are the same jugs which featured in my last blog post. Of course I've been photographing them again (!) this time for a series of shots I can use for listing them in my shops.

I also put together these two composite/multiple photos (above and below). Composites are quite a nice way of showing off pots because they allow different angles or details of a pot to sit side by side at a glance in one image. It also avoids the 'long scroll down' through loads of photos of the same pot!

I used to make composites just for my blog and for my flickr account, but recently I realised they'd be useful in my listings too. I don't know why it took me so long to think of it! Maybe I thought it wasn't possible to load them - although I save them as jpegs like other photos, and so far Folksy and Etsy have accepted them fine. Maybe I thought it was cheating! Effectively you get three extra images in one photo; which can be useful when you have so many angles to show off. Sometimes I have so many photos left after a shoot that it's a shame not to show as many as possible.

I'm very pleased with how these jugs came out. The oxide band around the rim and down the handle seen on the jug above has created a really interesting effect. Where it overlaps with the white glaze it has 'bled' and mottled into blues, blacks and browns. It does run a bit though which I'll have to be careful of in future - especially if I use it near a base. Probably don't need to apply quite so much oxide next time. But the result is very successful and makes for a lovely striking feature on this particular jug I think!

Anyway, these jugs are now available for sale in my Folksy and Etsy shops btw!

New Beginnings and New Bud Vases

Yesterday I fired the first kiln load of the year! I've been busy since the beginning of January trying to make enough pots to fill a bisque kiln. It hasn't been easy, especially since the studio roof has been leaking (again!) in all this wet and windy weather. During one particularly heavy downpour, I even decided to wear my waterproofs indoors to avoid the drips... The general atmosphere has also been so damp, the pots have taken ages to dry. But, moaning about the weather aside and despite everything, I managed to get the kiln going yesterday for my first bisque - and so today (while I'm waiting for the kiln to cool down) I thought I'd blog about some new pots I've been making.

Before Christmas I started to throw a few new vase shapes. I wanted to make some small bud vases with a belly form and also some straight slim and narrow 'stem' vases. Above is a photo of the first small test batch I made before Christmas (shown in leatherhard stage and drying out). They're all hand-thrown as usual, but the straight narrow vases have been thrown in two parts: two thrown 'tubes' which are then spliced together when they're both leatherhard. This sort of making is called composite making, and it's something I've started to experiment with. It's especially useful for making taller pots and for making narrow forms (for when your fingers can't fit inside the pot during throwing).

I've started to list a couple of these finished pots in my Etsy and Folksy Shops - and hope to add the rest in the coming weeks. All being well, there should also be more narrow vases in the same style from this first bisque kiln - once I've glazed them and fired them again of course. But I'm very pleased with this first selection and I'm looking forward to developing the theme further this year. Hopefully it's going to be a great new year with lots of new pots!

Pots That Pour: New Pouring Jugs and Bowls

New Pourers

Just a quick blog about pots that pour! I do enjoy making pots with pouring lips. There's something about adding a lip to a shape that instantly transforms it into a pot with purpose. It seems to say 'look, you can pour stuff out!' and that makes people identify with them, and imagine all sorts of ways of using them. Also, a pouring lip gives a pot a sense of character - a bit of personality.

Above are my newest pouring jugs. These are a variation on my 'tip jug' - in other words jugs without handles. These are a bit taller and straighter in design and measure about 6.5cm high (that's about 2.5 inches or so). Dispensing with the handle makes using these jugs an even more tactile experience - they feel so nice in the hand and they're easy to grab and use. Sometimes handles can actually get in the way of function; because you have to turn the jug around to get at them. These little jugs are just grab and go! They're available for sale now in my Etsy Shop.

Freshly Thrown Pouring Bowls

And here's my latest 'pots that pour': some new pouring bowls. These are a larger size to go with my drizzle bowls and 'medium' pouring bowls. As you can see they're freshly thrown in the picture - still on their batts. Since then I've turned the bases and they're now drying in the studio. But in the meantime, here's some photos of my smaller sized pouring bowls. I took these recently for listing in my Esty and Folksy shops. Hope you enjoy them!

