Celebrating another MUGSHOT MONDAY with a bunch of new stamped & soda-fired mugs from my latest firing. Still loving all of the colors that came out… instead of the frequent grays & browns of a soda kiln!

Kicking off a beautiful Spring morning with a vase full of aromatic lilac blooms.
Such a shame that these beauties are so short-lived… as are most Spring flowers!

Celebrating another Mugshot Monday with some of my newest “hybrid mugs” fresh from my recent soda firing. Hard to believe that art fair season starts in just over a month away… and these mugs will be coming with me!!! First up?… the Schaumburg Prairie Arts Festival in Memorial Day weekend.

Just got a little busy… and now realizing that I didn’t post many photos from my recent soda kiln! So here are a few more photos of the front stack before I started to unload everything. It’s always like Christmas opening the door to reveal all of the presents inside!

Unloaded my soda kiln yesterday. The anticipation & surprise of opening a kiln never gets old. Such a treat. And I always love to see some bright colors… proving that soda-fired pots don’t always need to be gray or brown!!!

Gotta love when you pull the kiln door away… and it reveals a lot of “soda-shiny” & colorful pots!!!
Big sigh of relief to see beautiful pots… another successful soda firing!

After about three hours last night, I finally had my pots carefully stacked in the kiln. Trying hard to get as many pots squeezed in… while not packing it too tight. There needs to be some “space” between the pots for the soda atmosphere to work its way through to “glaze” the pots with soda build-up.

Last night I was greeted with an empty kiln… full of possibilities…
ready to be filled with pots for another soda firing!

Wondering what to put on your new wall sconce-shelfy-thing?
Looks like Beth figured it out… “Put a bird on it.”

Continuing the celebration of NATIONAL TILE DAY today!!! With another post… this time showing a commission piece I made for Diane & Jim over the past couple months. They brought in a cool wood-carved wall piece they had purchased during a vacation. They decided to augment it with some of my handmade tiles in the form of a ClayQuilt. We discussed some options… and we landed on this triptych design. With my pieces flanking their wood piece for a little more emphasis on their dining room wall. Along with their commissioned tiles… I also made a few “custom” tiles with some initials & significant dates “hidden” amongst the textures!!