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!