Nevermore...

One of my favorite poems of all time is "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe. I made this dish a few weeks ago and it's going to it's new owner tomorrow in Indiana.

For a real treat listen to Vincent Price recite it, it's fabulous.

I'm down with O.P.P (other people's pottery)

I went to the Chattanooga Market today and I came home with a few goodies!
I bought what a first I thought was a mouse, but now I'm thinking it looks more like a Opossum, which is like a double bonus because I love opossums. Here's a picture, you tell me, either way I love it and he'll keep my other mouse company in my studio.

Mouse or Possum?

 My old mouse is adorable, I picked him up while at Plum Nelly's dropping off some of my own pottery and I couldn't leave him behind.

 I love buying stuff from other potters, these 2 guys sit on a shelf by my radio in my studio.

I also picked up a rustic wooden angel from another artist there today. He had some pretty cute stuff, I almost bought the angel with the big chip out of it's wing because I thought it was kinda like me ha!

Under the covers

Last night we watched "Grown up's", if you like Adam Sandler's movies this is his typical silly movie. I loved it :o) So while I'm watching tv one of our cats, "Spookers" decided he needed to snuggle with me under the blanket. I have a wonderful goose down throw that is my favorite snuggle blanket and apparently his too now. He tunneled under it and got in my lap, every so often I would lift the blanket to allow fresh air for fear that he would suffocate because I was pretty tucked in lol. I lifted the blanket and disturbed him for a few shots.

 Last weekend sales were great, I took a picture of the back of my car loaded down for the post office and thought I would share. 

ahhh if every weekend was like this :o)

I listed more travel mugs this morning, they go fast this time of year and keep me super busy on and offline.

Click the image for a short cut to my Etsy store

And.... I think I'm catching a cold, I hate getting sick. I usually go down fighting and whining about it. I'm going to overdose on chicken noodle soup from the Chinese take out place down the road this weekend. But right now, I'm heading to The Chattanooga Market I might need / not be able to live without something they might have haha! that's my excuse anyway. Actually the market will be coming to an end soon for this year so I need to get my market fix while I can.

Bite me... I'm a doctor

My new vampire dish  I had a good time making these. I'm not even a Twilight fan. I just felt the dish needed a little something different.

Letter in the mail today, apparently I became a doctor when I wasn't looking. 

Now that is awesome! Wanna... play? ;o)

My son Levi and I had a long in depth conversation about the impending zombie apocalypse and we both are fairly certain we have an awesome survival plan. Here's a shot of him during the talk. He said he's gonna need a badass hat similar to mine and this table leg would be brilliant if there were nails driven through it.  We also both agree that we need compound crossbows and .22 rifle's.

Home again - Thanksgiving day

I just got back home tonight after our little trip to SC to see my brother graduate boot camp. We were able to have Thanksgiving dinner together too. I found a nice little semi private area behind the hotel for some family pictures. Luckily I remembered the remote control for my camera.

My brother Cody & I

My Dad & I

The family

From left to right: My brother Fran (aka Bubba), my awesome step mom Cookie, my Dad, my brother Cody, Me, my son Levi and husband Mike. (I wish my oldest son Michael and my sisters and their families could have joined us).

Now, back to work for me. I have a stack of custom orders waiting on me and some new sales to ship off. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday.

Hello South Carolina!

My family is in South Carolina for the next few days. My little brother Cody graduated from Army boot camp this morning so we'll be spending quality time with him while we can. Yay! 

     I'll be returning home late Thursday night, right after we enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner together. 

I was so excited to get my arms around him to give him a big hug :)

Pictures of the bowls

As promised yesterday that I would post pictures of my soup bowl project. The pocket on the bowl is for your crackers or whatever you'd like to put in there.

