Something Fun to Show You - Micaceous Clay

I had to use Google to see how to spell 'micaceous'.  I often wonder what the Google spy/advertising staff thinks of me and my weird inquiries because I often use Google to double check my spelling.

My ceramics instructor this semester brought some micaceous clay to class that she had bought in Albuquerque, NM  earlier this year. She gave me some and told me to have fun. So I made this bead. I fired it to cone 06. I applied a clear glaze and refired to cone 05.

Do you see the golden glitter flakes?  I want to see what these look like with a transparent blue or green, or even yellow and pink.

Thanks, Jackie!  I'll go in halves with you next time you visit New Mexico.

Whistle Giveaway!

 I mentioned this a few weeks ago and now have a whistle that I absolutely love and so I want someone who also absolutely loves it to have a chance to win it.

As you can see, it is quite small.  1 1/2" from tip to tip.

It has a high pitch because it is small. Click here to hear this whistle.  To see how I make these, check out my tutorial.

I am going to run this contest for two weeks and will announce the winner on April 1st.  NO FOOLING!

I'll use the random number generator at the sidebar of this page to pick a winner.  TO QUALIFY all you have to do is promote my whistle shop in some form or fashion. You can tweet it, favorite it, add me to your etsy circle, facebook like it, blog it, email a link to a friend, you decide. Just leave me a note here letting me know how you promoted it and you will be entered.  ***The more you promote and leave a comment the more chances you have to win.

A word about my whistles ... they are very fun to play with.  But they also have this built in feature that if you blow really really hard on them they make no noise at all.    Of course, a regular size blow is quite loud, but it never gets any louder than that.

Side story:  I knew a lady years ago that would take great joy in picking out her gifts for her nephews.  I got the feeling she didn't like her sister-in-law because she picked the loudest most obnoxious toys she could find. This whistle only has a small annoyance factor and probably wouldn't work for that kind of a gift.

I'm just saying ...

SO what is the link to my whistle store?    http://nkpwhistles.etsy.com

Thanks and have fun!

New From the Kiln

I took these out of the kiln this morning and even have them listed already (http://nkpbeads.etsy.com).  Look in the Sprig section if you're reading this a few days after I publish this post.

Yesterday I glazed about 10 whistles and handpainted some stamped beads so that the stamped part was a different color than the rest of the bead. It was very tedious but I was in the mood to do something tedious so it was a perfect way to spend the day. And it did take all day. I'm a slow glazer.  They are all in the kiln today and I have just turned them on high. They should finish firing in a couple of hours.

Today I unloaded the kiln and I was happy with these but I have some other beads that I'm disgusted with and I'm going to reglaze them. I've often said beads are like children, that neither can ever be ugly but I'm rethinking that. These beads are very ugly!  Ick!  That particular blue green glaze comes out shiny on one side and matte on the other and it is a dark glaze and it looks like an acrylic finish instead of a glaze finish.  I will reglaze them.  They are so ugly I can't even bear to take their photo. You'll just have to believe me. They are ugly.

I spent the better part of the morning watching how to videos from Art Jewelry Magazine on You Tube on how to make a bezel for a cabochon.  It was a 5 part series, each one about 4 minutes long. Great series!  Now I get to try it on my own. We'll see how THAT goes.  ;)

I hope whoever is reading this is having a great day!  And thanks for stopping by!

New Whistles and Studio Progress

 These all came out of the kiln this morning.  I posted each individual's photo on flickr  (click here) .  Some have two holes, some have one hole, but most are single tone whistles.

I still have about 20 more to glaze and fire.  My next batch will be a bit bigger I think. I don't know. I still may change my mind and make more of these. They are fun to make.

Yesterday I posted a photo of my empty shelves.  Today I am showing a picture of the same shelves. I bought 30 clear shoebox size containers and I filled every single one up. I actually have to go buy more! 

I still have to clean off the top shelf, but it is a good feeling to have this small part finished.  I have a lot of glazes, yes?  And I have lots of chemicals to make more glazes.  I like glazes. Can you tell?

I have one section of this shelf system full of nothing but bisque beads ready to be glazed.  I actually have some more containers to add to this shelf but one can only do so much in one day!  I hope to tackle the long wall part of my shelves today.  That will require a trip to the store to buy more containers.  My goal is to finish this reorganization project by Friday.

Dashing Along

I'm just dashing up a quick blog post to let everyone know what I've been doing.  I've been trying to organize my studio. 

