Up All Night

I've been up all night this past week getting magnets ready for wedding favors for my cousin Elisa Beth's wedding. 225 set of 4 magnets to be exact. Thats 900 magnets, in case anyone was counting. But I got it all done (with a little help from my two hard working elves that happen to also be my parents: they will be very upset if I don't give them credit!!) and they look great! I'm so excited for the wedding tomorrow in Boston. I'll try to get some photos to share of the magnets in action.

The Herkimer County Craft Fair last weekend was not as great as I had expected. I had anticipated it as my biggest show of the year, but it ended up being the worst I've done so far. After two days of sitting all day long in a classroom in the WAY WAY back of the fair (people actually had to leave the main building and walk across in the rain to the building I was in) I barely made enough to cover my booth fee! You just never can tell about these fairs I suppose!

I now have lots and lots of extra pottery on my hands, so I signed up for another show at the last minute. It is at Syracuse University on December 4th, in the Newhouse building. One of the organizers had given me a flyer during the Salt City show last month, but I thought that I would be too low on inventory after the Herkimer fair to participate. Luckily she still had open spaces when I contacted her last week. I'm hoping I will do better at this show; I think the "University Crowd" is a good match for my pottery. In the meantime, I am listing a whole slew of the extra items in my Etsy shop.

The rest of the pottery is being shipped to the Yellow Umbrella shop in Bemidji, Michigan, and Craft Chemistry in Syracuse where I will be selling on consignment. Exciting, I know!! I'm working on starting up more consignment accounts so I can still have some income while I'm at school this spring.

Well, I need to get at least a tiny bit of beauty sleep before this wedding tomorrow, so I suppose I'll stop blabbing now!!

*above: new work! from top: green squared plate with leaves pattern; 11" teal platter with moxy pattern; four small circles bowls; four 10" nacho plates in various colors and patterns.

HCCC Craft Fair

Tomorrow is the Herkimer County Community College Arts and Crafts Fair!! I'm going crazy getting ready for it today!! BUT I promised to keep up with the blogging so I'm taking time to do a quick post. Pictures of my ceramics were in the Observer Dispatch (a local paper) in the "Fusion" section in an article about the fair. I was really excited and surprised to see my stuff featured like that!! Hopefully all will go smoothly setting up tonight!!!

Something new I'm having at this show are these "easels" to display my platters. My Dad made them for me, and I have to say he went above and beyond my request!! He's a true craftsman at heart. They fold flat for easy transportation and have removable pegs. I'm thinking about listing them in my shop so people can have the option of purchasing them with a platter for display. I would probably have my Dad finish them with a stain or something if I was going to sell them, however.

Well, I have to go get ready to pick up some last minute things for the show, like these super cute aprons from my CNY Etsy Team buddy Lauren, from Originals by Lauren. I'm so excited about them and hope they make me seem more organized tomorrow and Sunday at the show!

It's Been a LONG time!!!

Ok, so I know it's been a very long time since my last post. In a nutshell, this is what has been going on in the meantime: a bad breakup, a magnet making dilemma, two car accidents, two totaled cars, an intense and mostly unsuccessful search for a new car, a trip (by train) to Boston to chill out, applications to several colleges mailed, financial aid applied for, blue highlights added to my hair, two weeks of frenzied pottery making in order to get ready for the Salt City Indie Craft Mart, a good make-up, a college acceptance and decision, two new employees added to the Luckalilly business (ok, it's my Mom and Dad, but they're getting paid so they still count!!) a used car purchased, 900 magnets made for my cousin's wedding, and then of course the Salt City Indie Craft Mart itself!!! Which was fabulous, I might add! Something had to give! But, alas, I am back to blogging and I solemnly promise to do my best to keep it updated!!

As I mentioned, the Craft Mart was a huge success, I think for everyone who participated. It was definitely my best show yet. I thought I had about 100 too many business cards, but I ran out pretty quick and had to give away extra pottery tags with my shop address on them instead! The bad thing about selling almost everything at the show is not having anything for the next show, which is coming up in about 10 days!! Yikes! I didn't even have time to grab any photos of the new work or the show except for the one I took on my cell phone above, which shows my booth and is incredibly blurry! I'll try harder to get better pictures next time.

