Christmas photo shoot!

And that’s a wrap folks! Tons of goodness out of the kiln today, I’m happy to say. And just on time for Christmas presents – phew! Here’s a few making of photos – more once everyone’s gotten their goodies. Happy holidays everyone!

IMG_6444.JPG

IMG_6447.JPG

New work photoshoot

A ton of new pieces out of the kilns this month! Photos were embargoed until now for reasons of Christmas 😉 so here at some of the better ones:

20131230-163038.jpg

20131230-163052.jpg

20131230-163110.jpg

20131230-163124.jpg

20131230-163154.jpg

20131230-163237.jpg

20131230-163315.jpg

20131230-163346.jpg

20131230-163411.jpg

Stopper donated to BidForTheBarn!

Bid for the Barn - support Pete's Greens and local foods in Vermont!

Bid for the Barn - support Pete's Greens and local foods in Vermont!

Pete’s Greens, a major local food provider for Vermont, much beloved by localvores and foodies alike, suffered a huge setback when their barn burned down. (Along with equipment, food, and more.) This is an online auction to help them rebuild! Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a huge foodie and love eating as locally as possible, so when I discovered I could donate to the online auction I jumped. (And as an artist, exposure is always a good thing, so this works out well for everyone.)

The lucky bidder will get to choose the stopper of their choice, and will help out the local food economy while doing it. How can you go wrong?!

Seriously though – check out the auction when it goes live on the 23rd – loads of good stuff in all kinds of price ranges, and all for a good cause.

Brought to you by your local stopper mob:

Stopper mob, comin' ta getcha!

Stopper mob, comin' ta getcha!

Newsflash: Handmade Ceramic Wine Bottle Stoppers storm Etsy!

Booyah. After quite some time creating them, figuring out what stopper to use, what epoxy works best, taking photos, organizing the photos, picking just the best for each one, writing up descriptions… the first stoppers have made their way to the Etsy marketplace!

Check out the wine stopper category in my store: CurtinsCreations.etsy.com (or just click on one over in the right-hand Etsy sidebar of this page.)

I really had fun writing up the descriptions of each. