I'm so pleased! Here's my first-ever pottery project, glazed and fired. It's not fancy, and it definitely has flaws, but I love the way the glaze turned out and I'm very satisfied with my first attempt. I might have to go back and do more!
Here's Harry, looking pensive after watching the Westminster Dog Show. You see, Wirehaired Vizslas are still not recognized by the American Kennel Club, and he's disappointed. Poor Harry.
I was thinking of titling this post "Pot Party", but people might get the wrong idea! The most serious substance there was my tin of homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies, although things got a bit crazy when the power went out for a while! I know nothing about pottery, but my neighbor Paula has her own pottery shop here at the Co-op, and invited members to come over and throw a pot or two. Given the freezing rain and other wintry nastiness falling from the sky, only a few of us showed up (and I nearly fell over more than once on my way), but we had a great time...and I learned a lot! Here's Paula at her wheel:
And here's my first-ever plate! The feel of the clay and the wheel are so wonderful, it was really a pleasure.
So later it'll get fired, and then I can play around with glazes. I hope I get invited back soon!
After a difficult day at work, I arrived home this evening to a big box from Ellia Hill of Green Bean Baby...my swap partner for Storme's 2nd Annual Handmade Holiday Swap! My mood changed instantly. I opened up the box to find a whole assortment of beautifully wrapped and labeled packages. I thought about waiting until Christmas to open them...but that thought passed very quickly!
So, I tore into them with wild abandon. And what goodies I found!
There were some wonderful thrifted fabrics, some Christmas-related (including the background material in the photos) and some not, verrrry yummy dark chocolates (and yes, Ellia, dark chocolate is my favorite!)
, Warm Vanilla incense cones, a really lovely stationery set with flowers and birdies, a box with a great assortment of buttons and beads (and some itsy-bitsy doll eyes, how cute!)...and best of all, one of her cut paper illustrations.
I love it! I am simply amazed at the detail and use of texture and color, and most of all, it's just adorable!
I can't begin to thank you enough, Ellia! Such a great package, and very much worth the wait!
Ellia of greenbeanbaby, who is my swap partner for the Handmade Holiday Swap, alerted me to this: Gracie at graciebellabutterfly is giving away a couple of sets of her wonderful cards. Enter soon, before Friday the 30th in Australia, whenever that happens to be in your time zone!
I'm making fabric-covered magnets for Christmas presents for our community members...every year there's a Christmas breakfast, and people bring little gifts of some sort. There are several tutorials out there on how to do this, but it's pretty self-explanatory...I got covered button kits from JoAnn's, wrenched off the button loop, and covered the button blanks with fabric scraps from my collection. Next I'll glue a magnet to the back of each one. It only took a hour or two to do all of these (plus the sacrifice of my thumb pad, which had to push all those button blanks into the mold!), and they'll make cute little gifts. Much better idea than my failed coaster concept!
Only problem is...I got some small containers to put them in, but not small enough...with only four magnets apiece, the boxes look a little sparse. I may have to add a magnet or two to each set to fill up those boxes a bit!
I just signed up for Storme's 2nd Annual Handmade Holiday Swap...you can get more info at her blog, but basically you make a gift for your swap partner and include a few extras. I've only got a week before the send-out date, so I've got to get to work!
In other news, here's a picture of my dad's Airedale, Darwin, waiting for his favorite treat...an apple!
I got these great prints a while back from Bernadette Sipkes of Sugarloop's Etsy store. Aren't they wonderful? She uses a gocco printer to make these prints, and I love her style! I've got to find some nice frames for them, and then I'll hang them around the house. Check out Bernadette's great blog too.
