Festive Designs and New beginnings..

Well my new venture with Not on the High Street went live one week ago and I'm really pleased with how the first week has gone. My shop name is Little Brick House Ceramics on there and all but a little stock has been fully loaded onto the site with a little tweaking of my Logo (which is rubbish and I think I'm going to get some proper help to get that changed) it's been a successful move forward and most items are now already low stock or out of stock, I couldn't have wished for a smoother start.
 Folksy had a free listing day yesterday so I thought it a smart move to take advantage of this and stock up Little Brick House with some new stock. Here is some of it...

Vintage Key Ceramic Heart

White Ceramic Vintage Key Hearts

Sage & Copper Ammonite Bowl

Detail of Sage & Copper Ammonite Bowl

Little Ceramic Owl Decorations

Art Deco Ceramic Tile Decoration

Porcelain Bird on a branch Button

Sage Green Ceramic Soap Dish

Decorative Bird Tile Decoration

Festive Designs and New beginnings...

Well my new venture with Not on the High Street went live one week ago and I'm really pleased with how the first week has gone. My shop name is Little Brick House Ceramics on there and all but a little stock has been fully loaded onto the site with a little tweaking of my Logo (which is rubbish and I think I'm going to get some proper help to get that changed) it's been a successful move forward and most items are now already low stock or out of stock, I couldn't have wished for a smoother start.
 Folksy had a free listing day yesterday so I thought it a smart move to take advantage of this and stock up Little Brick House with some new stock. Here is some of it...

Vintage Key Ceramic Heart

Sage & Copper Ammonite Bowl

Detail of Sage & Copper Ammonite Bowl

Art Deco Ceramic Tile Decoration

Magic Reindeer Food!........

Well its not like me to sew things, (far to clean and precise for my hands) but around this time of year I do try to get involved with my children's school and offer some help with making these...............

Magic Reindeer Food!
Little hessian sacks filled with glitter and oats for children to sprinkle on the ground on Christmas Eve for Santa and his reindeer Sleigh. (Ahh I think I want to be a child again.) This is one of our Christmas Eve rituals and they add an extra bit of magic to Christmas.

Mmmm but when you make fifty of them, it does get a bit tedious.
I'm so glad they are all done now!

                                   

Tiny and Porcelain

Well I opened the kiln ages ago ,but have just been swamped with different projects, work at school, initialising my shop set up with Not on the High Street and Reindeer Bags, (don't ask!) alongside juggling childrens clubs,school and no chance of an afternoon playing with clay, I don't think that's going to be possible until the new year. This time of year is manic and I never feel it gets done right. But oh well I'm quite pleased with these finished small pieces I showed you in my last blog.

Storm Cloud Brooch Pin

Storm Cloud Ear Studs

These are listed on Folksy

Art Nouveau Tile Brooch

Owl Brooch Pin.

Storm Cloud Hair Slides

Little Stem Hair Slides

Polka Style Buttons 

Little tiny pieces of Art

Putting the stoneware and terracotta clays aside for the time being and working on some tiny porcelain pieces that I've been considering for a while. I have some silver jewellery fastenings that I'm going to use with these porcelain pieces.

The smaller discs are going to be ear studs and the larger discs will be brooch pins.



A selection of buttons and pendants,some left clear to experiment with later.



Rain cloud brooch pin discs and ear studs.



And not forgetting all the stuff that helped me make them



My new glaze test results after the firing

A few weeks ago I blogged about some new glazes that I had been mixing up and trying out. After a fairly successful firing last week these were retrieved from the kiln.As you can see they are very different from the original colours.

The ones marked with the stars above will are the ones I like and the ones I think suit my work best, so I will buy larger quantities of these glazes.

I used one of the glazes on this soap dish (110 Autumn Tones) Its quite an attractive bluey grey with coppery tones, so it will be added to my glaze collection.

Christmas Decorations in the making....

Preparation for some Tree decorations, I'm changing the decorations this year partly because I have less time to do them and also because I just want to offer a few individual ones and less of a "conveyor belt style" opperation in my workshop. It seems in recent years I have had so many at different stages and then when they all come out of the kiln it takes so long matching and putting into sets. So I'm taking the "less is more" approach so I can concentrate on other work.
Here is what I've come up with so far:


A selection of the Christmas Tree decorations at bone dry stage.



Amongst some of the usual stars and hearts I have made some cubes using my little owl stamp and the tile decorations are stamped with various decorations and are ready for sanding.

These will also hang on the tree, but the thread holes are hidden.

The tiles getting some sanding attention before the bisque firing. These will be threaded with wire throught the two top holes when finished. I'll post more photos when they are fired.

Tutorial: How to make clay rollers & stamps...........

A great way to texture clay is by using textured surfaces and stamps and this is a quick guide to show how its done. I made these clay rollers and stamps a few weeks ago at school for the pupils to use with their clay projects (in particular with the clay aboriginal art masks they have been making.) But more to come about those in a future blog.



 

Roll soft clay into balls approx size of a nectarine.





Push down with palms of your hand to flatten the sides of the clay ball.

Roll the clay on a smooth flat surface to create a soft even edge all round.

Make about six to start with so that you have a few to texture in different ways.

Find objects that you think will create an interesting pattern in the clay (try them out on seperate clay before deciding which to use) I have used the ends of pencils, credit card,print blocks,string,lace ect...

Start to imprint the objects around the clay roller, ensuring even markings and care taken not to distort the clay roller which will still be pliable, it may take a few goes to make the rollers you wish to keep.

The oddest of objects may appear dull and uninteresting but once an impression in clay is made may appear to look really good, experimenting with different objects is key.



Here are some of the rollers just after making them, they will shrink whilst drying and once again if fired. Firing is nessesary if using these rollers onto wet clay but can be used at bone dry stage for polymer clay projects and if a kiln is'nt available.









These stamps are made in the stame way but they are formed like little mushrooms instead of rollers and the surface is flattened and imprinted with objects in the same way.

Here is an example of what they looked like rolled onto slabs of wet clay.

 




The finished rollers and stamps fired in a kiln.
This tutorial can also be viewed on the Folksy Making guide where it may be printed off in step by step stages.