Thank You!

I would like to say a huge thank you to all the galleries, customers, followers and supporters in all their guises that have helped make this year truly great!  So much has happened, it has been funfully busy and I have, with your support been able to achieve so much more than I thought possible.  I cannot wait to see what lies ahead for next year and would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

x x x

ONE DAY SALE!!

As it is the last shipping day for Christmas (an wanting to get those last few sales to 60!) I am offering 50% off all Christmas items in my Folksy Shop for today only!  Items will be send out today and sent First Class so will get to you in time for Christmas.
Look what you can get.....

 Today only £6

 £2

 Ceramic Gift Tag £1.25

Baby's First Christmas Decoration £3.50

Just enter code XMAS50 at checkout (in the notes to seller) and your discount will be refunded through PayPal.
Offers only valid on CHRISTMAS items in shop
Discount only available to UK addressees.
Just for TODAY!!
Please read my Folksy profile for full details http://www.folksy.com/users/CatsCeramics

A Winters Tale

I just wanted to share with you this lovely verse from a great blog I read by Rosa Lily.
It has really got me in the mood for Christmas and looking forward to relaxing with family and friends and snuggling on the sofa with that better half of mine-

http://rosalily.blogspot.com/2011/12/winters-tale.html

I has been delightfully busy in the run up to Christmas but there is a few days left to buy some last minute pressies!  On my Folksy Shop I am desperate to hit the 60 sales mark before Christmas and if I can get those elusive sales I might treat myself and buy some lovely porcelain for the new year!

 Baby's 1st Christmas Decoration

Kooky Charm Plant Markers

Little Mouse Buttons

My last shipping date for delivery before the Big Day is order by 4pm Monday 19th December!  Thanks x

Exhibition at the Cow Shed Studio

I have been so rushed off my feet the last two weeks it has been great fun and rather manic! I had a fair to do, commissions to make, orders to send and an exhibition to complete!

Amazingly I did get all the work I wanted made for the exhibition including some new bits such as this rather lovely impressed dish

And a few new framed pieces 

Such as this one I call 'Unfurling'

This piece almost didn't make to the show as the glass got smash the morning of the exhibition!

Early morning, glass and a grumpy fiancé after being woken way too early by a naughty kitty do not mix.

Somehow luckily we were able to laugh about it!

If you are around the area or know someone who is the Cow Shed Christmas Exhibition is wonderful.

With a select handful of well established artisans and makers including 

Jewellery by Misha Seelhoff

Sculpture by Victoria Lovell

Botanical Painting and illustration by Alice Harman to name but a few

I am very privileged and lucky to be amongst them x

It's Chhhhristmas!

I am getting so excited about Christmas now!  A friend has already put her tree up and it's getting less and less time until December arrives!  I have loads of presents still to buy and if you do too and need some help here are some of my Christmas gift ideas.

Add a touch of handmade charm to your tree this year with my vintage crackle star decorations £4

For those with a penchant for pretty, these lavender impressed coasters are sure to bring a touch of the outside in with the sweet reminiscence of warmer days £21

  

Perfect for the dinner table and to cast it's festive sparkle around the house this joyous season.  With this tealight lantern glowing, a glass of wine and carols being sung could it be any more Christmassy? £26.50

For that special someone.  Sure to stand out in Nature's treasures impressed jewellery featuring recycled glass in jewel like colours £14 

Click on image for more info.

Woop Woop!

I've got my first sale on Etsy!  Sooo glad as I was getting worried as I've been on there for two months now and was beginning to wonder if I'd ever get a sale across the pond and I have to a lovely lady in Illinois.
That's in America baby! :)

She bought this Garden Sign of mine with cute little ladybirds on.  I hope she is pleased once she receives it in the post

I have been making a few more new signs today which I'll try and get some pictures up soon x Hope you have a good week x

In the Studio........

I often listen to music whilst making in the studio. It helps me to relax, focus and get inspired.
Recently I have been listening to Damien O Kane who after seeing in concert in September have kinda fallen in love with a little bit.  You should check him out......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpHiFwb6hyI
and on his website http://damienokane.co.uk/

I can be a bit selfish with music and not want to share for fear of over promoting my sacred wonderful artist I hold so dear, to others who will hear such beautiful sweet music and then fall in love and regrettably my special beautiful treasure of a musician will get really popular and as demand will strike pushy greedy music companies step in and my poor once amazing music man who sang magical songs straight to my heart with inevitably sell out and make sad crappy music to keep up with demand and appeal to the masses. I still fear this sadly cause he is really very good but I had to share his music with you-it may make your life better.  It definitely has made mine......

Yeah he is a little bit irish ;)

Woop Woop!

Woop Woop moment of the week!  I'm in Kitchen Garden Magazine!!

