Loading up

Ahhh finally I'm caught up once again. Here's a shot of my gorgeous helper taking packages from my studio to load in my truck.

Whoa... careful 

"Really? you are going to take pictures of this?"

This of course is my darling son Levi. He started working part time for me a few weeks ago so that I can get more done. He's also starting to learn how Etsy works, he's filling orders, loading and unloading my kiln and has even created a few "masterpieces" himself.  I'll share when we get back from vacation.
Ohhh YES! my vacation starts Saturday morning, should be fun. I'm heading down to Florida with 2 of my siblings to visit with our mom, do some kayaking, fossil hunting, shell collecting and all the other cool stuff I can cram into my week.

Shame on me!

It's been a month since I last blogged? Shame on me! Well I'm not sure where to begin so I'll just jump in.
I had to make a trip to Maryland, my dad was having a procedure done on his heart and I wanted to be there for it so off we went, even took Buddy with us because the poor guy has a little separation anxiety.

He's tethered in the backseat so he can only reach me when my seat is reclined and when it is, he comes for snuggles :o)   

It must be turtle time in Maryland, I promise you I'd be willing to bet that we saw 50 or more in one day and every time I saw one I'd holler "Turtle!" and my youngest brother Cody would jump out and catch it and we'd turn it back loose. Finally after maybe after I hollered "turtle" for the 20th time and stopped quickly (no... I didn't slam on my breaks, it was just a quick stop. Really.) he just looked at me and said "really?" and of course I replied "Yeah! Go get em!" I'm an awesome pain in the ass like that LOL

My strawberries have stopped putting out, I'm pretty sad about that, but my blueberries are putting out now so woohoo!

Oooo how about that! I swear I love being able to walk through my yard and catch a snack, hopefully my peach trees will hold on to some peaches this year, last year squirrels cleaned me out.

I'm working feverishly, I finally have travel mugs listed in my Etsy store again and lots of new dunk mugs. I just unloaded some sweet dishes from my kiln today, I'll share later, maybe tomorrow.

Fresh from the kiln

Some of the goodies I just unloaded from my kiln this past weekend. Everything was thrown by me on my wheel or made with slabs of clay. By far one of my most favorite kiln loads to date! 

Coffee mug or beer stein

coffee mug or beer stein 

Dragonfly dish

I love this color of green!

Cornbread baker

Birdhouse 

organic shaped dish, impressions made from items from my backyard

Hand built from a slab of clay

close up of the stamped design. I carved the stamp myself

chips and dip! Ooo this makes me hungry :o) 

Just call me Lemony Snicket...

I certainly have had a series of unfortunate events this year. Hopefully I'm straight now and I can get on with work at a steady pace. My kiln fired today as a matter of fact, I almost forgot how to turn it on, not really but you know what I mean.
After I loaded my kiln this morning and got it going, I pulled out some things that I made a while back and waxed the bottoms of them, I'll glaze those tonight so I can fire again tomorrow, that's right! 2 days in a row of firings, I'm on a roll.

Waxed

What's up at home? Well... I have yet again another new mouth to feed. Remember a few months ago I adopted this little maniac.

Jackson, finally leash trained and loves to go for walks.

He suffered from parvo and I think he was dropped on his head as a baby or was at least raised by Gollum from the lord of the rings. You know... Gollum, this guy.

They kinda look alike, right? Jackson covets a ball, not a ring but yeah, I see the resemblance. He's actually doing very well and has a new best friend Atticus, the bulldog pup that lives across the street comes over regularly for play dates.

Atticus and Jackson

Well more dog news, I know you didn't come here to read a bunch of dog stuff but, it's all I've got LOL
Some folks we know picked up a dog 3 months ago that had been left to live on his own on the street after his owner passed away. He lived on his own for 6 months until these folks found him and went door knocking in his neighborhood and that's how they learned of his history. Well they kept him for 3 months and were no longer able to keep him so... guess who has yet another new dog? Yep, me. He has some issues, but don't we all? Here he is when he first came home with me.

my son Michael and Buddy

I've always been a sucker for a Benji face, this is "Buddy". I took him to the groomers and got him all dolled up and here he is all spit shined. Size wise, he is about the same size as Jackson height wise he might have an inch on him and maybe 3-5 pounds.

Buddy

He and Jackson quickly became friends and he makes for a great baby sitter for Jackson. They play all day and night, it's pretty cute. He's a Yorkie mix, I'm thinking Yorkie-poo (yorkie poodle mix). He absolutely loves everyone and wants desperately to be in your lap and loves to go for rides in my truck. What he doesn't love is my cats... we're working on that. I've tackled that issue in the past, I have a pretty good method of introducing dogs and cats, especially dogs with a high prey drive. So far I have gotten him to stop the chasing and lunging at them. So that is some real progress.
Well that's my update. I'm working and getting back on track, thanks for staying tuned :o)

My new ride

My sweet husband bought me a truck! I'm thrilled, I've wanted a truck for a couple of years. It's a Toyota Tundra, 4 wheel drive automatic I'm pretty sure they made this truck special for me :o) I did have to promise that I would let him drive it occasionally, that's fair enough. Right?  Now I have plenty of room to tote my stuff, I could even get more stuff or bigger stuff.

I could really redneck it up and paint a big #3 on the door hahaha! ok no... I'm not going to do that. Probably not. But I am thinking Hello Kitty floor mats or pink fuzzy dice may be in order. Maybe.

Bowls

I spent the day working on making bowls. I'm doing more of my soup bowls with a cracker pocket like these...

The pocket is very handy, especially if you like sitting in front of the TV snuggled up eating chili, beef stew or soup (or ice cream! don't forget the ice cream!) while watching a movie. I don't like to put all of my crackers in my soup at once, they get all soggy and I hate that.

 *****

I made a template for a new bowl a few weeks ago and today I was finally able to use it and I made some slab/ hand built bowls and decorated them with one of the stamps I carved a few weeks ago.

I still have to clean up the rim, but overall, I'm pretty happy with these. Maybe I'll make some plates to match. I really enjoy hand building, if you are unfamiliar with that term it basically means you roll out a slab of clay and build with it. It's one of my favorite things :)

*****

If you've kept up with my blog then you know I got a new puppy several weeks ago that I adopted from my local humane society. To update you on the terrorist  little darling...

Cheese! Yes the fool dog smiles

Jackson has overcome his fight with parvo and is a healthy boy. In the past 24 hours he has killed 2 new kong dog toys (they lasted less than an hour), he chewed the insulation off the pipes of the heating and air unit, chewed up a bottle of cuticle/nail oil, 12 (yes twelve) plastic glaze test containers and the lids, 1 aluminum can and ate a wad of clay. I spend most of my time saying no and drop it. I refer to him as "The Infidel".

Mugs and stamps

I'm being naughty and avoiding my etsy site for few days. I'm trying to get some work done so I can restock my nearly empty shop. Everything has just been chaotic at home, hopefully things will calm down and I can get back to business as usual.

slab built platter with pine cones

slab built tray with an acorn and leaf

A few posts ago I showed some of the stamps I had been carving, here are two of the stamps now that they have been bisque fired.  I used them to decorate one of the mugs I threw this week.

I've been making plates like crazy. I stamped the rims on these with one of my favorite flower stamps (I didn't make this stamp, it was a purchase from another potter).