Happy 4th

Its my little's friend's birthday coming up and we can't go to the party, but we did make her this height cart. Most 4 year olds I know want to know how tall they are on a minute by minute basis, so this chart includes a Sharpie for mom and dad to mark the date and height with a mark.

The Other One drew the picture, and I painted it.
Day 1, sky

Day 2, 1st coat of the bodyDay 3, final body coat

Day 4, all the rest
Hopefully, she digs it. She can't get any taller than 5'5" before she outgrows it...

Lovely Quote

Today I received a comment on my blog that surprised me! It was from someone that inspires me to create things. I've been following the

blog belle and burger.

for a while now, and she held a giveaway for a book in which you had to answer the question "Why do you love to make things?".

"Belle" chose my answer as one of her favorites! This was more rewarding than winning the book, of course. See her

post about the winner and my quote here.

Sunshine!

I created a sun stamp to make some wrapping paper to send my

Little Miss Sunshine dotee.

The stamp process.

Stamped wrapping paper.

Sending my whales

I worked on packing up some swaps today. One was the whale swap that I've been posting baout lately.

This is the plush killer whale I made. He is Inuit inspired.

I stamped some of my own wrapping paper to wrap the whale and stationary set in. They are different colors and there is one whale on each one that is spouting.

My partner also like big flower hair clips and vintage colors so I made her this surprise :
ps. my face looks crazy in the corner!

Octopus and Dish

This mad octopus will be in the shop as soon as I can get it up.
I love how the blue created a marbled affect when fired. It was unintentional, yet wonderful because it reminds me of seaweed.

He is crying/sweating.

The back.


And this is a change dish I made for the Other One. He requested green with browns.

A closeup. Most of the sections look like this. I dig it.

I added little plastic feet to the bottom so it wouldn't scratch the table.

Call me Ishmael

As I said a few swaps ago, I am doing a swap that is dedicated to whales. I made a whale stamp and I decided to do Moby Dick inspired stationary.

I went and bought some brayers and block printing ink, and set to work. Here is my work station.

My first practice print. Worked out alright!
I used this really slick, not flat plate for the inking. Not the best idea, but it worked for this time. I mixed some white and purple ink for the whales.
These are all the finished pieces. Lots of envelopes, cards, and mini cards.
Depending on the type of paper, the images turned out differently. Some were more inky (the shiny paper ones), and some were perfect (cardstock). These are my favorites :
And the ships! Can't forget the red ships, mate!

Finished Napkin Rings/Bird

Finally these retched napkin rings are done! All 50 of them.
The newest ones turned out a more solid color, which I like.

But the old, reglazed rings turned out differently than I expected. Some, not so nice. But some turned out amazing. Like this one!
A view from above. I had to leave the tops and bottoms unglazed so that they wouldn't stick to the kiln when baking. I would have preferred to have them all covered... but oh well!

Another thing that finished in ceramics was my bird! This will be in the shop once I get some outside photos this weekend, and also fix the tail. The longest feathers were broken off, but its definitely fixable! A preview -