Friday, May 29, 2009

Bitty Bowls


While playing with some cut clay shapes and creating an on the fly demo for one of my handbuilding students I created my first 'Bitty Bowl.' So what is a Bitty Bowl? My bitty bowls are small bowls in the shapes of flowers, animals, etc. that are in a bowlish shape. I use the word 'bowlish' because my bitty bowls are all round on the bottom, kinda like the weebles wobbles but not falling down toys from childhood. The bitty bowls themselves won't hold much but make a nice place to put a your rings or a chain when washing dishes or showering so they are in a safe place that you can find easily. They are food safe so you could serve a small item like a mint or maybe a hot dipping sauce out of them. You could add a few felt feet to the bottom of them and you could use them to burn incense. Or you could just sit them around and just use them to decorate a side table. My mom uses one to serve my dad's after breakfast pills to him so he can find them before leaving the table in the morn. I can think of quite a few uses for these little bowls, paper clip holder for the office, a place to stash your flash drive on your desk so its always where you can find it, fun bowl shapes to use in a centerpiece, wedding table decor or favors and so much more. They make a great gift for a neighbor, boss, or coworker and of course for yourself. Take a look in my etsy shop to find flowers, fish, bats, and stars, if you don't see a color you like just convo me for a custom order. Custom orders take about 6-8 weeks for completion.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Searching for Myself (a micro blog)

Lol, no I'm not talking bout some inner look into my soul but a Google search to see who links to me. Awhile ago I found this blog that featured me. The bowl she featured was sold at a show back in march but there is still the little link to my shop so that is just so cool. Most of the searches for my self turn up pages that I created myself but it so fun when you get notices by someone else.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

My New Ads

I have started to promote my pottery shop thru ads on the blogs and pages of other like minded site. Here are the first 2 ads I created to advertise my shop. This first one would link to my whole etsy shop:
And this next one will link to only the jewelry section of my etsy shop for better targeting customers that are interested in accessories and or fashion.
I hope these ads will draw attention to my shop and bring me more shoppers so look for them when you are surfing your favorite blogs. I hope you see and click cause that means they are doing their job :)

Monday, May 25, 2009

Tough Kiln to Crack


The last couple of days I have been tearing apart an old kiln, mining it for parts, etc. The switch box was a particularly interesting configuration and very tough to get apart. The image to the right shows the switch box after I finally removed all switches and wiring and any fastners I saw holding it to the kiln, 4 screws on the outside of the switch box, 24 screws that held the switches in place on the switch box(6 switches 4 screws each), 3 nuts in the center of the switch box holding the plug wires in place, and 3 nuts under those 3 wires, 24 nuts holding the switch wires in place and a washer for each nut, also 2 very strong screws that hurt my hand while unscrewing, i heard a pop in my right hand and it hurts a bit now...hope it wasn't something important. But after all that notice how the box is still attached to the kiln. I have no idea what is holding the switch box to the kiln still. There are 3 metal straps that hold the kiln together I suppose if I removed them I will find out what is holding the box on but for now I want the bricks intact as I haven't decided what I want to do with this kiln.

Its a shallow wide kiln, I was told an old glass kiln, it has no kiln sitter, no peep hole, no place to stick a parameter so I don't know how this kiln was fired to temp. The 6 switches themselves looked like light switches with on/offs. I'm not really sure about the kiln except I was not going to plug it it. I am looking into maybe turning it into a raku kiln or a small gas kiln perhaps. If neither of those options work out I will use the lid as a surface to braze copper and brass on. Right now it is wrapped in a tarp under a sheet of hardy board in the backyard.