If I wasn't so vain, I would post my before pictures.  Just trust me. It's awful in there.
Here is what the shelving looked like when I first built them a few years ago. Imagine them now, stuffed full of everything fun, fun but unorganized fun.  It is the type of fun that falls over if not handled correctly and trust me, that's no fun at all!

I have this great space and I have let it get way too cluttered to the point where I have to bring my projects out to the other room just to get anything done.  Enough!

A couple of weeks ago, when I went enameling at my friend's house, I fell in love with her studio. It is camera ready, and by that I mean a television studio could walk in and film her and they wouldn't have to straighten anything up to get a good shot.  I may never have a 'camera ready' studio, but I could definitely organize things into a great fun space to work that is also a bit decorative, that I actually have space in which to move around.

In the meantime, I do have a small kiln load of 18 whistles firing today outside.  I have two trimmed mugs with handles attached drying. I will take them to the college on Saturday to be bisque fired.  I have beads set out to start taking pictures tomorrow.  I have metal forming tools burning a hole in my studio dying to be used.  First things first though ....

Thanks for stopping by!

More Porcelain Cups and Mugs

Yesterday I blogged about my latest teacup. I thought I would share some of the others I threw on the wheel that day. 

I have 4 more taller mugs/tumblers that I will be trimming and attaching handles to today.  I tend to have a higher output if I throw one day and trim and decorate the next.  When I shove it all into the same day I end up getting hurried and thinking I have to finish.  Then I end up ruining something that could have ended up quite pretty.

I will be throwing small teapot bodies today.  Tomorrow I will try putting spouts, handles, and lids on them.  If I am successful, I will share some pics. If not, I'll reconstitute the clay for another day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Porcelain Cups and Mugs

Yesterday I sat down and threw shapes for mugs and cups. I ended up with a few of each by the time all the trimming and handles were applied.

I decided to play with the outside of this cup a bit, punching it with a homemade oval stamp and a few sprigs as well.

I have a lot of porcelain that I want to use up, and the fastest way to do that is to get on my pottery wheel and throw throw throw.

So that is what I'm trying to do this week, concentrate on getting a few things thrown.

Enameling We Will Go ...

 I threw out a tease on my NKPDESIGNS Facebook Fanpage Saturday about how I had spent all day learning how to enamel in my friend's garage.  I had promised some pictures and so here they are.

My friend had recently been bitten by the enameling bug and when she offered to show me how to do it, of course I jumped at the chance.

I should have taken some pictures of the beginning of the process, but I forgot my camera (much the same way I forget which part of the house I leave my coffee cup sitting).

The process starts with cutting a piece of copper into a shape.  Next I filed the edges. I thought that would be tedious and awful, but it wasn't.

After the edges were smooth, I used a hammer and dapped on each piece a bit to raise the edges into a small curl and drilled a hole.

My friend had this cute little machine that screwed down into the copper and cut a clean hole that didn't need filing.  The next step was to put it into a pickling solution to clean it.  Then we applied the enamel with a nifty little sifter and turned on the flame.  She had trivets and we were able to enamel both sides of each piece.

Remember when we were kids and we would put glue on a piece of paper and then cover the paper with glitter, and then we would shake off the glitter and the glitter would stick to all the places the glue had been applied? 

Yeah, that's what we did here except we did it with a stamp and special stamping solution.  I forget what it is called (scratching my head). 

We also applied a transparent green into the corner and fired it. All the firing was done with a simple torch with MAPP gas.  My favorite enamel was a simple transparent clear and that's how I did most of the pieces.   This was such a fun afternoon. It was like taking a workshop.  I got there about 10:30 am and left around 5:30 pm.  Yesterday I spent the day shopping on the internet for all sorts of dapping and riveting tools. I've been wanting to play around with cold connections for a while and this enameling process is the perfect stepping stone to doing that.

Marbled Whistles

I made these last night and am waiting for them to dry enough to bisque fire them.

If you haven't checked out my whistle shop on Etsy, have a look: click here

I'm adding one whistle a day and each listing includes a link to listen to each whistle's individual sound.

My daughter is nearing the end of her pregnancy and soon I am going to be a grandma. I am more excited about this than I can put into words.

My daughter is having a little girl and that means eventually she will want jewelry, lots and lots of jewelry, and pretty things.  Of course she will have her pick of whistles.


I can't wait for her to get old enough to want to make pretty things, too.

Windshied Car Glass Imbedded in Porcelain

This is a sample of the latest batch! I have more to still fire. I think I may have glazed the next batch with a pale pink. Yes, I will be making more of these. The experiment I did with the longest bead worked like I thought it would; the glass dripped downward and formed a small drop.