Well not me exactly me but my kooky charm plant markers!

They are featured in a section for great gardening gifts available on the internet.  And there is a picture of them as well!  Wow :) Big grins.

Very excited and just in time for great Christmas gifts!

They are available to buy on my Folksy shop www.catsceramics.folksy.com

New Art Panel

Getting ready for the Christmas rush I decided to make a few new pieces to include in the shows I am going to be doing soon including this Display Panel. 

It comes with the acrylic stand ready to display and I like that you can place it on a surface rather than the traditional hanging on a wall so it's like a table top work of art that you can touch and run your finger across.

I was inspired to make this whilst walking over the South Downs nearby where I live.  The meadows were full of white clover seed heads bobbing up above the grass and bouncing in the wind.  While lazing in the grass I took a lovely picture on eye level with the grass so it looked like you were submerged within it like a mouse might feel.

 I am so proud of this one that I've put it on both my Etsy and Folksy shops. I'd better go make another one for the Christmas shows now!

Fabulous Folksy........The Wild and Wonderful!

Hasn't it been a while? 

This week inspiration comes from a good old fashion fry up breakfast........oommm makes me hungry :)

Click on the image to go to their Folksy Shop

  Fried Egg Soap- lemon scented - vegan & suitable for sensitive skin from Bits N Bobs

 

Kitsch Baked Bean Tin Earrings from Silver Tongue Devil

Tea Cosy from FELTastic Accessories

Tin Can Tap Top Teapot from Rebecca Sims Ceramics

Breakfast Time Handbag from weaveandstich.com

Pink Pig - Fine Art Print by ialbert

TEN 10 FAT SAUSAGE KNITTED & PAN PLAYSET EYFS CHILDMINDER TOY NUMBER NURSERY SEN from RocketDog

Handthrown left handed mug in stoneware by Caractacus Pots

Speckled egg in pink egg cup from Hearts of Dough

Thanks to those who create these beautiful wonders x

Woop Woop!

Another reason to smile today -

 My coasters are on the front page of Folksy!  Yay!  

I don't mean to brag but it's these little things that make a huge different to my confidence with regard to selling my work.  It's that much appreciated boost.....happy days :)

I hope you too have had a little confidence boost recently x

Don't Try This At Home....

Well do if you want but please don't blame me if things go drastically wrong and you end up with shattered pieces of clay covering the entire inside of your oven!

Let me explain. In a desperate attempt to speed up the drying process for a few last minute pieces I have made for a show I am doing at the end of the week, ( why to I always leave things to so last minute?! ) I had the genius idea ( actually the soon to be OH had this genius idea, I will remind him of this if it goes belly up ;) of bunging my work in the oven on a low heat for a while to help speed the drying time up.

I usually dry my pieces slowly and hence evenly by letting them lounge about on my drying shelves for as long as they very well need - as clay can be a bit temperamental sometimes and get huffy and crack if not treated with the due respect it deserves, but we'd recently watched that brilliant 'How It's Made' programme where it showed porcelain sinks being made, and once leather hard (for those that don't know leather hard is a term used for clay when it is still visibly damp but has dried out enough to be handled without deforming),  they put them in these essentially massive ovens and cooked them for a couple of days at 80 degrees centigrade.  Well I love a good experiment and though I usually leave the playing about with my clay work when I have the time and when it is not quite so paramount that I actually have some work to sell, I had to give it a go!  So today I have spend my time 'cooking' my recent works ready for a show on Friday! In the oven. In the kitchen... madness.......

Unfired 'leather hard' coasters and mini plaques

In the oven they go!                                                                                               

 

                     BEFORE                                                                                         AFTER

Now all that's needed is glazing and firing ( in an actual kiln this time ) and then hopefully all done!

The sticky thing is I wont really know if this has been successful until they come out of their kiln firing on Thursday evening!

Arhh......

Recent Inpsiration

 

  

 

 

I have recently been coming up with new ideas for products and art works and so have been taking my camera every where with me and snapping all sorts of things I see in the hope of incorporating these ideas into my work.

It's funny what inspires us and by taking pictures I keep a record of sorts of what I was thinking and feeling at the time that I can later use when creating in my workshop.

Sometimes it can be the strangest thing that gets my creative juices flowing, like in the picture of that funny looking creature ( prizes for anyone who knows what that is!? ).  The perfect symmetry of his face and his huge staring eyes are just fascinating! He was making this defensive knocking noise as well which made it all seem so exotic and alien.

And those dandelion like puffy seed heads are so fragile and soft and ready to blow away any instant, I ponder and long to recreate that feeling into one of my pieces.  

Inspiration comes to us in so many ways.........what is your inspiration?  x x
I'd love to hear your comments