Pouring Bowls, Drizzle Bowls

Candleholders Revisited

The kiln is on again today – another bisque. It was infinitely easier to pack this time round and for some reason seems to have taken no time at all to fire. Such is life with pots! But anyway, while the kiln is clicking away in the background I thought I’d catch up with some blogging.

A theme seems to have developed over the course of this year so far. In January I blogged about a small batch of hand-thrown candleholders I was commissioned to make. These also popped up in photographs I took of my first bisque firing in my kiln: both as pre-fired and post-fired pots. So it seems only natural I should blog about them again as a finished product.

I hope you’ll agree they’ve come out beautifully! I decorated them in two different glaze styles. One of these was using two glazes on the same pot: a deep honey brown glaze for the body with a small highlight of blue/grey on the handle. The other style was an all-over design using an olive green ‘wood ash’ glaze. I’ve already sold all the brown ones but the ‘wood ash’ ones are available for sale in both my Folksy Shop and my Etsy Shop as of today.

As I suspected, I ended up keeping one of these candleholders for myself….

Three Trees - Small Landscape Painting

I’ve been a bit pre-occupied lately with sorting out all my photographs. My computer was near bursting point with all of them. So I’ve been weeding through all my files and throwing out the out-of-focus stuff and endless duplicates that were clogging up the hard drive. It’s amazing how long these things take, especially if you’ve been avoiding it for months (possibly years…). At last though I’ve got everything backed-up and the older images that I’m not using at the moment are now safely archived in a drawer. My computer can breath more freely now.

Most of the images I take these days seem to fall into one of three main categories: pots, paintings and ‘research/resource materials’ for making either pots or paintings. And then in between there’s the occasional picture of someone smiling on a beach! With digital cameras it’s so easy to take 200 or 400 images in one go, which means sometimes I lose track of a batch of images and consequently the ‘plans’ I had for them. One such plan was to start adding my paintings to my Folksy shop. Such an obvious plan! And yet somehow it got waylaid…

Until today. At last I’ve finally listed an original painting in my shop. Above and below are some pictures of it (which, yes, I took today…don’t ask why!) and if you click on the pics they should take you to the listing. This painting is called ‘Three Trees’ and depicts a garden landscape. It’s a small acrylic on a ‘deep edge’ canvas and measures 6 x 6 x 1 ½ inches (15cm x 15cm x 4cm). I’m very fond of this painting – it’s quite restful and understated – and I think it’s a lovely little painting to start off with in my shop. And it seems to go quite well with the pots and cards already in there too!

Greetings Cards and Happy Birthday Tags

Today I listed these new greetings cards in my Folksy shop. They’re part of a series of small paintings I’ve designed that feature a little white bird: this one is called Little White Bird - Red Flower (previous post). This painting was made using acrylics on watercolour paper and finished using pastels to give it a soft feel. The white stem on the flower was made by actually scratching through the paint to reveal the white paper underneath.

Just as I was about to upload the image though I realized the photo background was looking decidedly yellow (it was sunny on the day of the shoot!) So I thought I’d have a go at making the background completely white around the object for this image (using Fireworks). I’ve never done this before so it was a bit fiddly to do: and I’m not entirely sure if it feels too white now! I certainly don’t have time to do this on all my photos – I take too many! And I suspect that a picture of a pot edited like this will make it seem like it’s hovering in space and a bit lifeless and flat – so I probably won’t be doing this too often. But it was an interesting exercise…

Anyway, the other thing I wanted to mention was these new Happy Birthday tags I listed in my Folksy shop yesterday. You might remember I talked about my letterpress in a previous post. Well finally I thought I’d show you the results of using my letters in a finished piece. These tags are perfect as little gift tokens or to add to gift-wrapping as a special feature. They measure about 35mm across and are strung on a pale blue ribbon with a drop of about 10cm. I thought they might be something a bit different for people to give – and I think they’re quite sweet really! (Click on pics to go to the listings.)