My studio is a disaster zone, with me working so much to keep up with orders and making more pottery, I'm afraid I've let my work area go. The sad thing is I don't really have the time to clean it up. I need some serious cleaning / reorganizing done. It's such a mess I'm stepping over stuff and my drying racks and work tables are all loaded with stuff, I actually have run out of room to work. I reckon I need to take a day to pick up after myself *groan*. Maybe I can pay my youngest son to do it for me *muhahahaha*.

Soup's on...

I've worked so much and so hard for the past few days that my arms ache from my wrists up to my shoulders. I think I'll live. I'm just one of those people that have to tell you whenever I have an ache or ailment, and that's mine at the moment. 
So my newest project is soup bowls, but not just any soup bowls, I'll make you wait to see the finished product, they have a special twist, that's why the bowls are shaped very simple... trust me you will love the twist (I'll show them tomorrow when they are together). 

Ok I also learned a new trick! Whenever I throw sets of things like bowls or mugs I always work with a gauge. Typically I use a kabob skewer attached to my wheel with a hunk of clay to give me an idea of height and width, if you go too tall or too wide the skewer will rip the hell out of the piece you are working on, a hard lesson but it keeps you on your toes. I swapped out my skewer aka" pottery hating tooth pick on steroids" for a long bristled brush and it worked wonderfully. Best part is, no damage to my pots.

Slick huh? I'm pretty happy with that.

These bowls will have pulled handles if you are not familiar with what a pulled handle is, it's when you take a hunk of clay and well... you almost milk it like you would a cow but with no upstroke or milk, well you don't have to worry about getting kicked either for that matter. I'm great at explaining things huh? Well I took some pictures to help you understand. This is done with a bucket of water close by because you have to keep your hand really wet while doing this.

Start at the top and pull down gently

follow through all the way to the bottom

scissor it with your fingers gently to help shape the sides and pull down

flip it around and do both sides

Cut it off and repeat

When these stiffen up a bit to a "leather hard" stage I'll trim them and add them to my bowls and they will take on their final shape at that point.

Jeep, necklaces and overalls, oh my!

The heater core / coil (whichever) went out in my jeep. My husband and son spent the day working on it. Thankfully I didn't watch because I probably would have freaked out. My son Michael came down to my studio and said "mom, you might wanna come look at your car". I knew just by his tone he was trying to make me panic, so I went with my camera in hand and this is what I saw.

ugh!

Drivers side view

This looks... scary

My son Michael, notice the smirk? He's loving this

So to repair the heater coil you have to take the entire dash out... everything. Reclaim the refrigerant and antifreeze (both, husband and son are certified to do that). Our cost was around $250.- $300.00 the dealer wanted $900. - $1000. Good deal I think.

Necklaces? Oh yes... I got a custom order from my friend Steve for a blue bird necklace so in my usual fashion I made several. The hole for the chain has been made now and they are drying on my drying rack.

 Today is National Overalls Day! 

Really... who woulda guessed it? I participated mostly because I was asked to which means posting a self portrait to the overalls photo group. I wear mine whenever I'm working so almost everyday is overalls day for me. I threw on my awesome ebay hat (.89 cents plus 3 bucks for shipping). 

Hillbilly? Maybe

My new happy song and my minor set back

I've been working most of the day and night glazing pottery. I was hoping to fire my kiln tomorrow but it looks like it will be Sunday instead. It's pretty chilly in my studio today and that is causing my glaze to dry slow. On the bright side I have some new pieces that I'm pretty happy about. I can't wait to see how they turn out after firing. On another note, I keep music playing in my studio while I'm working and this song, I swear I stop working and bust into singing and dancing when it comes on. 

It's just a good happy song, have a listen and see for yourself.
Oh!! But first you have to see this...

A Spock Monkey!!!

Now that is brilliant and for sale on Etsy

Ok now for the happy song :o)

Video plus an outtake

My friend Buzz is working on some type of a story board in one of his class about being late and requested I make him a video. Thought I'd share it, nothing spectacular, I kinda look mad huh?

So better yet... here is one of my outtakes. 