The Herkimer County Community College Arts and Crafts Fair is on November 14 and 15, and my kiln and I are working nonstop to get ready for it!! I still don't know if I can make enough work to really take advantage of the number of people who normally attend this show, but I'm doing my best! Wish me luck!

More New Stuff in the Shop!!!

In the past month or so, I have been busy making a TON of new items for the Clinton Arts and Music Festival on the 29th, which I unfortunately had to miss because of my stupid wisdom teeth. On the upside, that means I have loads and loads on inventory to list in the shop!!

Here are some sneak peaks!!

I also made some more mugs and plates, as well as magnets, rocks, and a whole host of new sewn items that will be listed soon. Stay tuned!

Glaze Tests: Before and After Firing

I currently use commercial glazes on my pottery. Right now this is what is working best for me, because commercial glazes offer me consistency, convenience and time-efficiency. I would like to someday develop my own glazes to use, but I'm putting that off for now until I can finish school and learn some more glaze chemistry. I'm not ready to take the leap and buy all the materials and tools needed to formulate, mix and test my own glazes, and I don't know nearly enough about developing my own recipes. I have been interested in trying to get some different effects on the surface of my pots, however. My "standard" solid color, glossy glazes are spectacularly bright and reliable, and they don't move AT ALL during firing, which lends themselves to my process and style beautifully. Lately, however, I have been wanting something a little different. I like when glazes break over the surface and run a little during firing to create beautiful effects, and I have been dying to experiment with some matte glazes. So I ordered a whole bunch of new glazes that will hopefully get me started in the right direction! I ran some tests on them yesterday on old bisque ware I had taking up space in my studio. The results were interesting; some of the colors did not come out exactly how I had thought they would, but these were tests after all! The "after" pictures don't have the greatest lighting, but hopefully you can get an idea about the way these glazes move.

New Adventures

My harddrive crashed last week. Yes, it was devastating; espcially since I'm super irresponsible and never backed anything up. I did still manage to get some new items listed in the shop, however, using my family's super SLOW desktop.

I took the rest of my laptop-free time to work on more custom orders as well as begin some exciting new projects that will make thier debut in the Luckalilly shop soon as a "test run". If everything goes well, I may begin a second shop selling a new line of products made from felt and linen (and possibly screen printed t-shirts) all showcasing my favorite patterns and designs that can be found on my ceramics.

It's a very ambitious project, but I want to diversify my offerings in order to reach more customers and prepare myself in case access to my super-sweet studio and kiln ever becomes limited (aka I go back to school!) Sewing and screen printing are both much more "mobile" operations and don't require too much specialized equipment and space. A girl's gotta make money somehow! Plus, I just like crafting, and starting new projects is always fun for me! (I still need to think of a name for this hypothetical shop tho, and any suggestions would be appreciated!!)

Ever have a day where your grouchy for no good reason? That was today.  I just woke up grouchy, and not even my new morning coffee/yoga/smoothie routine with my mom could get me out of the funk.  I wasn't mad or upset about anything or anyone in particular, I was just all around grumpy.  I mean, yeah, life is rough, but it's not any different from yesterday or the day before and I was in a perfectly fine mood on those days!  I wasn't even in the wallowing, self-pitying kind of bad mood-you know, the kind you can secretly kind of enjoy a tiny little bit, even while projecting outward misery.  I wanted to be in a good mood today (it was even sunny out!) but I just wasn't.  I dragged myself to work and pouted the whole time (on the inside, since my day job requires a lot of outward smiling and enthusiasm).  

I had been planning to work on ceramics when I got home, but I have learned from experience that it's not a good idea to work on that stuff when I'm in a bad mood.  I get very hyper-critical about everything I'm making and have made in the past, and that sometimes leads to a pottery-smashing party.  Smashing dishes (especially ones that you made that came out horrible that you hate to look at anyway) is actually a very effective form of therapy, but it leaves a huge mess.  And then there's always your mother nagging you about the concrete floor and coming down to inspect if for gouges from said smashed pottery.  

So instead of smashing pottery I decided to write about my bad mood in my blog today, and then go to the movies with the love of my life, my boyfriend, to see the other love of my life, Johnny Depp, in Public Enemies. It's definitely a large popcorn kind of night...