SNOW DAY!!!

Ok...we got LOTS of snow! And ice! Schools, businesses, Universities - all closed. Of course I was out "playing" (or I should say shoveling) in the snow all day with my son. Of course, he had the time of his life - I, on the other hand, am a bit pooped! I have to admit, it was pretty when it was snowing and I took some pics. Here's one outside my window and then the same picture after I played around in photoshop with it. I love my photoshop!







While I had my door open taking some pictures, our sweet Stella decided she wanted to go out in the snow! She actually LOVED it and I had to go out in my jammies and bring her back in!

Inside my kiln

Well, here it is guys - my beloved kiln - isn't she lovely?! LOL! Since I've been talking about ceramics and my kiln lately, thought it would be neat to show you what I see when I open my kiln after the firing. It's seriously like Christmas when I open it. Especially with ceramics, because the firings take so long and then you have to wait until the kiln completely cools (a day) until you can open it. Its quite exciting to see how the pieces turned out. Fortunately with this batch, I was very happy with the outcome. I made some smaller pendants with simple black and white glaze and a splash of color on a few.

Kiln Up and Running!

My hubby, bless him, fixed my kiln! I think he knows how crazed I can get when I don't have anything to do, so he got on it straight away and found out one of the wires in the cord shorted out and replaced it for me. My ring saw is still without a new blade, but I was able to get my ceramic pieces into the kiln and I was pretty happy with the outcome of them. Here are a couple pendants that I made and will be listing them soon in my etsy shop.






My 6-yr. old son even got in on the action and made this piece himself with my clay. I love the colors that he chose to glaze it - quite fabulous!

Could it get much worse????

Ok...they say things happen in 3's, so here it goes.......

Yesterday, I was using my ring saw cutting my glass when my blade and rubber belt both broke at the same time! Drats - the blades alone cost around $100!!!! I decided I'd play with my clay last night for a change and create some things. Got them in my kiln today and about half way through the firing, I noticed an odd smell and saw one of the wires? coils? (I'm not quite sure yet) was bright red and looked just about to catch fire! I immediately turned it off. Still haven't determined what happened - I have to wait until the kiln cools down to assess what was burning. Here, I was so excited to have been working with my ceramics again and the darn kiln may be broke! Well, I decided to calm my nerves and make a nice Vanilla Latte with my espresso machine. I just went out today to buy more espresso beans from Starbucks to make sure I had enough on hand for my weekend afternoon addiction. I always have Starbucks grind it for me and apparently they ground the espresso soooooo fine, that the water wouldn't even run through it in my machine! No latte!!! Seriously, are the gods really trying to mess with me? At least give me my coffee! COME ON!!!!!
Not the best day:(

Ceramic & Glass Pendant.

I came up with another design experimenting with my glass and ceramics. I liked this one so much that its actually in my etsy shop. Click here for details. The process involved with this is me hand-forming my clay into a heart shape and carving out the center for the glass to go in. I then bisque fire the heart in my kiln. After the piece has cooled in the kiln, I then glaze the outside of the heart (this one with a white glaze) and put tiny pieces of different colored glass in the center. The 2nd firing melts and fuses the glass into the clay and when it cools, the glass sometimes crackles leaving a pretty cool effect. I've actually made quite a few different pendants and the outcome has been fascinating. Its like Christmas when I open my kiln - I get so excited because I never quite know how the piece will turn out. This one is one of my favorites!

I Got Sucked In!

As you may have seen through previous posts, I've made a few fused glass creations from the Twilight series, only really hearing about Twilight through my 13-yr. old niece and loads of other people. I really thought it was more of a teenage plot (which, I guess it is), and not until I read Christy DeKoning's blog over the weekend and saw her post on the book and her painting of "Edward" did I decide to break down and get the book. Christy sounded just like me being an avid book reader and not really sure about this series. I had a gift card for Barnes and Noble from Christmas and decided to bite the bullet and get the first book in paperback yesterday, figuring if I couldn't get into it, then no harm done. I mean, I even tried to get on the bandwagon with the Harry Potter series, only to read the first few chapters of the first book and knew that was not for me. I thought "a book about vampires, surely I won't get into this series either." So, I broke open Twilight this afternoon and haven't put it down, but to start making dinner, while stirring spaghetti with my book in hand and reading while I ate! Now, Christy warned me to buy the second book when I bought the first, because I wouldn't be able to stop after the first. Did I take her advice - no. So..............looks like tomorrow I'll be back at Barnes and Noble buying the 2nd book! I'm almost finished with the first and I'm sure I will not fall asleep tonight until its finished. Yeah, well..... its that good! Gotta run and get back to Edward and Bella!

More Twilight Fused Glass!

I think I just officially hopped on the bandwagon with all you twilight fans! The more I see and read about this series, the more intrigued I become!

Here's my newest framed fused glass piece from the Twilight series, "Breaking Dawn". You can check it out in my etsy shop here.












And here's a cute fused glass Twilight inspired pendant made by me for all you Twilight lovers! This is also in my etsy shop, here.