Before and after photos of my owls, the finished one is hung up in my kitchen, really happy with these.

Been plotting and planning today on the order of jobs ready for Chester, glazing is the first big job and then throwing.  Another good glaze firing finished and a few bespoke orders made, and ideas for Christmas shows, a little worried on how first time goes!



Some one has asked if I could do a pig! I had a think and a hunt at images and have come up with this design.
 
 
 
I'm calling him "Flower Pig' at the moment but might play with that once I've made some - he'll be quite simple in base, smooth edges, maybe lace rolled decoration but he will hold a massive raised bunch of flowers and have his trotters raised over the top to hold them in. If I get time might try to make him out tonight. I'm going to make the hanging bow from part of a decoration no top of his head, you can just see the ribbon end hanging over.
 
At the moment he's wearing one heart on his belly but I'm wodering about making him some trousers layered with hearts, crikey, could give him a bow tie too!
These are examples of the photos I want to send but can't print or forward as all e mail addresses don't seem to work, Country Living, please help! The bowls rest in holes cut into the boards so really safe for carrying around, sturdy to eat from. The bowls can match or be different glaze surfaces, or even different sizes, it's really up to individuals taste.

Food Board for one.


Large Food Board for two bowls.




Walnut Food Board, large.




Examples of different sizes of Boards and Bowls. You can see here the different woods aswell. The walnut is the darkest.



Heart Wreaths, these are selling like hot cakes on the build up to Valentines, I think it's mostly women who buy them. Jon says he wouldn't purchase one for me but would be interested in the new owl pieces.






 
Large wreath with leaf buttons as detail.




And in a previous post you can see some images of owls, yet to be finished. Fingers crossed.





What a day!

Finally got all the boards ready for photo shoot to enter a competition in my favourite magazine Country Living, deadline for entry is Monday, so got all day to get application in the post, no problem, take photo's of the boards with different foods on, photo's of the different sizes and shapes of boards and bowls and then the heart wreaths. 

All going well, looking good, and then go to print, no ink! Ok, head out to buy more, floods, you wouldn't believe it. Tried to get a set of photos sent direct to them through Photobox but can't download images as internet on laptop doesn't work, I can only pray that they get the images via a message I sent to the editor, maybe I'll be lucky and they will look here?  If any one is looking, the bowls sit in the holes on the boards making them really stable, The idea is to sell the bowls and boards together as a unit. these photo's don't really do justice, got some great photo's but can't up load using an iPad.

I was really hoping to get in with the Food Boards and the wreaths but the weather has really not helped. 

When I get to use a computer that has the internet and can take a memory stick I'll show you the photo's I was hoping to send in :((








Here's one of my new designs, an owl.  I can make them long and fat or short and thin, lots of different textures which will pick up the surface colour really well. After making this one I made more and added a clay strap on the back to thread the ribbon through. 





Thanks to Jon my kiln is fixed and had its first firing for a month, now I have a load of hearts ready for colour and Chester and sales through friends. I also have 75 small bowls ready for glazing for the food boards, need to do a bit of glaze testing first though to check colour and surface etc. 

I worked tonight in a really warm pottery thanks to the kiln cooling down and the fire heating up which was good  for  two small very wet doggies. I know we are far luckier than some but I forget that  when the only walk they can have its through fields swimming in mud. No option tonight to even take them in the car to somewhere dryer as the lanes are flooding as well and some roads are closed.

Stroll on summer, I promise not to complain about dust from a dry dirt track!


And here's one I made earlier, lace surface with a deep layer of decoration. Less wreaths, more bowls ready for Chester.



All coming together now, this weekend I got my first load of wreaths wrapped and boxed and ready to sell. Jon finished his first set of food boards and came up with some lovely shapes. I particulary like the walnut wood, it sems quite soft in its colour.



We have twelve weeks until our first show of the year at Chester so final plans are being put in place. I've created a Facebook page, hunt for Sytch Farm Studio and you should find us. I've also been collecting and uploading images onto Pinterest, if you haven't discovered that then again go have a look. I've been using that resource within my lessons at school too. And now we need fresh business cards which will happen once the web site address is confirmed.

The kiln needs fixing, clay needs collecting and we need to figure out display ideas, 12 weeks! I'm sure we can do it, Feburary half term will definatley be a working holiday however.

I've ordered letters to help me personlise the wreaths and got lots of ideas for new designs, but one step at a time, need to get the kiln fixed first.