The CCC in The Nest

You can now buy our ceramics in new shop The Nest, 19 High Street, Town Centre, Rugby, CV21 3BG.

It also houses lots of other arts, crafts and vintage products from local small businesses and artists so it's a great place for a mooch to get some unique Christmas presents.




Blue Tit made the window display!



We're right next to the counter.



And next to the lovely items from The Pip House!

Cerama-Bricks

I'm a big fan of lego, I've even used it to make mould surrounds in ceramics, and it's inspired me to make these Cerama-Bricks.



Cerama-bricks are ceramic planters that you can build in different ways to suit your planting needs.
The bricks tessellate and can be build round corners like a basic lego brick.

Great for vertical planting in small gardens or making use of wall space.



These are prototype Cerama-Bricks. I think a larger brick will be more useful for planting and I need to get the casting time right to form a strong thick wall to the bricks.

Let me know what you think.

Stoats, Snails and Quails

These are all variations of things I've made before.

I really would love to make hundreds of these little stoats and gather them all in a field or room or something. I think Antony Gormley did something similar with little figures. :)




Anyone who's read older news on this blog will know I love snails.
Here's some new variations on the snail shell mould. I like how both turned out but especially the holey one even though it was tricky to do!










And again my little bird obsession rears it's adorable pointy beak.






The turquoise one was an experiment in over glazing an already fired glaze. It worked surprisingly well! I mixed the glaze with acrylic medium so that it would stick to the glossy fired glaze. the medium then burns away in the kiln. So it's useful to know that technique works! :)





I just realised all these are based on my obsessions.
Stoats are a faded but not forgotten muse, Snails are always fascinating to me and I still go weak at the knees when I see a beautifully designed bird like a quail.



These are all for sale!
Visit my Etsy Shop

See Otter? Sea Otter!

A combination of the need for a soap dish and a love of adorable sea otters resulted in this sea otter soap dish!



The first one I made turned out the be waaaay too big. But by then I had finished sculpting it so rather than slack it down I decided to fire it anyway.



To get the second one the right size I went for a more stylised look both for the sculpt and the glaze style and I'm really happy with how it turned out!



I think it'd look even cuter with little shell shaped soaps on its tummy but I don't have any of those. XD"



I had to clean my sink to get this photo! XD"

Pet Bowl Presents

Following on from yesterdays guinea pig themed post, here's some more pet based ceramics fun.

I decided to make some new water bowls for Eric and Ernie for their outdoor pen. Of course now the weathers turned to cold and wet for them to want to go out, so they'll have to wait till next year to use them.



The bowls are made from moulds we made ages ago but hadn't got round to trying out. They turned out great! I went for an abstract sort of pattern. After glazing all those curls 3 times over I never wanted to see any again, but they turned out looking great. Hopefully Eric and Ernie will agree.

Meanwhile Eric and Ernie have been free ranging round the crates of ceramics on the floor. They're not impressed by them taking up valuable play room and have made a poop protest behind the crates >_<" but they like the shiny ceramics inside.

Here's Eric posing with his favourite of the batch. You can tell it's his favourite by the smile on his face.



And Ernie having a look at what we've been making, careful Ern, those are fragile! XD"




Ernie doesn't just like my ceramics, he also licks them!
I think he's in love with that Robin birdfeeder. XD

Piggie Monday

Hopefully we can bring you some cheer on this grey and chilly Monday by introducing these cute Guinea Pig Tea Spoon Rests!

These first two are based on my own guinea pigs, Eric (the black one) and Ernie (the orange one)







If you buy them in pairs (because guinea pigs are social creatures and should be kept in pairs ;D) You can use one for the spoon and the other for the tea bag!



The ones below are all for sale £4 each or two for £7:









The two below we had a slight problem with the brown glaze. It doesn't affect their usefulness just their tidiness. So they are reduced to £3.50 each.





Hope these piggies have brought a smile to your face, Eric and Ernie always make me smile.

Lookit the Pretty Lights

We made a couple of really simple half sphere moulds to use for slip casting to create bases for various ideas. They work great as simple tea light covers if you cut holes in them too.

At the CCC we're big fan's of star gazing so star shapes was a natural choice.





The ones with circular holes look kinda like the moon by day too!





All lit up.



The more lights you put inside the more  fun the effect!




Lookit all the pretty stars! X3



Candles can make the ceramic hot so care should be taken and of course care should always be taken with candles anyway. You could use LED tea lights instead which are now readily available and much safer. :)

These tea lights are all for sale.

The large ones are £10 and are approx. 17cm diameter
Small £8 and are approx. 12cm diameter

Brains Arrrgghh!

It's Friday, everyone could use some extra brains on a Friday.

So here's some brains that double as coasters.


There's your regular brains...




And of course, zombie brains...




And I don't know what the heck happened to this brain...



These brains are useful even after your real brain has gone to mush!



Brain coasters are £8 each.
Each one is hand moulded from a push mould created by me and hand glazed.
They will have rubber feet to protect your surfaces.

A Curious Flock

I first showed my new bird shaped birdfeeders back in July 2014 with a post about how I made the slip mould from the original sculpture.
Now at last they are finished, and I'm really cuffed with how they've turned out!
I decided to glaze them as British bird species.

There's Robin:



Greenfinch:



Bullfinch:



Goldfinch:



And Bluetit:



It's hard to choose a favourite out of these guys, I love the Bluetit and Goldfinch a whole lot but the others turned out great too!

I think they'd look pretty nifty with a tea light in their tummies as a table ornament too.

They are all for sale *much as I'd like to keep them.*

They are all hand made from start to finish by me. If you read the mould making process linked above you'll see just a part of what that involved. It makes each one an individual and unique.
I certainly don't intend to be making masses of these because as much as I love them, the time involved just to glaze them is huge, so you will be buying a very special limited edition piece.

They are approximately 20cm tall.

I can't guarantee frost resistance. I have items I've made in my garden surviving just fine but there's no real guarantee so if you live in cold climes I suggest it might be best to bring them in in winter or use them as an indoor ornament.

Price is £40 each except for the Bullfinch which is £35 due to a slight crawl on the red glaze which has left some white areas, though it's not all that noticeable and doesn't detract from the overall look.