Pottery Butter Dish

It has been quite a month of sharing all kinds of past pottery projects I created. It sure has inspired me to want to get back to it and get my studio created. Maybe that will be a future post where I should you my pottery studio.

Anyways, this was a butter dish I made for my mom. It was way harder than I figured it would be because the clay shrinks and I wasn't getting the top to fit in nicely to the curves of the base of the butter dish. It took me 3 tries to finally get one that worked. Good thing I started making it really early and had time to make so many dishes. LOL!

2 Pottery Pieces: Wind Chime and Tea Holder

These were both gifts. The wind chime I had made for my mom (& one for myself as well) and the tea holder I made for a friend. I had previously blogged about how I made the Pottery Leaf Tea Cozy 2 years ago (yes, that is how long ago I made these pieces, I told you it has been a while!).

Pottery Baptism Gift

I made this cross for my godson Lincoln as a baptismal gift. I made the 2 pieces separately and used crazy glue to put them together. To write his name on it I had first tried a Gold Sharpie, but that wouldn't really work over the glaze, so I ended up using gold acrylic paint to paint on his name.

Pottery Soap Dishes

In continuing to share with you past pottery projects, these are a couple of pottery soap dishes that I made for my kids' teachers for Christmas gift and then my kids made homemade glycerin soap to put in them.

For some other pottery soap dishes and soap ideas, check out these:

• Pottery Sea Turtle Soap Dish
• 2 Pottery Soap Dish Varieties
• Hand Built Soap Dish
• Felted Soap

Pottery Cow Platter

I thought since I shared one of the old pottery pieces I created a while back, I might as share some of the rest of them this month. So, don't expect instructions other than I made them with slab rolling. I made this for my dad (who is a farmer) for a Christmas present and had made mini cheesecakes that I have him to put on his platter.

Pottery Plant Tray

I made this pottery plant try via slab rolling to act as a base for these three potted aloe vera plants. I actually rooted these three baby aloe vera plants from my mother plant before potting them up for this gift that I gave to a friend for her birthday (which happens to be today).

Be sure to check back on other Tuesday and Thursdays this month as I am going to be sharing a variety of past pottery projects including soap dishes, cow platter, butter dish, baptismal gift, wind chime, and tea holder.

Pottery Eyeglasses Cup

So, I made this quite a while ago as a Christmas gift for my mom. I haven't done much pottery in the last 2 years as we are still working on setting up a studio here. Hopefully this winter we get it figured out and I can get back to slabbing, which is what I did to make this eyeglass cup. She can put her glasses on the hook and have it filled with pens and scissors and keep by the computer so she can easily reach for her reading glasses and know where they are.

Boot Print Pottery Pendant

This is a super easy craft you can have a child do. You can even use Air Dry Clay and paint clear nail polish on it.

To make this pendant, form your clay in to a ball shape. Then have the child step on it gently until it flattened, but they have not touched the ground. Use a straw to poke a hole at the top and rmove the clay from the hole.

Allow to dry and then either paint or glaze however the clay you are using dictates.

Have fun!

Pottery Candle Jack-o-Lanterns

I just love this set that I made. It was all made by slab rolling and hand building. I think they look even better in person. It was hard to get the lighting right for the colors to show up and also have them look how they do in real life. To start out with a slab ruled out all of my clay and head different shapes of cylinders and Cones that I molded them around. After letting them sit for a while too allow the clay to harden a bit I carved in the jack-o'-lantern features and any indentations I made.

The tray on the bottom has a texture on it that I made by pressing in texture mats. And made the leaves by using a leaf form that I bought on Amazon. The places I used on the darker orange and the wife are both a textured glaze that I put a clear coat of glaze over the top to make it a little smoother but I wanted to see how the rough look would turn out. I actually liked how those turned out better than the yellows glaze that I use which was called Fool's Gold. The tree and all of the features on the jack o'lanterns and ghost are all used in a fire brick color glaze.

Inside I talked a battery-operated tea light but you could use a regular tea light if you wanted. I love how the light shines through the jack o'lantern features.

Camouflage Toothpick Holder

This is a gift that my son made for his dad for his birthday. He used an old K-Cup as the template and mold around which to make this. It's hard to tell from the picture because of the reflection coming off the glaze but he used a pattern stamp of fish scales. Then he painted it with green and brown underglaze and I dipped it in clear glaze before the final firing.

