Cool story. Bear with me.

 

Photo by my best friend Lauri

My dad, which meant our family as well, was into ceramics ever since I could remember. When he retired from the Army, he opened a ceramic shop in a little oceanside town called Marina (next town over from Fort Ord, California). The shop sold finished ceramicware, greenware, bisque, paint, tools and also held classes.

If you knew us, you probably received one of these ceramic Christmas trees or we at least helped you make one.

My best friend Lauri sent this photo to me tonight, and I thought it was one we gave her. Nope, it’s her friend’s. Her friend doesn’t decorate anymore (but she loves decorating other people’s homes), so she brought it to Lauri’s to display in her new home.

Important tidbit.

Her friend was Lauri’s landlord for many years, and, coincidentally, grew up in the Monterey Bay area and moved to Vancouver, Washington, just as Lauri did. But they didn’t know one another back then, they met when Lauri moved to Vancouver.

ANYWAY

She told Lauri, “When my mom retired she was bored and wanted something to do. So she went to this little ceramic shop in Marina and made the tree.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s our shop she’s talking about!!! What a great coinkidink, eh?! Of all the people in the world for Lauri to meet when she moved to Vancouver and become friends with, it was someone from the same area, who shared her maiden name, btw, who had a mother who went to our little ceramic shop to make herself a Christmas tree.

 

I threw my hat in the ring for this give-away for a corrugated-looking ceramic dish and won!

One of the corners crumpled in shipping, but the cool thing is it actually looks like it's meant to be that way. This happy accident just added more character to an already unique piece of pottery.

Thank you, Storage Geek and Greyslater for being awesome!

Butterflies and Craftster

Some of you know about Craftster, but for those who don't it is a
place where people gather to share what they've crafted, be it sewing,
jewelry-making and everything in-between. We even do craft swaps,
where people makes things (such as Oz stuff, that one was fun) and
swap with a partner that's assigned to you. Anyway, according the
Craftster.org, there are, literally tens-of-thousands of projects posted
each year on this site, so you can imagine how excited I am about
sharing this with y'all.

The big news I'm soooooooo excited about?!





One of my projects was amongst Crafter's Best of 2008! I posted
pictures of a butterfly coil pot and a couple of pinch pots I made in
a ceramics class I took a while back, and low and behold it was chosen
as one of the top 5 projects amongst the "POTTERY, CERAMICS, POLYMER
CLAY > Pottery, Ceramics, etc: Completed Projects" category.

I'm not sure if this link will work, but here 'tis. Scroll down until you reach the pottery category and you'll see my butterfly pot. I am so excited that one of my pieces is worthy of this honor and I am giddy as a little girl!!!


This the award Valerie made for me, isn't it the bomb?! It's a replica of the little icon on Craftster and it's spot-on! Thank you, Valerie, for making me feel so special!