Greeting Cards from Original Designs

A couple of years ago I made a series of small mixed media paintings on watercolour paper using acrylic paint and soft pastels. They were designed to be simple, stylised illustrations suitable for greeting cards that I hoped one day to have printed. Well it’s only been a couple of years (where does all the time go?!) but at last I managed to find time to get a few of these designs printed into cards. I did the printing through moo to see how they would come out, and I’ve only printed a small print run so far – I hope to do more in the future.

This design I’ve called ‘Little White Bird (Heart Tree)’ for obvious reasons. Hopefully you can see the little pink hearts in the tree. It’s a simple design which I hope will appeal to many and can be used for lots of occasions. The cards are blank inside so people can add their own message and of course they come with envelopes.

Anyway, I’ve just listed this card on my Folksy shop today so at the moment only this one design is available. But I hope to add more soon.

Sugar Bowls

A while ago I blogged about adding food to my photos to help illustrate how my functional pots might be used in and around the home. During one of these shoots I used olives in my ‘small white bowls’ to give some colour and interest. I decided to try this again, this time using fruit and sugar. The above photo shows some of the new images I’ve taken which I’ve put together as a composite.

Using sugar in these photos gave me the idea of changing the description of my bowls from ‘small white bowls’ to ‘sugar bowls’. Originally I didn’t like the idea of being so specific in case people thought these bowls were limited to a particular use. But lately I’ve been wondering if it’s more useful (on-line at least) to be less vague: describing something as ‘small’ is a relative term and anyway I also make smaller bowls than these which I call ‘mini’ bowls! So I’ve started listing them as ‘sugar bowls’ in my Folksy shop hoping this means people will have more of an idea of the size of these bowls at a glance. Of course in the description details I also make the point they can be used for any number of things around the kitchen, like dips and olives etc. And at shows and in the real world - where they can be seen and touched - they almost don’t need explaining!

Here’s another photo of the same sized bowl in a different glaze. This is the wood ash glaze made from real wood ash. I’ve also called these ‘sugar bowls’ too in my listings just to be consistent. Here I’ve used limes and plums to illustrate size. These ‘sugar bowls’ measure 10cm by 4cm by the way – and are so useful! Click on the images above and below to link with the listings in my shop.

Jugs

It’s all about jugs lately! Last week I listed these little white jugs in my Folksy shop. I call them ‘tip’ jugs because they don’t have handles: instead they fit snugly in the palm and the contents are simply tipped out. So they’re perfect for a spot of milk or cream in your tea or coffee. They measure just over 5cm x 5cm and come in three colour ranges: gloss white (listed), a wood ash glaze and a dark tenmoku.At the moment I’ve only listed the white ones, but the others will follow shortly I hope. (click on the pic to go to my shop.)

In the meantime I’ve also been taking lots of photographs of these jugs. As you may have noticed I usually photograph my ceramics against a plain white background. This time I thought I’d also try out some ‘styled’ shots to show these jugs in context and suggest scale. Although I do like the minimalist look of the white glaze against the white background, sometimes it helps to add a bit of colour to illustrate how gorgeous this glaze really is! Anyway, here’s a medley of photos that came out of the ‘shoot’ showing a 'styled' shot and also the wood ash and tenmoku glazes.

Last week I also put together my first gallery in my Flickr account. I’ve been meaning to try something for ages but didn’t know what subject to choose. In the end I chose a theme of ceramic jugs: I thought it would be a good way for me to think about different design features on jugs and be inspired by what others have made. And I’m really pleased with the result. There are so many lovely photos out there with some gorgeous pots. And now I’ve done my first gallery I’m looking forward to having a go at making some more. Here’s a link to my first Flickr gallery, Jugs.

And finally I also had a couple of lovely Folksy Friday features last week. Thanks to Sam for featuring my tip jugs on her blog A Simple Melody and also to Kellie for featuring my buttons on her blog It’s The Little Things. Here’s a couple of screenshots too!

Napkin Rings and Wooden Printing Blocks

Today I decided to list these napkin rings in my Folksy shop. I designed them to match and complement my tableware range by using the same glazes and a very simple style. So far I've made this first set in white - and hopefully I shall be making more soon!

