Week 35: Trying Something New

I try to add things to my craft show lineup regularly. Not only new variations but whole new item lines as well. I aim to do this at least as often as I take things out and mostly I succeed at that. This year one of the new items hitting my shows (and my shop, I guess!) will be wine bottle stoppers. Years ago, I bought a little stack of blanks that I never did use.

week35-1

I figured these would be more like my little creature ornaments than my flower beads. I’ve been having fun doing the simple sculpting for the ornaments and just kept on going for these guys. Round one is cats, birds and pumpkins. After my next round of blanks gets in I’m betting on sheep, hedgehogs and dogs but we’ll see.

week35-2

The little metal knob tops got covered in layers of scrap clay then a layer of good clay. Coarse details like ears or tail shapes are added at this point.

week35-3

Finer details get added next. Things like beaks, eyes, tails. Some details are clay that is used to “paint” lines or spots by smoothing it in and then texturing it a bit.

week35-4

Final round up of the stoppers after baking. They’ve all been antiqued a little and a bit of matte varnish applied. The stopper ends screw right back in.