Making a pottery Daisy – Miniature Roses In a Vase on Monday

My garden is looking a bit bashed about at the moment – it’s either been hurling down with rain or it’s been sunny but very windy. I’ve been tidying in the garden and planting Spring bulbs (go big or go home).   There’s plenty of Autumn colour around the garden – with the leaves turning too.   Life has been very hectic recently – I feel like I’ve been doing 27 things at once and not achieving much.   But there’s been some good times too.  Last week, I went on a pottery course to ‘hand building a clay ornament’ held at Create Bolton (in Lancashire).  I’d been to a few fundraising events there as a pal works for them, and knew their work well.  So I was very pleased to see something I could manage with my arthritic hands.  I don’t think I could make pottery using a wheel as the water would make my hands too cold and make my arthritis pain worse. 

Pottery – Handbuilding a daisy style flower

Regular readers of my blog, will NOT BE surprised to hear I decided to make two flowers 🙂 for the garden I’m not going to go into great detail here how to make them, as there’s youtube videos and Pinterest.  But I thought I’d show you a few photos of the initial work I’ve done.

Instructions

1. 1. Draw a paper template and pick out the lines where to cut with a needle tool – you do dots that you join up – either to mark the decorations or cut away the clay.
   2.  cut and shape the clay, wipe with sponges to get smooth edges.
   3. Mark out the internal decorations and use a scraper to ‘clean’ the lines
   4. I cut out extra decorations for the leaves and added these with slip (which is like clay glue) and hashes on both sides
   5. Next step – my flowers dry out for a couple of weeks – then they’re fired in the kiln
   6. Then we go back to glaze and allowed to dry
   7. the flowers are fired again – and I collect to take home – they’ll be on big metal poles in the back garden next year.

Note: It’s very important not to get any air/bubbles  in the pottery as this will cause the clay to crack when it’s fired.

Fingers crossed they survive 🙂 I’ll show you the result in a few weeks 🙂

clay flower paper template

clay flower just about to score out and clean the petals and centre

As you can see it’s going to be a big, abstract daisy flower – I made two.  I’m already thinking about what colours to choose for my flowers.

If you’re local to Manchester have a look at the courses – painting, creative writing, lampshade making 🙂 and look out for their events around Christmas.  They also run 6 week beginners pottery classes – one of my pals from Cottonopolis has signed up – she makes fimo jewellery already.

• Create Bolton

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My fellow learner at the course made a penguin for the garden (a round one using a balloon as a base). He’s very cute.  I’m looking forward to seeing how he turns out.  A couple of years ago, I did some pottery painting using glass paints at local pottery cafe in Chorlton, Manchester.  It was very relaxing.  I’m not an artist so the hardest thing was choosing a design which I could do easily.  Hardly a surprise as lavender is my favourite flower.

Purple painted pottery fired – at Pottery Corner Chorlton Manchester

I went with my pals from Cottonopolis WI to do pottery painting. It was great fun – we used glass paints as they’re easy to use and have strong colours. The owner of the pottery cafe paints a clear glaze and fires the pots and you get to take them home a few weeks later.

• Purple Jug and vase – Pottery Painting Cafe  – October 2016

Red rose blue pottery pot with gone for lunch book walk book

Miniature Red Rose -In a Vase on Monday

The rose is from a miniature patio rose – it usually lives on our green bistro set – it’s a scarlet red – very jaunty.  I bought the pot at a craft fair many years ago but it seemed like the sort of thing I might be able to make one day – who knows. I don’t post roses very often in In Vase on Monday – mainly because I only have an orange rose in the front garden. It’s a stunner though – started flowering again last week.  Check out #rose

Rose – full bloom – 10 August 2015

As usual, I’m linking up with Cathy and the In a Vase on Monday crew at Rambling in the Garden. She has a stunning collection of blue flowers in a vase which could be the big brother of the one I’ve used. I promise I took the photos before looking at her post for the week.  The idea of In a Vase on Monday is very simple – it’s to pick flowers or plants around your garden or locality on a Monday.  It’s truly fascinating to see what people grow and find.  It’s not dull in the winter either.  Do join in 🙂

Micro-actions and books

I picked these books as props for my photo, as they seemed to be about small changes or activities – miniature things.

• Gone for lunch – 52 things to do in your lunch break – by Laura Archer
  This is dived into four sections – Inside, Outside, Sitting and Active – many good ideas within some need planning and some are more spontaneous.  It did make me smile as not everyone has a lunch hour but I know what Laura means – short activities 😉 
• Walk – the path to a more mindful life – by Sholto Radford

As readers will know I try my best to get outside into the fresh air every day #OneHourOutside It helps me be more mindful, concentrate on ‘being in the moment’. I’m going to review both these books in more detail shortly.   I wrote more about micro-actions last week too.

• Enjoy today – my jug is full of flowers not half empty – 11 September 2018

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Have you tried pottery? or would you like to? Or do you do other crafts? Or something completely different – my husband runs for fun.  Let me know in the comments.

Carpe Diem

love Bec xx xx xx