My husband likes his toothpicks and this was the second toothpick holder we have made for him out of pottery. I made this one for him. He has that in his office. The one my son made him is at our cabin. I do think we need to make one more for him to have in our house because I hate the plastic container we have them in now because it is always being knocked over.

* we don't actually use K-Cups really, I did a couple reviews with some but we don't make it a practice of buying them. We have a reusable K-Cup that we put our own coffee in that we typically use.

T-Rex Moon Pottery Wall Art

This is a pottery wall art piece I made for my son's big boy room. I did it by slab rolling out my clay and then carving in to it. Because of the clear glaze reflecting, it is hard to see the texture on the clay. I used a Makin's USA Clay Texture sheet with a wood grain texture to make the skin texture.

And because of the reflection of the glaze, you can't see that it says "I Love You to the Moon and Back", which is why the T-Rex has a moon shape for an eye. My son is a dinosaur lover, so that is what I did the T-Rex Head.

It took a couple of weeks of drying the piece between to thick pieces of wood . It didn't get a lot of air flow, so it took longer to dry, but I really didn't want it to curl. So, I have learned to allow 2-3 weeks for drying before I fire it the first time, then I have been able to keep a piece flat.

Square Pottery Candy Dish

I just love how this dish turned out. I had all these ideas swirling around in my head that I wanted to try and I tried several of them out on this dish that I hand built.

First off, I slab rolled out my clay. Then I used a ruler to make a square template on newspaper and then cut that out of the slabbed clay. I did not use a mold with this one. I used slip and scoured my corners to join them and then made a small coil that I put inside each edge that I smoothed in to place.

After I finished making the body of the dish, I used the tip of a fettling knife to create the detail inside. Once that was finished, I made the feet, which I did my rolling balls and flattening them on both sides, then using a sculpting too I carved out the details that make it look like bottle caps. I put those in place by souring and using slip between the feet and the dish, the smoothed edges together.

Next was the detail on the outside with the coils. I made those to help fill in and strengthen the joined edges of the dishes.

Finally, the glaze. I really wanted to see the knife detailing I did inside so there is only a clear glaze on the inside sides. On the bottom I used a sandstone glaze with clear glaze over top and on the outside I did a dark blue glaze. This piece for me was more about the details I put in the clay rather than the design of the glaze.

Stegosaurus Pottery Wall Art

I was so pleased with how this turned out. I made it for my son's "big boy" room. And as a dinosaur lover, I wanted to add nice wall decor and art to his room. I know he may outgrow his love of dinosaurs, but hopefully this is something he wants to keep because of the nice quality of a hand built pottery piece and because his mom lovingly made it for him. :)

To start out with I drew out my stegosaurus on newpaper so that I had a template that I could make changes on and get exactly the way I wanted. I then slab rolled out my clay and carved out my stegosaurus. The drying took a while because it was sandwiches between 2 thick pieces of pressed wood, but I wanted to make sure it stayed flat and thankfully it did.

As you can see I added in holes as part of the art design, but this was also meant to be functional as well.Pottery can be quite heavy and I didn't want this to fall off the wall, so I made holes in places so that I could easily hang it from screws that were anchored in to the wall.

Pottery Pendant Necklaces

I made these pottery pendant necklaces for myself, 3 girlfriends and my daughter. I started making a piece of jewelry for our annual girls weekend over 4 years ago. I just booked our weekend for this spring yesterday and we are all very excited. So, these are the necklaces I presented them last spring that I am finally getting around to share with my readers. My daughter doesn't come on these weekends, but when she saw the design I had drawn out she asked if I would make her one too.

To make them I simply made a coil that I shaped in to an oval and blended the ends together. Then I made a small clay ball, and for lack of a better term, I smushed it down to flatten it slightly and then scored the bottom and added some slip and smoothed the backside to ensure it stayed joined.

As far as glazing goes, I tend to make us items that all are similar, but personalize it in some way. This time I did glazes in the center ball that most closely resembled birthstone colors.

I strung them together with a faux leather cording and wooden beads. I chose this look because we were on an outdoorsy/active weekend to Eagle Bluff in Lanesboro, MN for that year.

Apparently I never pinned my first set, which was coordinating beaded earrings using all 4 of our birthstone colors. The next year I made these Pottery Pendant Earrings.  The 3rd year I made Hemp and Pearl Bracelets like in the link (apparently I didn't take a picture & make a post of this one either.) And this necklace was our fourth year.

