Amost Time for a Break

 

I'm going to be closing up my button shops in the next couple of days - probably Monday night.  I'll list a few more buttons over the weekend but then will be closing up shop from December 10th until the 20th.  I don't want any disappointed last minute Christmas shoppers.  So while I've slowed down listing the resin buttons I've turned my mind to my handmade ceramic buttons.  The picture here is of some ceramic bird buttons I hope to get up just after Christmas.  These have the glaze colour on them but need to have the clear glaze put on and then they have to be fired in the kiln.  Ceramic buttons take such a long time to make.  They have to be shaped from the clay and then there is all that drying time that needs to happen.  These particular bird buttons have a very delicate tail on them which breaks very easily until they are fired.  I'm experimenting as I go.  I did fire a small kiln this morning and am waiting for it to cool so I can list some of these buttons.  I'm teaching myself ceramics so sometimes my experiments work and sometimes they don't.  No matter what I'm always learning so it's always fun.  Ceramics are certainly not an exact science so I know that I always need to make extra buttons because not all of them will turn out.  These birds will be orange, blue and turquoise.  I can't wait to see how they turn out.