The NorthWesternBelle

Buy this vase now on Etsy . Welcome! This little vase is too beautiful not to share. It is the first one in my Sea Life series that got a straight glaze dip for decoration, and I gotta say; it slays. This was the first Sea Life piece that got a straight glaze dip for decoration. Since then (early 2019), I've dipped a few more Sea Life pieces in this particular glaze simply because it is so perfect. It's called Spearmint, and it is made by local pottery genius and my friend, Clay Liston. Yes, his name really is Clay, and he's been doing pottery for 30+ years. He makes amazing pots and even more amazing mid-fire glazes in Utah. Check him out on Instagram @claliston . Anyway, Spearmint is particularly perfect for my Sea Life pieces because it pools blue where it is thick and stays a lovely translucent green where it is thinner. The green is reminiscent of a cone 10 Celedon, except there is much more depth and variety in this particular mid-fire glaze than ...

This post has been a long time coming, considering this project was accepted in November and finished in December 2017. Better late than never, right? Right. (Edit 3/16/18: I did make a couple of videos about this project! Check them out here: Part 1 & Part 2 .) Spoiler! They're awesome. So, pretty much as soon as I lost my job at the end of October, my mother in law commissioned 30 mugs - 10 cat themed and 20 dog themed - to be Christmas gifts for her pet sitting clients. I'd never taken on such a large project, but I had the time to do it, so I was excited! And also seriously nervous about getting that many mugs through the entire process with enough time to ship them to NM before Christmas. To-be cat mugs. Dog mugs. The dog mugs were thrown to be 4" tall and 4" wide. The handles were all hand-pulled. Right about midway through production of all the cups, the studio hired me as a part-time office assistant. I went from spending two and a ...

Hand-drawn mandala designs are my favorite way to decorate clay Hey, y'all! My first batch of mandala plates came out of the kiln last week, and I am so pleased with them. There were seven dishes and two ring cones in this latest batch, and they are all for sale! As of the original publishing of this post (Feb 2018), I haven't listed them on Etsy yet, but that'll happen soon. So, if you want to scoop one or more of  these beauties up for $18 a piece* beforehand (free domestic shipping!), details about ordering are at the end of this post. Rings not included. Blue #1: *This one is $15, due to the lack of mandala design Blue #2 Blue #3, deeper than the other two. The Celedon blue turned out really well on all three of these dishes this go round. It has been very thin lately, so I was careful to get two solid coats on, and well into those carving lines. Clear #1 Clear #2 Simple clear glaze never fails to disappoint on these hand-carved mandala...