Now, we are on our 5th annual girls weekend and I need to start thinking about what I am going to make us. I have done 2 sets of earrings, a bracelet, a necklace. What should be next? Hmmmmm....

Anyways, check out and follow my Handmade Jewelry Board on pinterest. See some of the things I am inspired to make and other jewelry I have made.

Small Pottery Trays

Here are just a few small pottery trays I have made in the last year.....I have actually made several more than this. Some of them I made specifically for someone, but in other cases I use these trays (about the size of a butter dish) as a way to try out glaze combinations or texture techniques and if they turn out I have an actual piece I can give someone rather than just testing out on flat pieces. So, at Christmas this year, several of my daughter's teachers received small trays (not an of these pictured) with candy on them.

Pottery Dinosaur and Butterfly Ornaments

These are ornaments I made for my children (they each have their own little Christmas trees), a niece and nephew and our own tree. I had been making a lot of pottery items and pottery is the one thing I do that no one else in my family does, so it's something I can make for them that they can't make for themselves. I started an ornament collection for my children from their first Christmas and gave them small (we're talking about 2.5'-3' tall) artificial trees and each year they get a new ornament from St. Nick but we also add to that collection some homemade ornaments. I also wanted them to have a keepsake ornament that their mom/aunt made. Plus, making ornaments are a easy way that uses a small amount of clay to test how some glazes work together.

I made these by slab rolling out clay and using cookie cutters. Simple to make and a big impact on the tree and their memories. I really how using a small piece of thick ribbon added to the luxuriousness of the ornament.

Pottery Scrubbie Holder

I made this for my mom last year for Christmas. She had requested a pottery scrubbing holder that allowed for her scrubbie to drain out water and not sit in it's own water. So, this is what I made up with.

I modeled it after this Slab Rolled Mug with bottons I had previously made, but left off the handles and added drainage holes and some feet to the bottom. I think it turned out pretty nice. I made the scrubbies I included as well.

DIY Pottery Nativity

I am SOOOOO pleased with how this turned out. After last Christmas, I knew I wanted to make a small nativity scene for our cabin. We have 2 different nativity scenes with stables for our home (one is quite large and was made by my great grandpa) but I wanted something at our cabin as well.

Joseph in this display is only about 6 inches tall and about 4 1/2 inches wide.

I started out by slab rolling out some clay. I cut out my Joseph body first (I did it free hand) and then shaped it. I set it aside nearby so that I could use it to figure out my Mary size. I allowed the body pieces to harden a bit before I attached the heads (which are just rounded balls).

To make Mary, I cut a section of clay to the height I wanted her body to be, then I turned the clay in a circle to find out how much I needed to make the size around I need and then cut it while laying flat. While it lay flat, I fut the slanted side. I cut a circle that I would mold in to the bottom circle body that would be her lap.

I started out with a round flattened piece of clay for baby Jesus and placed the circle head about a 1/2 inch inside the circle, then I just shaped the clay up and around the head to look like swaddled blankets.

Finally, I attached the ball heads on the other 2 pieces.

When it came time to glaze the pieces, the colors I used were Navy Blue and Firebrick Red (they are currently 2 of my favorite glazes we have at the Art Center; I am also very fond of Metallic Green.)

Heart Pinch Pots

Pinch pots are a fun way to make pottery without having a wheel or slabbing out the clay.

I made these heart pinch pot containers for my kids as a little present for them to put coins or trinkets in on top of their dressers.

To make a pinch pot you start out with a ball of clay and start by pressing your thumb in the center. You have now started your pot. Continue to press and pinch your thumb in to the clay and against the sides until you have created the size and thickness of a pot you want. Next you can continue you to shape it how you desire.

I flattened the bottom of my pot my pressing the bottom of it on the table. Then I began shaping the tops of the heart and pinching in clay to make the crevice at the top. Finally I pinched at the bottom to shape the point at the bottom of the heart.

The colors of he glaze I used was Navy Blue and Firebrick Red.

You can easily use air dry clay to make pinch pots and then paint with your own acrylic paints and use and acrylic glaze if you want it to have a shiny look.

Pottery Leaf Tea Cozy

I am so in love with these tea cozies. They aren't for me :( But I may just have to make some for me. I made these for a gift with a matching tea box. I made these by slab rolling out my clay and putting in a maple leaf print. Then I shaped the piece so that it was not longer flag and was curved in the center to place a spoon and tea bag and also have the edges curve down. I also cut out and shaped around the edges of the piece so that it was just a leaf.