Custom Orders

My summer has been full of custom ceramic orders. Since it's wedding season, I have been making a number of wedding plates. I am always relieved when they come out of the kiln as expected. I opened up a load yesterday and found these three celebration plates that thankfully turned out well. The rest of the load was hit and miss.

I have a green glaze that is beautiful but runs like crazy - so that happened more than I had expected. I need to wax higher on those pieces next time. I also had a big problem with a large lot of soap dispensers that didn't shrink as much as I expected so sadly, the dispenser spouts don't fit. 12% is the typical shrink rate for the clay body that I use. I'm not sure if I mismeasured or if it's this new batch of clay that I used. *uff da* I'm hoping the people waiting for these aren't too upset.

Celebration Plates

I'm working on a series of Celebration Plates for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, etc... Here is a sample of one that I made for a wedding this summer. I'll post some other's that I have in progress when I'm finished. It's been tricky finding glazes that work well and don't hide the writing, run or crawl - and have some personality. This plate for BJ and Amy has some decorative relief work on the sides. So far, these have been well received. Getting into the custom business can be tricky with timing... We'll see how this goes!