At first I toyed with the idea of throwing some napkin rings on the wheel: but that seemed much too fiddly. So I've made these by hand building them. I started by rolling out a slab of stoneware clay and cutting out equal sized rectangles. Then I curled these around themselves into a ring shape and fixed the ends by overlapping. They've all been glazed using my usual white gloss glaze both inside and out - this means that the napkin material slides nicely without snagging on bare stoneware. And inside I've also stamped each of the rings with my own pottery seal.

As you can see they have a very simple bird motif on all of them. This was made using a wooden printing block pressed into the clay while still soft. I have a selection of these wooden printing blocks which I bought back in October last year during a visit to London. They're textile printing blocks really, but I find they're perfect for making impressions in clay (and also for printing on paper of course: I've been using them to make pretty wrapping paper on birthday presents!) As soon as I saw them I knew I had to have them: they're such lovely things in themselves...

Is it Valentine's?

(buy these little ceramic hearts here)

I've been photographing these little ceramic hearts in the past couple of days. Here's one hanging up on the edge of the door in my studio. I started making these back in September but somehow things conspired to get in the way of me listing them in my shop until now. So I've been making a mad dash to get them ready before Valentine's Day next weekend. I'm hoping though - since they're so pretty - they'll be the sort of thing that people might like any time of year and for all purposes: not just as little love tokens but as gift tags on special presents, for accessorizing, for crafts - or just for hanging up on a door and looking pretty!

I'm also in the process of re-organizing my Folksy shop at the moment: doing a bit of spring cleaning and changing stock around. I recently sold some items 'off-line' to a lovely local buyer who came to my studio and I also gave a large consignment of stock to a local arts and crafts gallery/shop. So it's been quite a hectic and exciting beginning of the year already - but my poor shop has suffered for it. I hope to add more items soon though.

Anyway, just a quick catch-up today...

Osmosis Launch

(buy this mug and mug warmer set here)

Snow has stopped play. The temperature in my studio can only be described as perishing. I’ve given up trying to do any work in there. Instead I’ve spent the past couple of days curled up on the sofa with several blankets doing ‘admin’ and drinking lots of hot tea (occasionally alcohol) in an effort to keep warm.

Just before the snow descended however, my sister and I managed to launch our new project. We’ve been doing local craft fairs and markets together for well over a year now and during those pauses in between talking to customers we’ve been hatching plans to set up a small collaborative craft shop on Folksy to showcase some of our design ideas.

My sister Sue (who also lives on the Isle of Wight) is a textile designer, handknitter and handweaver who mostly works with wool. The inspiration for our project came from the materials we use: we noticed during our craft shows how gorgeous Sue’s handmade woollen textiles looked against my ceramics. It was a logical step therefore to start coming up with some designs that would incorporate both of our craft skills. Our first design project – my rustic mugs and Sue’s handknitted mug warmers - can be seen pictured above, posing in my snow-bound garden. You can also see these listed in our new Folksy shop Osmosis where they can be bought as a unique gift set. We hope to add more designs soon.

Other news. Just wanted to mention that a few days ago my white buttons were featured on the lovely gooseberrymoon blog as a part of a snow-inspired post. So thank you again gooseberrymoon!

Well that’s it for today from the Isle of Wight – all puns intended. Officially ‘snowed in’ and steadily running out of milk...

New Year Buttons

It’s a New Year and I’m looking forward to working on some new projects. I’ve spent the last couple of days making plans and writing out lists for developing my range of ceramics which hopefully I’ll be blogging about in the future. In the meantime though I’ve started to re-stock some of my basics. Today I’ve been making some buttons here pictured above freshly made and drying. (These buttons are currently available in my folksy shop in white and turquoise.)

At the moment while the weather is so cold and damp, things are taking much longer to dry in my studio. In fact it’s taking several days even for buttons to dry out when normally they would be ready by the evening or at least next morning. Some small flat items are also curling and warping which I don’t normally have a problem with. Initially I tried to avoid this by flipping the pieces over at various intervals to even out the drying on each side. This eliminated some of the curling but not all of it. So I’ve had to sandwich the pieces between sheets of newspaper and small planks of wood in an effort to keep them flat. Of course this means they take even longer to dry, so perhaps the logical answer would be to bring them into the house to speed everything up. At the moment though with clear nights and frost lasting all day in the shadows, it doesn’t feel much warmer indoors!

