Show~n~Tell

Ceramics have become a major hobby for me in the last year so I thought I'd share them with you. People ask me all the time if I would sell stuff, but I am NOT that confident in them at all. I mostly do them for myself and/or our home. This is just another collection to add to all my other collections in my house:)!! I collect anything with pugs just about, Thomes Kinkade puzzles, trip puzzles, 7 dwarfs, angels, and now Victorian dolls with fall colors. Unbelievably though I actually started ceramics when I was in middle school and that is what I started this post with. Enjoy:)!





Never got around to naming these 2 cats! These were done when I was in Middle School in one of my art classes. I loved art/crafts even back then, but now it is more available to me and has become a wonderful hobby! Am pretty impressed that I did this well with it back then though. There are flaws, but I'm proud of it!

This is a vase I actually made and painted in 8th grade I think. The colors changed once it was fired. It was suppose to be white with red and blue spots on it, but as you can see that's not what I got, but my name was on the bottom of it so we knew it was mine. I was very disappointed about it back then, but now it doesn't bother me at all. I actually like orange now!






This was my first project when I went to the ceramic shop. I saw 3 of the 7 dwarfs and that got my attention! They are my favorite characters of Disney. Phillip got me my first dwarf, Sleepy, when he was in Missouri when we were engaged and he was up there for Christmas with his family that year. From then on I was hooked worse than I was before. I had gotten hooked before we started dated when my dad and Rox took all of us kids to Disney World the first time and I got to see ALL 7 dwarfs walk in singing their song and got pictures and signatures of each one! Now my guest room is full of them:)!! Needless to say I enjoyed very much doing these dwarfs to add to my room!






I am definitely a collector and once I get hooked on a certain collection I usually do not pull away from it. Although I did let go of my Pilsbury Doughboy that I use to have in my kitchen, but it did not flow with the rest of my house and unfortunately no one sells him anymore either, so I needed to move on from that collection. An old collection that I have always enjoyed and kept since before Phillip and I got together was Angels. My Living Room and guest bathroom are done in angels and I think it is so elegant and the colors go with the new Victorian style I am working towards. These angels are called Molly, Winnie, and Isie (or Isabella). They are painted in my favorite wine color and they look great in our living room.





My collections start with my Cooking Collection. I had fun with these! No these do not have names as do all my other collections! Unfortunately these didn't even get dates on them because I honestly didn't think of it before I got them fired. Do not want to refire them just for that. All these pieces were done in food safe glazes with no toxic paints. Glenda, the ceramic shop owner, will not even let me paint a napkin holder in regular paints because of the napkins getting close to your mouth. She is very safe oriented when it comes to her ceramics. Slightly less colors to choose from, but they still make beautiful ceramics in the end.



Now if any of you know me at all you also know that I LOVE PUMPKIN PIE:)!! I ask for it every year for my birthday instead of a cake. I also love my dad's ice box cheesecake with blueberries, which he makes for my birthday every year as well. My Grandma usually makes the pumpkin and yes I had 2 different type pie/cake for my birthday every year if I can help it:)!! So with that when I saw this pumpkin pie holder I had to paint it:)! It was really simple to paint and it now sits on my china cabinet. I made Roxanne a Boysenberry Pie holder at the same time and it turned out really good, but did not get any pictures of it. Will have to do that later. These were glazed and fired. That's what makes them so shiney and hard to take pictures with:)!

I thought this salt/pepper set would be perfect for my Victorian theme and boy do we love them. Phillip says they are manly cause of how big and heavy they are. It took a whole canister of salt and pepper to fill these guys up and once I did that Phillip would not use anything else. I still had my regular sized ones out and he said no give me the manly ones!! It cracked me up! That is when I finally started putting my Doughboy stuff away. We are thrilled with the change!

This series is what convenced me to change my theme in my kitchen to Victorian, which I realized later that my whole house mostly goes off of the Victorian style really. Now my kitchen will flow much better with the rest of my house, which will be really nice. Anyway, I glazed and fired these canisters and now they sit on my high shelf for decoration. I have really enjoyed them too. Part of them is painted with my favorite color, wine!






This collection below is my Easter Collection. Did not have them done in time to put out this year for Easter, but will have them next year. Have a few more Easter pieces to paint as well to add to this collection, but not sure when I'll worry about getting to them as I am working so diligently on my Victorian stuff right now, but we'll see.


Now to tell you the names of these little dudes I have to start with the chick sitting on the brown rabbit's head. His name is Nester then Howie, Chester, and Peter Cottontail. Can you believe it I actually used a common known name for one of my rabbits, but he looked so much like the image I have always had in my head for Peter Rabbit that I had to give him the name!!

This was my first big item I had done before and he almost made me not ever want to dry-brush ever again! To make the different shades of gray come out in different spots I had to go over it so many times I lost count, but it was worth it in the end! I named him Oscar! Have a lot of pride in this guy! I just think he is so adorable:)!

This is Phillip's Easter Collection. This rabbit's name is Mr. Riquettes! Don't ask me where that name came from! It just kind of popped out of my mouth and Phillip liked it:)!

This series of rabbits Phillip worked on for a good while, but had really good results! He's definitely got talent in the painting area as well. Although he does not enjoy as much as I do. Snoozer, Dangle, and Rocky are their names. I'm sure you can figure out which name goes to which rabbit:)!!






Below is my Garden Collection so far! Use to have a Daisy in this collection, but it got broken and shattered to where there was no way we could repair it. Will just have to paint a new one later on. All these pieces looked great in my flower garden when I had it. Now they decorate my porch by themselves and still look very entertaining:)!! Even the UPS man says how much he likes them when he comes!


Now these I have not antiqued as of yet so I shouldn't have a picture of them yet, but I keep forgetting that they need to be finished! They are still cute to me though. Their purpose was to hold some venus fly traps for us, but so far no one has had them at the stores yet. We check every so often. Their names are Mavis and Mathis!

Since I enjoyed my sunflowers last year I had to paint some ceramic sunflowers. Their names are Mrs. Sunburst and Sonny!

This mushroom was so cute I just had to try and paint her. Picking out colors is sometimes harder than what you think, but it was fun! I named her Penelope, she just looked like a Penelope to me:)!

Phillip and I both did a tree trunk and stump together. Phillip did the stump and I did the trunk. We had a lot of fun doing these together. We named them Trunkton and Frumpy:)!!

Walley is my ogre pot that holds my plumeria plant that a friend gave me. In a year's time I will have to transplant the plant into a bigger pot. It is much bigger now than it is in the picture, MUCH BIGGER! Has not given me a beautiful yellow flower as of yet, but gorgeous nice big leaves. It is still a young plant though.

This is my lady ogre pot named Willa. Walley had to have a partner on the porch!!

This catipillar was done by Phillip. This was his first attempt at dry-brushing and he did an excellent job of it! We named him Mr. Jeepers!






All the above would not be possible if it wasn't for these 2 pieces below! Here is my palat and brush holder. The picture really doesn't do them justice for their colors. They are orange with yellow sparks on them. I love the colors! They were glazed and fired. I haven't had any problem with anyone getting mine mixed up with their's at the ceramic shop as of yet:)!!

Of course I have plenty more ceramics than what's listed, but do not have pictures of everything as of yet. I keep forgetting to get a picture of my manger scene, which in all honesty is one of my finiest works in collections. The wisemen are my favorite cause I used matallics and those are fun to use! Also have all the figurines and such that we, Phillip and I, made for the Dyer's. And I am still working on my Victorian figurines at this point and will do a post on them alone once I am done with them!

Hope you enjoyed my little hobby:)!