Merry Christmas to My Blog Readers

I was going to post a photo of the beads I am going to give away and then I thought, "Where's the surprise in THAT?" ... and then I realized that the last day before shipping would arrive for Christmas was yesterday.

Oh well .... (Shrug!) ... we are all busy busy busy this time of year so I'm going to give myself a break.  However,  I still want to share some Christmas fun with y'all!


SO ... leave a comment on this blog with a link to one of your favorite blogs (your gift to me) and I'll randomly choose a name and send that lucky winner some of my handmade ceramic beads worth $20. This contest is open through January 1, 2011 and the winner will be announced on this blog January 2, 2011, so write yourself a note and check back.

Show Beads

These are just some of the beads I will be bringing to the 2010 Open House and Christmas Sale show this weekend.  I have some loose beads that I am bringing as well as the Heart and Soul mugs I have been making. To see photos of those, jump over to my flickr page.

I am also bringing whistles, whistles that are in fancy boxes, some that are in porcelain eggs, others in little pinch pots I have made, and some that are free-hanging. I am bringing about 30 whistles in total. I haven't checked the exact figure as of yet.

I will probably bring a few pots as well. If you want more info about the show, all you need to know can be found here: click here

This is the last show I'll be doing this year. I did more shows this year than I have in years past, and enjoyed doing them very much. It is nice to meet customers, although selling online affords lots of chances to get to know customers too.

I have to say that all of my customers have been incredible to get to know, whether online or in person. It means a lot to an artist to have somebody like my work enough to say, "I want that for my very own!" Many times I make something and I am the only one who likes it. It is great though because that means I get to keep and look at it for a long time. However, eventually someone else likes it, usually about the time I'm ready to stop looking at it and look at something else. That's a good thing!

Right now in my pottery etsy store I have marked down quite a bit of merchandise to $10 and under. After December I am going to put them back to their regular prices. With this economy, especially during Christmas, I want people to own a bit of handmade, affordably! These are not pottery which I am ashamed of or do not like, these are items I felt would make great gifts.

I have quite a bit in the $20 and under category too. Go take a look if you have time.

Etsy Catalog

I feel like Oprah when I sing out, "NOW EVERYONE CAN HAVE AN ETSYYYYYYYYYYYY CATALOOOOOOOOOOOOG!"

So how cool is this?  Go to http://etsycatalog.com and set yours up today. It looks like you can add up to 100 listings.  Maybe more can be added, I don't know. It seems like it is set to about 100. You can choose in which order each item comes in, you can exclude listings, you can choose which photo(s) are included AND you can edit what the listing describes.  So if you have links inside your listing (like "Click here to visit the rest of my store http://nkpbeads.etsy.com", it is easily taken out of your catalog.

I am going to be doing a show next week and I'm going to be playing with this option. The expensive part will be printing it out, so I may only do one for my whistles.  Or focal beads. I'm not sure exactly.  It will be great to show my physical presence because after they flip through the catalog and have my business card, it will be a natural progression to my website.

Brown Sprig Beads with Beadcaps

This also is a simple sprig leaf design with a simple brown glaze.  This rich neutral color will enhance any jewelry design.

It was a bright sunshiny day and so I did not bother with lights as I took these pictures which have appeared in my blog this last week. 

In case anyone was wondering about the location, they are on top of the kiln, outside in the shade of my porch.

The sun is so shiny that I did not need a flash.  Even in the shade. 

Victorian or Venetian Red?

I have been doing a lot of serious whinning about Venetian Red being discontinued by Mayco and the othr day when I was glazing these I looked at the jar and lo and behold the glaze is actually named "VICTORIAN RED".

My bad ...

I regret I did not apply a black underglaze to these before applying the newly discontinued VICTORIAN red Mayco glaze.

Next time ...