Remembering the euphoria

While I would love to say I was one of those care-free moody artists that had all the time in the world to lay around and get inspired, I sometimes need to remind myself that this is the real world and that wanna be rock star persona was left behind with the Ramen noodles and green hair of old-I never told anyone that the green hair was an accident. Something about cheap black hair color on bleach blond hair...I don't know. I ran with it.



Anyway, today I steal a few seconds while my home schooled son finishes up some reading and my 18 month old tries to unveil the meaning of life with words of 2 syllables or less. The laundry needs to be done, my floor needs sweeping, the dishes are stacked. Glamorous.



To say I would rather be creating in my studio would be a lie at this point. It's damned cold out there and instead of tackling the much needed housework, I prefer to blog and crochet some arm warmers for a certain someone for Christmas. I wonder if I can talk someone into gifting me a Snuggy?



Okay. Agenda updates. After all, this is my shop blog, Not my personal-whining-winter-blues blog.



Bottles are slumped and waiting final touch ups before going up on the site. Today I took the time to make some sexy address labels for my outgoing packages. Possible etching tonight. I'm not sure if it's wise to go with the Christmas theme or not, since sales have been so slow. I would rather not store them if I can help it. Hm...Perhaps I should consider a huge sale? Thoughts?

Business cards

I finally took the plunge and got myself some business cards. I think they are darn beautiful.



This is the back side:


And this is the front side:

New stuff just listed

Everything is free shipping for the month of December. I added a few new bits for the holiday season as well. 3 new bottles will be comming

in tonight as well as another new bird feeder. Stop in later tonight to take a look.

Bottles

I had mentioned in a previous post that I had a special order for clear bottles for picture transfer. I wasn't at all happy with the bottles I had originally done, so I went shopping (at the recycle center) and brought home a few more clear bottles (plus a few pretty colored ones-who can resist?!), took extra care in cleaning them and took extra care in smoothing the kiln shelves. I ramped the heat slowly to slumping temperture, watched diligently as they slumped and crash cooled as soon as they were slumped to my specifications. I let them slowly cool the rest of the night and they are absolutely perfect. I'm so excited for my customer! I had to share my success story, since bottle slumping is such a trial and error craft, at least for me. There really is no solid directions for doing this and so many variables, I found that I am on my own. I'm pretty excited.

So, here they are, my perfect bottles. Hopefully a long line of similer ones to come :)

I was slumping some bottles tonight and thought I would work on something in the shop since it seems like when I leave that kiln and work in the house, I tend to forget and overcook my bottles. Since I had some wire twisted, I went ahead and made this little number. It is a ornament holder to hold those really special ornaments you don't want the cats/kids/dogs to knock down and break or if you just don't have the room for a tree but want to show off the ornaments you have.

The ornaments I have pictured are pretty special to me. They are antiques that belonged to my sister. A Christmas when she had left home and had no food, tree or decorations. She opened up the door to her aprtment one day to find groceries and these ornaments. That was more than 20 years ago. My sister passed away and I still have her ornaments. I came up with this idea to keep them safe from 4 kids 2 dogs and a cat and still be able to enjoy them. I'll be posting this model in my shop as soon as I have it cleaned and painted.

Working hard

Hi there readers. I have been working hard on a couple special requests for customers and haven't been here to write as I should.

I am making some wine bottles for someone who wants to mount photos behind them. I thought this was a great idea and of course has to be done with clear bottles. What a cute Christmas present for a family member. Anyway, here is one of my bottles with a photo of my daughter behind it.

The bottle I used is a little "overcooked" and I wonder if the bottle looks more like a sloppy piece of glass than a bottle. I may have to do another batch.

The other thing was a request for a tree-like thing that a customer could hang her handmade cards from at craft shows. It's still in its raw stage, but basically, this is what I came up with:



As you can see, I have a lot of cleaning up to do, shaping and sanding etc before primer and paint. The idea is that a short beaded string hang from each "branch" with a hook or clip that she can attach her handmade cards to. people can look at what she has while being displayed really cool. I thought this would be a really neat idea for hanging jewelry from. Maybe painted white
or solid black. How pretty would it be on a dresser draped with pretty necklaces and rings? Oh...I may have another idea for a Christmas present.

Holiday sale

Shop my store this weekend and recive free shipping on every item. Also, prices have been cut on all fall inspired items to make way for the winter holidays!