Pottery News

I couldn’t be any more excited—I will soon be in a new pottery studio!  And quite literally new…it isn’t even completely renovated yet!  I met up with the lovely potters that I’ll be sharing it with a couple days ago and chatted about the plans for the studio.  If everything goes well, I’ll be throwing again in a week!  This has sent me into full-on pottery mode, researching glaze recipes and plotting ideas for a new line.  I was admiring some microcrystalline glazed pieces, and this one absolutely stunned me with its beauty! 

The potter, as mentioned in the photo, is Bill Campbell and apparently a crystalline glaze wizard.  It’s not an easy glaze to master!  Another fabulous potter in a similar vein is John Tilton.  He has some incredible crystalline pieces that I would love to steal, er, buy.

I’ll post some pictures of the studio as we get set up and keep you updated on any upcoming pieces.  We won’t be firing any work until around the end of February once we’ve gotten the kiln room ready to go.  I guess it’ll be a while, but I just couldn’t help but throw (pun intended!) it out there. 

Happy Anniversary!



Silver Stack Necklace



Vintage Snakeskin Button Ring



Baby Brass Locket with Pearl



I can’t believe it!  It’s come so quickly!  Yes, it’s my much anticipated three-month anniversary together with Etsy.  In that short period I’ve become very much infatuated with Etsy.  It’s so addictive.  There are just too many amazing artists/designers/crafters out there in the world!  Aside from drooling over a million incredible pieces, I have learnt a thing or two in my time as an Etsy fanatic.  For those other Etsy sellers who perhaps haven’t had the time to do much research (i.e., farting around on blog after blog), I thought I’d write up a little summary of the greatest tips for productive Etsy usage I’ve found thus far.  If you’re not an Etsy seller, skip the rest of this and head over to my Etsy shop—I’ve posted six new items! 

                         

• Put those Google Analytics everybody talks about to use!  You can access them by going to “Your Etsy,” options, and clicking on the Web Analytics tab.  It’s so exciting to see where your views are coming from, etc., and it can be a great pick-me-up if you’re feeling like nobody is really out there.  They are! 
• After signing up for Google Analytics, you can then benefit from using Craftopolis.  It helps you keep track of who’s hearting your shop amongst other useful data such as what tags you’re using are the most effective when people are digging around.
• Speaking of tags, make sure you’re using all of them!  Even if your brain starts hurting for lack of additional descriptive keywords—use your location, write in different languages, anything.  Just don’t let them go to waste!
• Take advantage of the Treasury feature!  I sure do, and I love it a little bit too much.   It’s so wonderful to support other Etsians, and I know when I’m included in one it brightens my [dark, Scottish] day!
• Teams.  Join them.  Participate in them.  It’s fun as well as informative! 
• SEO.  It sounds big and scary, yeah?  It is.  Search engine optimisation is a deep pool of secrets…and lies.  Too theatrical?  Hardly.  Maybe a touch.  But here’s something you can do:  be very precise and deliberate when writing your product titles then reiterate the same words in the first sentence of your item description as well as in your tags (more tag ideas!).  The mystical search engines like it and will like you more for doing it. 
• Did you know that you can insert hyperlinks to other Etsy pages?  This is great for your item descriptions where you can refer your customers to other items that they may like in relation to the current product page.  It’s especially awesome if your shop is massive (not mine just yet!).  If you have multiple shops or want to help advertise a buddy, you could place the link(s) in your shop announcement!  It’s easy…simply type in the URL—that’s all!

I hope that this proves useful!  And, in case you were wondering, cheeky things, Etsy and I are going to celebrate with a nice snuggle on the couch this evening.  Maybe order some Indian from that fab takeaway place.  Nothing fancy…  

Just living life on the edge. Making treasuries…

above are a few pieces in my new Etsy treasury

I just finished my Winter Whiteout Etsy treasury featuring only British sellers!  Not that I don’t want to feature sellers from all over the world, but I feel like Americans are getting most of the attention, and it’s just not fair!  I whine because I am one, and we all know we’re good at whining.  I’m just trying to support my new community having moved to the UK seven weeks ago and finding everyone very friendly. 

My kitchen on the other hand is proving itself a little dangerous.  I managed to singe my arm hairs.  Yes, I’m a lady, and I have body hair.  Moving past that, I’m thinking my New Year’s resolution should have been to work out because it was my scrawny arms that caused my near death experience.  Near death of arm hair anyway—only the stubs remain like a freshly logged forest. 

It was necessary that I move a pot of boiling water over to a different burner as I only have the one large front burner and needed to use it for cooking my sauce.  Having underestimated my strength to execute this seemingly simple maneuver quickly, my arm was exposed to the heat from the front burner for a bit too long, and I smelt something burning.

I glanced down curiously to see that my arm hair was coiled back on itself, burnt.  This might be the first time in a while that I am actually thankful it’s winter.  Long sleeves for me!  It’s a jungle out there.  Take care, everyone.  Take care.

Soup and Squirrels. Not Squirrel Soup.

I was cooking in my kitchen and staring at the cute squirrel couple frolicking in the back garden when I realised I’d yet to share any of my “last night’s dinners.”  The squirrels are completely irrelevant.  Cute.  But irrelevant.  Of course, one could argue that cute is always relevant, but...

So, I’d like to kick start my “Food from Thought” series with a nice soup recipe.  Well, I will be posting more guidelines than recipes.  I improvise all of my dishes and don’t measure anything when I cook—it takes the fun out of it!  I will just list ingredients with some instruction, so it’s completely customisable.  I made this soup a couple of days ago as a starter, and it has a creamy texture with a slight sweetness.  It’s very light, so I wouldn’t recommend it as a hearty dinner soup.  It would pair nicely with a sandwich for lunch though.  Not many ingredients, so it’s easy on the old budget!  Check out said guidelines by clicking here or on the Food from Thought link on the side of this page.  Bon App'! 

Sneaky Peek

Here’s a little preview of what is coming soon to an Etsy page near you.  Really it’s just my Etsy page.  So grab some popcorn and hang tight.  Or not.   You can just go about your business.  I’ll be adding more pieces in a day or two.  Exciting things…

2011 sounds weird…

Happy New Year! :)  There’s something nice about starting off a brand new year.  You feel like anything’s possible.  That thing you couldn’t seem to do all of last year—you can do it now.  Because it’s a new year.  And that’s how it works. 

I wish everyone all the best in 2011!