These were fired at about 1885 F degrees and the windshield glass still retained its wonderful pale green color.

Second Trumpet Whistle

This is one of the ideas I had about how to make the extension finger holes more ergonomic.

I bisque fired some of the whistles I made earlier this week last night. The little Trumpet Whistle in the last post made it in there. I am going to try to glaze enough for a firing this weekend.

Clay is very drying and I had no idea that making so many whistles would suck all the moisture out of my lips. When I make beads, I use lots of lotion on my hands, but I think I will have to stock up on some chap-stick next time I decide to make these fun musical toys.

Trumpet Whistle

I've been making whistles all week and playing with making additional holes. I had put the clay up for the day yesterday and I had an idea.  What if I made one big hole and then attached another piece of clay with three differently sized holes. Would it make a fun sound?  Would it make a sound?

Well, it did! It made a most marvelous sound(s).  This prototype has opened up possibilities in my mind that are so exciting.

I started thinking of different ways to arrange the three hole attachment to make it more holdable.  I'll be playing around with this idea a bit more.

I've moved five more of my whistles from my NKPBEADS store to my new NKPWHISTLES store.  I also dropped the price. When I started making whistles, each one took a long time. I've gotten to where I understand the process much better and I can make them in about half the time it used to take. So I'm dropping the price accordingly.  I'm hoping that making them more affordable will make them more desirable.

Thanks for dropping by!

Announcing the Grand Opening of NKP Whistle Etsy Store

I decided to open up an Etsy store just for the ceramic whistles.

I had been putting these whistles into my bead or pottery store, depending upon whether they could be strung as jewelry or not.

When I first started making these whistles, they were very difficult.  It took me an absurd amount of time to construct one.  I'm getting better at it now and it doesn't take nearly as long.

On each whistle in my shop, I will have a link provided to listen to its sound.

I also am planning on having a giveaway on a couple of whistles the next few weeks, so come back for that.  I have a demo on my website how I create these whistles. Here is the link:  http://nkpdesigns.com/ceramicclaywhistlebeaddemo.html

Hear how it sounds:
http://nkpdesigns.com/whistlewavs/92523108.m4a

Here is my whistle store link:  http://nkpwhistles.etsy.com

I plan on adding two, three, and four tone whistles over the next few weeks. Right now I'm trying to add in a variety of things.  You can still find whistles in my two etsy shops, but I will eventually transfer them to the NKPwhistles shop.  And I still need to hang a little etsy mini for these on this blog.

I first started making ceramic whistles after seeing a video on making these from a video I obtained through my pottery guild. I was fascinated by the process. Then I ran across a book called, "From Mud to Music" and I bought it.  That book is so much fun!  Eventually I'd like to make other mud instruments as well, for now I'll just content myself with creating more whistles.

These are some whistles I fashioned last week.  A couple of them are two tone whistles, meaning they have one hole that can be covered by a finger.  I still need to bisque and glaze fire them.

Glass Glass Beautiful Glass Embedded in Clay

This is a white stoneware clay in which I embedded car windshield glass.  It was an idea I had several years ago but I never followed through with the idea.

Car windshield glass is a type of safety glass so it can be handled without shredding your skin.  It also crumbles apart nicely into smaller bits and pieces.

I originally had a ton of this glass several years ago after our car was mutilated in the middle of the night. They took the stereo but left some beautiful glass that I thought I would eventually use. 

After a couple of years I had not done much with it and I tossed it away during one of my studio cleans. Buh Bye

A few weeks ago I ran across this bead in a bowl full of beads waiting to be glazed. It is made from a terra cotta stoneware clay. I decided to glaze it with a transparent green glaze.  After it was fired and off the rod, I kicked myself until I was black and blue! What had I done? What!? Had!? I!? Done!?

I began asking friends to look around and scoop up any broken windshield glass that they might come across in their travels. I flirted with the idea of parking my car on the street instead of the driveway so that perhaps some kind thug might whack away at my windows whilst we were asleep. 

BUT I realized I could go to the car windshield fix-it shop and plead for some broken glass. The only question I was asked was, "Do you want regular or tempered?"

What he did was empty out his vacuum cleaner and not only did I score some free glass, but 55 cents in change and a bobby pin too!

Here They Are

I spent Saturday night separating my batch of beads (see last post) into sets. These are not all of them, but represent the entire batch quite well. When I had a lot of 'orphan' beads, I glazed them all the same color, even if they were from different clay bodies. So here they are ...