Ta Da!!!

My spoons and scoops are fired! They turned out well...really well in fact, though I have to admit my heart sank when I opened my kiln and found each and every spoon and scoop with a stilt stuck to the glaze! Before you ask (Monica), I DID clear a little spot where the metal prong would sit, although perhaps not enough. I wonder too if it wouldn't have been a better idea to just flip the stilt over and let the glaze rest on the porcelain bit. Is it porcelain? I really have no idea, but there were bits of glaze resting against that bit of the stilt and for some reason the glaze didn't adhere to that. I was reading something on Ceramic Arts Daily about making your own "kisses" and/or painting them with kiln wash so that the glaze doesn't stick. I'll definitely do some more reading up on this before I make more of these.

The good news is that I did manage to break all of the stilts free. I had to cover them with a small towel and tap them with a pair of pliers (for the life of me, I couldn't find a hammer). It didn't take much tapping but it did leave a little pinched glaze, which of course was sharp. Luckily, in this crafty life of mine, I've tried my hand at stained glass and so I had a file to smooth those down. Then I rubbed them with a dampened piece of wet/dry sandpaper. Yes, there are holes....unfortunately...and some are "darkish", but they're all on the back side and won't interfere with the serving side of the pieces. Some of the glaze is a little thick on a few of the red pieces and so there is some clouding, but I'm loving the spoons so much, I barely notice!

And so.....here they are!

One day I AM going to work on better photos, but tonight I'm trying to get all my stuff packed up for my sale on Saturday, so no time to make any adjustments! Check out Mud Colony to see what all my mud buds have been up to this week!