As part of Martin’s SURPRISE PARTY, I invited the other two Chicago contestants to join our party! So Sarah Chang & Nirali Chauhan both joined us for the festivities & to celebrate Martin’s big win!!! A fun surprise for Martin… and so “cute” to see how they’ve so quickly become BEST FRIENDS after surviving their time together “under the tent” for THE GREAT AMERICAN BAKING SHOW! Crazy that the three of them are from Chicago… now best friends, but would never have met each other if it weren’t for the show!!!

My contribution to the potluck party was “inspired” by Martin’s love of CORN!!! Since he used corn as a main ingredient in a couple of his bakes, I thought it was only fitting to make Cornbread Cupcakes with Cream Corn Buttercream Frosting! Sure, they might not of been the tastiest of treats… but I think I got huge bonus points for following the corny theme!!!

Oh, the pressure… how do you throw a party and make snacks to celebrate a TOP BAKER?!

Sure, our treats might be tasty… but nowhere near the fancy delicacies that Martin could make! But we tried our best… lots of treats… some “inspired” by the final four contestants of the show!

So… with Martin as the BIG WINNER of The Great American Baking Show… we had to throw a big party, right? So our final class of the Spring pottery session was a full-on potluck party celebration of Martin & all-things Baking Show! And what’s a party without a bunch of signs all over the place?! Some to celebrate Martin, and others to embarrass Martin!!!

Last night in pottery class we had another version of our favorite OREOs… gluten-free! So they tasted a little “different” and maybe a little “chalky”???… but the double amount of filling made up for it! Thanks for bringing the treats Elena!

WE LOVE DOUBLE-STUFFED!!!

So tonight’s class demo was stacked two-part vase! I threw a 4-pound bottom cylinder, and then another 4-pound top cylinder that was bottomless. After they set-up a bit, I scored & slipped them & attached the two halves. Smoothed out the connection seam… then tried to smooth it out & reshape it into a nice, tall vase shape.

As I told my class, I would have liked to have the clay set-up a lot longer. But for class demo timing, we decided to go for it even though we all knew the clay was far to wet to hold up. So when the bottom section started to squish as we knew it would, we decided to cut it in half to see how thick the walls were. And I think it looks pretty good… nice thin & even walls… but you can clearly see how wet & squishy the clay was! We all knew it should have set-up more… but sometimes it’s fun to show a “fail” demo too!!!

So fun to watch one of your students “find their voice” & develop their own style in your class. Kristen has truly blossomed in her surface decoration skills. I let her borrow a few of my newest DiamondCore Tools and look what she did with them! Great details with great tools! Looks like Kristen might need to start expanding her tool collection with some more DiamondCore Tools of her own!!!

So not only did we have “imported” OREO’s in class… we also had beautiful little OREO BOWLS for our mint OREO’s!!! One of my students made these cute little bowls with underglaze transfer patterns that were perfect for a single serving of OREO’s… or, you could refill it as many times as needed!!! Thanks for sharing your bowls Darcy!

In my Intermediate Wheelthrowing class we had a CRAZY NIGHT OF OREO’s!!! It started with a collection of Chinese OREO’s…. brought in by Catherine! As with most non-American OREOs, they were a bit drier, chalkier(?) & not quite as sweet. So we had some kind of plain yogurt OREOs, mango cream OREOs, cherry blossom OREOs & peach with oolong tea OREO’s.

Let’s not get crazy… we also had American Mint OREO’s to wash them all down!!!

After they knocked out the lidded jar project, I knew they would be up for an even bigger & better challenge! So I pulled out the blindfolds (and towels?) and I challenged Summer Campers last week to wheelthrowing while blindfolded. I think they were a little anxious at first, but quickly realized it’s not as hard as it sounded. As long as you take it step-by-step, you realize that you can throw just my touch & muscle-memory. And they all did a GREAT job… and had so much fun that they asked if they could do it AGAIN!!!

Of course I said YES!!!