Unloading The Kiln

I get super excited every time I unload a kiln. I always say it's like Christmas when you were a kid. Everything goes into the kiln covered in glaze that is all one color. My glaze these days is green so every button, bead and bowl is green when it goes into the kiln. I fire to almost 2000 degrees F so it's hot and I have to wait for it to cool down.

Over the years I have built up some heat resistant fingers. You know at restaurants when they tell you to watch the plate because it's hot? I just grab it without problems and it always gives the waitress a scare.

After I can open it all the way, it's about 150 degrees. Everything is suspended on high temperature wires. Glaze is basically ground up glass so when it reaches it's firing temperature it melts. If things were sitting on the kiln shelves, they would be stuck there forever. That is why everything is hung on wires.

I pull everything out and lay them on a metal tray. They are still pretty warm at this point.

Bowls and pottery have clean bottoms so they sit directly on the shelf.

Here are little bird nests sitting and waiting to be brought in to the studio.

 Pottery is waiting patiently as well.

After cooling a little bit more, the beads and buttons are taken off the wires. Next, I sort them, put the buttons on cards and photograph them for my shop.

Enjoy your day!

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Stuff, Lot's of It

Hey, Hey, Happy Tuesday!

Check it out! Snowmen and Christmas trees! Eeek! You all know it's my favorite time of the year. I love the Holidays! It may seem a bit early but every August I start working on my holiday projects, new beads, and gifts. I just pulled some other, brand new, Christmas beads out of the kiln that are so dang cute! But unfortunately I cannot show you yet. Yep top secret until the first holiday newsletter. I think it's October 6th if I remember correctly.


This post has so much random stuff, hence the title. Check out this caterpillar Nik found last night in the woods in our yard. I had to look it up, it looks super scary. It's a Hickory Horned Devil Caterpillar. I guess it's rare to find one this color, who knew? It turns out this guys is perfectly harmless but there are other caterpillars that bite ans sting. I did not know that either. I should have listen to more of my moms "nature talks" when I was a child. She was a science teacher and loved to teach and being the rotten(or typical) children my brother and I were, we would roll our eyes and mock her when we would try to teach us something. My poor mother...

Okay, back to pottery... pretty mugs just out of the kiln....

And last but not least. Pottery to paint! I am sure I mentioned that we are having classes starting in a few weeks. A few nights we are going to be open for paint your own pottery night. You know, bring a group of girl friends or your date and come paint. I looooove to paint, it's my favorite thing ever! I wanted to share the fun with some of the local pottery or paint loving people.

To make a long story longer, a nice woman from dealmobs came to my studio a few weeks ago, (it's a really cool "groupon" site) and I signed up to have a discount for paint your own pottery night, you know, good advertisement, right? She gave me an estimate of how many people I would have buy the coupon and since I am totally new I wasn't even expecting that number. Well, it turns out in that one day I sold four times what she had estimated! Wahoo, that is exciting. I looove that so many people want to come and paint pottery. Of course that means a lot of last minute bisque ordering and class adding. I have the bisque as you can see above.... oh it makes me want to come site and paint all day. Open studios times have been added and we are going to add even more this week(check out Facebook for the latest). Whew! But oh so much fun!

Have a great day!
Jennifer
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