Missing Willow Farm

For Dominic’s fourth birthday, I made him a felt play mat featuring some of his favorite places/things.  On the left hand side is our garden and green barn, along with our pond.  At the top is a fire station and a construction site for trucks.  In the center is a neighborhood.  I couldn’t resist making one of the houses a haunted house then decided it could just be Halloween in the neighborhood as that’s his favorite time of year.  At the bottom you’ll find some of his favorite places to go.  McDonalds or ‘The Restaurant’, Target (one of my favorites, too) and Sea World.   His Mom and Dad have annual passes there.  Finally, a parking lot.  Along with the mat we gave him a bunch of Matchbox cars and tiny farm animals.  And some Star Wars vehicles.  🙂

Save

It’s always super exciting to open our kiln to see the results of what we’ve been working on for so long.  It takes us a good while to make enough to fill our kiln.  Brian does wheel work while I hand build in another room.  Once everything has dried out for a few days it gets the first bisque firing which takes a full day plus cool down time.  Then we have to glaze everything and that takes a day or two.  The final firing is a full two day process, including cool down.  For someone like me with limited patience, this can be very trying.  🙂  Here’s a sample of what we made this round.

A sampling of Brian’s bowls. I love his double glaze technique.

I’ve been goofing around with melting glass. The larger pieces are ring dishes. The smaller ones will be used in my miniature work as platters and dishes. You can purchase tiny dishes online but they’re super expensive. The smallest bowl is about the size of a dime.

I’ve been playing around with pottery stamps and my newest glaze. I love the blue highlights.

Save

Save