I have this 3 foot tall cartoony type character that my father in law made, he (the cartoony guy) fell off the table by the far wall and I about pee'd my pants LOL

Spirit? I think yes

I went to The Georgia Winery tonight to pick up a couple of bottles of my favorite wine (yes I said a couple haha). On the way back we passed by the funeral home which has it's own crematory, and yeah... they were fired up :o(

So here is the freaky thing, the smoke usually goes straight up and blends with the clouds, but tonight that was not the case. The smoke made a beeline straight across the highway and right through the woods in a straight line.

Just to give you an idea, the crematory is to my right (which would be behind me in this picture and not visible) and this picture is taken out of my driver side window. 

The smoke just went in a straight line right across the road, not sure where it was going but it was an interesting sight to see.

Pretties

I've been fooling around tonight surfing on Etsy and oh my goodness, the talent there never ceases to amaze me. What I love most about these 3 necklaces is not only are they handmade original designs but they are made from PMC (precious metal clay), how awesome is that!

Made by joypeckjoy

Made by AbellaBlue

Made by PeaceUnique

There are a few artist on Etsy that I stalk, this is one of my favorites, 
Suzanne Woolcott is the artist and her shop is called Gorjuss. 

Probably the most beautiful wallet in the world

 made by RKEMdesign

My bestest favorite mug... ever

It's cold, raining and dreary outside today. I can't find my mojo, I've been lazy as all heck today.

I think it's because of the rain. But in any event, 

I wanted to share a picture or 2 of my favorite mug in the world. 

It's a frog mug and on the inside of his mouth, there is a fly, not a real fly of course, that would be gross.

See the fly? haha! how cute can one mug be?

I got this mug from a craft show last year from the artist, Judy Lynn she is an amazing potter with such a cute style and I think she's awesome. She makes the most gorgeous face jugs and cookie jars too. 

Well anyways, I fell in love with this mug and I had to have it. I drink everything out of it including diet coke, tea and coffee. It's just fun and it makes me smile and puts me in my happy place.

Open for business again! yay!!!

I closed my Etsy shop a few weeks ago due to some unexpected family stuff, I'm happy to say I'm open again as of today and I'm working feverishly to make more product to list.

 I'm also happy to report that after being open for just a few hours, I've already had 2 custom order requests and a sale!
 
I finally had to take a break from listing, my brain was overloaded. I still have about 23 things to list tonight, plus I have a kiln load full of stuff (can't wait to see inside, I may peek).

Labs...

I just got an email from my dad, thought I'd share.

 Now that is funny!

Kiln opening & Veterans Day

It's veterans day. I saw a picture of my granddad online today that I've never seen before that either my aunt Tammy posted or my momma posted, not sure who did it first but I stole it :o)

 I unloaded my kiln late last night and thought I'd share a few pictures. I only had 1 mug that went bad, the glaze ran and stuck the whole mug to the shelf but it came off pretty easy so no biggie, I only wish I had taken a picture of it.

Berry bowl

The foot of the bowl and saucer

The dish that I love (from my previous post)

I found these shells and sharks tooth on Sanibel Island in Florida and made stamps from them.

Covered bowl

Today I spent a good part of the day on the phone, I'm thinking I need to get a hands free headset thing so that I can work and talk at the same time. I did manage to put in a few good hours making sponge holders and various other things.

Throwing sponge holders

  I have a few vintage flower molds that are just darling. I'm planning to add them to the sponge holders. I discovered a trick today, usually I use a measuring cup to pour the slip into the molds, which is just plain messy sometimes. I remembered being the hoarder that I am (not really but kinda-ish) I purchased some little squeezey containers at Big Lots about a year ago, I grabbed a funnel and waalaa.... mess free slip casting. The holes on these molds are just so little and my aim isn't what it use to be. Ok my aim was always bad... whatever. This little container did the trick and made no mess, I'm impressed with my git er doneness today.

Slip casting flowers