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 ...

Hey, y'all. I'm here to write about pottery today! If you've been following along, you know that I've got a thing for sculpting coral reefs out of clay. I'm honestly pretty obsessed for someone who has never seen a reef up close before. But if you could see my instagram feed these days you'd notice I've been looking at three things lately: Witcher memes (bc c'mon. How hot is Geralt?), coral reef structures and wild mushrooms. The coral reef collection goes back the furthest, because I have been obsessed for a while. See my first set of sea life mugs: It all started in November 2016 with the Star Fish Mug Obsessive texturing. November-December 2016: The finishing process Aaaand totally finished in January 2017 Pretty sure my sister got this one. Possibly my MIL. I got started on the second one while the Starfish Mug was being fired. I know for a fact this one went to my MIL, because she loves Sea Horses Please excuse...

If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have said that I felt rather optimistic about the future. I mean, I remember being a kid and seeing statistics about what 2020 would be like, and since then it has always been "the future" in my mind. Now, it's the present. And it's not at all what we thought it would be, is it? In a daily effort to remind myself that the key to happiness is gratitude , I am journaling more in general, and will be blogging a lot more, too. For the first time in our relationship, my hubby is making an income and starting a career that can support us, so I have a lot of time to fill with whatever the fuck I want to do. And if that sounds fantastic, you're correct, it very much is. If you've been following along, you already know what I want to do with my time. If you're new, the answer is MAKE STUFF. I literally cannot stop making stuff. My house now consists of shelving and storage, but I turned the parts I could upside down ov...

Hey, y'all. It's been a hot minute, as always. I'm terrible at this blogging thing, but it's mostly by choice because I think about writing all the time, then I don't do any actual writing. You know how it is, right? Right. I'm sure you already know that Craft & STEM shut down at the end of October 2019. It was a tough decision, but I made it and I don't regret it. I miss it terribly; my passion for making is only getting stronger, and seeing the success our pottery studio was having has bolstered me through the downfall. I'm not giving up my dreams; I'm going to be re-establishing my studio ASAP, and somewhere closer to my home in Holladay. There's no pottery here now, and the demand definitely exists, we just need to sort through the fallout of our last endeavor first. The good news is C got a job, and I'm still making pottery on the regular thanks to my amazing pottery friends. I just had my best show yet at the Clay Arts Utah Holi...

Hey, y'all. It's been a minute. The first quarter of 2019 was rough, but here we are on the other side of tax day and we're still trucking on. We'll keep at it. I've been having a lot of fun in the Mud Bakery. So much so that I forget that content is part of my job, too. My video production cycle waned over the last few months, but I'm back at it to capitalize on the Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere last Sunday, and the next five frantic weeks until the season ends. Then (let's be honest), the slow down-curve of interest until the prequel series gets serious. Whenever that may be. Admittedly, I was late to the GOT bandwagon. I didn't start watching the HBO series until Season 7 was airing, and I didn't read the first book until last month. So, still a noob, but no one is more zealous than a convert, right? Right. And I am solidly in the late convert camp when it comes to A Song of Ice & Fire and zealous as hell. Last week, the week lea...

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 ...