Checking in with lots of photos...

Hi again.  Things have been crazy busy - good, but busy!  I'm going to have an artisan table at BeadFest PA in August (August 16-19, 2012)!  It will be my first show ever! gaaaaah, a tad nervous about that but excited too!  Molly and my niece Kate will be going with me.  So I've started making pieces to take to the show and trying to have lots of new pieces to list in my Etsy shop.  Busy Busy Busy making pieces and cleaning them up to go into the kiln for the bisque firing... 

 and breaking a bunch of them in the process...

 today I'm going to get these all clean and ready too...

I've been making a lot of new pieces-I'm obsessed with flowers right now.  I really like these layered ones.  I can't wait to glaze them...

Here are some of the ones I made in the last batch...

 and I really love this glaze.  I haven't used it in a long time and I suddenly remembered it and oooo, I'm so glad I did!

and then dear little Kellie (aka Calamity Jane!) dropped a box of pieces on the hard floor and kaboom! we had some casualties...

Remember the house I said I was going to rent for my studio?

It's an historic house from 1884 and I love it!  It's about 2 miles from my house.  Molly and I went by on March 2 to see how far along they were in the remodeling...

It has a huge front porch!  In the back there is a shed that I will be using for my kilns and a fenced little patio and yard that is so pretty.

The house is called Studio House and it is right in Bel Air, MD.  Each room is being redone as a studio space.  There are three painters and I using the house.  The owner of the house is one of the painters who will be using one of the spaces.  There is one more space available-haven't found anyone to rent it yet.

This is the living room in the process of getting ready for one of the artists.  It has really pretty white french doors into it.

This is the dining room and it will be the house owners studio

this is the original kitchen.  I love it!  That fireplace is huge! and I love those little windows with the cabinets below! love.  This will also be a studio.  There is a modern kitchen off to the right of this that has a fridge, stove, etc that is available to all of us.

this is the creepy little door under the stairs (like Harry Potter!) that goes to the basement.  Molly and I took a peek down there - yeah, it's creepy as hell and I don't plan on going down there! It's probably haunted.

 These are the steps up to the second floor where 3 other studios are (one of them will be mine)

This is to the little back stairs that lead down to the original kitchen.  They are dark and also creepy.

This studio is finished.  No one is renting this one yet so it is available. It's really bright in this room!  There are two windows in the front and two windows on the right side.  I really loved how bright this room is, but it was too small for me.  It looks like it's about 10x12 ish.

This is my room - clearly they haven't really started working on it yet.  It runs the entire right side of the house from front to back.  The closet is really big and will be great for storing my shipping/packaging supplies.  When you open the door a light comes on and there are custom made shelves on each side and a big space in the center that will be open for me to stack boxes or whatever...

This is looking towards the front of the house.  It's a nice size space (12 x 15).  Since I will have use of the entire house and the shed in the back I'll be able to make pieces in here, fire them out back, and display the finished pieces I want to sell throughout the house.  It's a perfect set up!  The painters are planning to have a lot of open studio sales, garden parties, gallery showings, etc here so hopefully I'll get some sales of my finished pieces during those events.

I ordered 4 custom wood work tables for the space too.  One for clay, one for glaze, one for a desk and for processing orders, and one for Molly to make jewelry.  We are so darn excited about this space.  We stopped by yesterday and they have really come a long way with it!  It will be painted next week and then I will be able to start moving in my equipment and stuff the first week of April!!! yay!!!  I'll take some new photos then to show you how nice the house is looking.

Have a great weekend! and thanks for visiting me :O)