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll soon be moaning about things drying out too quickly. In the meantime however I just wanted to say Happy New Year to anyone reading this; hope you’re keeping warm!

Artists' Resources

Today I switched my Public Liability cover to a different insurance company. In the days before the Internet this would have been a laborious, painful experience - but luckily all that was required of me was to tap in a few details online and I was covered instantaneously. But it gets better. This particular Public Liability cover comes included in the price of a subscription to an arts magazine that provides online resources and support for professional Artists and Makers.

The name of the online resource is Artists’ Newsletter or ‘a-n’ for short. In fact, they’re a bit keen on initials and acronyms as shorthands for all their different services which can be a bit challenging at first (especially when having to concentrate on the details of insurance cover). But once you become familiar with their branding style you can see what great deals they have to offer. For instance, their cheapest option is an ‘online only’ annual subscription which includes access to all the online resources AND basic Public and Product Liability cover (up to £5 million) for just £28. This undercuts most quotes I’ve had from other insurers. But they also offer options of extending the insurance cover either by choosing ‘off-the-peg’ insurance packages or options that can be tailor-made to your individual needs as an Artist/Maker: something that other insurers don’t always offer.

Anyway, the point is, check them out by clicking here for their home page and selecting ‘AIR’ if you want to read details of their insurance cover.

Other news this week: I was very excited to discover yesterday that I’d been selected as a featured seller on Folksy! Over-excited is probably more apt a description as revealed by the amount of screenshots now sitting on my desktop. It was a lovely surprise and thanks to the Folksy admin for choosing me. Thanks also to Alison for featuring my stars on her blog last week (which you can see here) and to those lovely people who tweeted! Below is a screenshot of the Folksy Blog which you can also see for real here.

Festive Finishing Touches

(Buy this set of stoneware stars here)

Making seasonal gift ideas in ceramics is a long term affair. You have to plan ahead otherwise time soon catches up with you. So this year I started making ceramic Christmas decorations back in the Summer. Normally I’m the type of person who really objects to Christmas decorations appearing anywhere and everywhere before December. But this year I feel strangely compelled to let my own little decorations loose into the world as soon as possible! So although December is still a week or so away, I thought I would blog a medley of photos of my handmade ceramic stars.

(Buy this set of ceramic stars here)

Each star has been handmade from stoneware clay and glazed on one side. The larger brown-fleck stars have been reduction fired in a gas kiln which has given them a lovely toasted appearance. The smaller white stars are fired in an electric kiln and glazed in a plain white glaze.

Finding the right details to finish off your creations is not always easy. I’ve strung the brown-fleck stars on a festive red ribbon with a simple bow which I think sets them off beautifully and has a rich warm quality. I wanted a more delicate, sparkly type of thread for the smaller white stars but finding the right one proved difficult. I made several disappointing trips to my local sewing shops in search of just the right texture and quality – but found nothing that fitted the bill. Then I suddenly remembered making cords out of strands of wool when I was a kid and realized I should make my own hand-twisted thread.

And here’s how I made it:

I chose a plain white cotton thread, a strong durable silver thread and a sparkly, flimsy gold thread, all of which were unsuitable on their own. Then I measured out a strand of each of these threads to a length about three times as long as I wanted the final cord to be. Then I held the ends of all three between my thumb and finger on my left hand as I twisted the other ends in my right, keeping them taut. When the cord was tightly twisted, I looped it over a nail or hook at the middle point and then lined up the two ends so they met. Then I lifted the cord off the hook. The tightly twisted cord quickly springs back on itself and the two sides twist together to form a thicker, stronger single cord. If you’ve never done this, then try it: it’s a clever little trick. The result in this case was a perfect sparkly thread that has proved far better than any I could have bought.

You just never know when childhood pastimes will come in handy.