Ornament Experiment Part Two

Seasons Greetings All - Here's the results of the glazing of my ornament experiments ~

Below you can see some of the ornaments before the glaze firing.  I'm putting on the clear glaze which is pink.

Below are the ornaments after they were glaze fired, but before I put the mother of pearl on the blue ornaments ~

I thought the blue ones would be enhanced by the mother of pearl luster, so I decided to do the additional firing.  Here I am putting the mother of pearl on the ornaments.  I use a glove to avoid getting the luster on my skin.

I'm glad I decided to use the luster, because I think it did really have a nice effect with the blues. It's not always the best choice, but here I think it works.

Since I'm a fanatic about the Holly Berry design and use it on everything, I was thrilled that this floral stamp pattern works so well with that design!

It was so fun to try something new, and this definitely won't be the last time I use stamps in my creations! Happiest of Holidays to you All and I look forward to sharing more ideas and creations with you in 2011!

Ornament Experiment Part One

Every year I like to try a new idea or design for my ornaments so I can have something different to give for gifts and to sell for the holiday season. 

I've never tried using rubber stamps before in my clay process, but since seeing the beautiful effects that can be made with stamp impressions on  some great Beads-of-Clay blog tutorials, I've decided to give it a try!

I picked up this decorative floral design block stamp at the Hospital Street Fair in Wolfeboro this summer for 50 cents!  I had it waiting on my studio shelf for just such an occasion.

I rolled out some white clay, and pressed it into the stamp.  After removing the pressed piece of clay, I used some of my favorite ornament templates, and cut out some pieces from the textured clay.

This morning they were dry, so I sponged down the edges and rough areas.

They're cooling in the kiln right now and I can't wait to start glazing them!  I'll be back with the results next week after the glaze firing!