Pottery Pick-up

Our ceramic pieces were finally ready for pick up yesterday! I could not get there fast enough. Technically, they weren't ready until 2pm, but Alexa and I arrived just after they opened at noon, along with my friend from Novel Style. We were a little too excited! (We even picked new pieces to work on, but that's another blog entry.)

After scoping the scene and finding all of our gorgeous pieces, I stopped to take a breath and a few pictures.

This is my mug. I love how it turned out. I'm not very fancy when it comes to painting or art. I love being creative and doing all kinds of creative, artsy projects, but my skills are lacking. I do however, love the look of this mug. It's a great representation of me...simple, fun and beautiful.

This gorgeous cake plate was made by my friend over at The Charmed Cupcake. I can't wait to see what scrumptious treats she serves on it!

This is one of my absolute favorite pieces. This bowl was created by my friend Rachel. It was her first time painting pottery. I've offered to take it off her hands if she doesn't like how it turned out. I really hope she hates it so that I can buy it off of her!!!

 My friend Christine hand drew and then free hand painted this AMAZING outer space plate for her three year old son. I think that he is just going to LOVE it!

Unfortunately this picture came out blurry, but I couldn't resist posting it because I just love this piece. My friend over at Novel Style created this awesome ring holder using a type of confetti technique. The confetti technique gives the piece a textured feel. I need to make something using this technique, it just looks so cool! So many ideas, so little time!

Novel Style also created this masterpiece. A water color dessert plate and flower tea cup. How cute is the little worm!

Finally, the big shebang! Here is our entire group's finished products. Every single piece is unique, hand painted and designed and absolutely gorgeous.

Pottery Class with the Ladies

Our lovely group!

On Saturday, I organized a girls night out at the ceramic studio, Made By You, in Linz. We had such a fantastic time!

There were ten of us gals and we ranged from super skilled artist to not skilled at all, but we all were able to create some really beautiful pieces. First, Dana, the owner, explained that we should pick our bisque. This is basically a piece of unfired ceramic. Once we chose which piece to do, she explained all of the different techniques and paints that we could use. There were dozens of different colors, paintbrushes, sponges, stamps, stencils, idea books and a variety of other tools at our disposal for creating our masterpiece.

My mug, before it was finished.

I chose to do a mug this time, since I made a dessert plate last time with my mom. The other ladies chose all different pieces - plates, mugs, bowls, tiles, tea bag holders. You name it, we painted it! Some of the gals even put together a set.

This set was created by my friend over at  Novelstyle Blog.

We had such a wonderful time and I am so thankful to everyone who joined in. It was great meeting other English speaking Expats from the community and as always, fun hanging out with my usual group of friends. I am so looking forward to doing the screen printing workshop at Made By You in July!

Here are some of the other wonderful pieces that were made!

 I can't wait to pick up the finished pieces on Thursday!!

How did you get creative today?

Getting Artsy

The day before my mom left, we went to a ceramic studio in Linz and painted our own ceramics. I chose a flowered dessert plate and my mom made a door sign.

We spent three hours hanging out together, talking and creating some pretty cool pieces of art. Unfortunately, we discovered the ceramic studio a little late and our projects weren't ready before she went home.

We had such a great time picking out our pieces and then deciding on how to decorate them. My mom is very creative and very artsy. She made my project look like it was done by a toddler compared to her crazy free-handed painting skills. 

I know that paint and sip classes have become very popular in the  U.S. lately. I've decided to try and host something similar at the ceramic shop with some of the other English speaking Expats in the area. I think it'll be a great way to bring people together. I'm not very good at painting at all, but I had so much fun doing this with my mom.

They have two teachers to help with any questions you may have. You can walk in any time during their opening hours and start on a project. The staff is really friendly and helpful. It was a really great experience and I can't wait to go again.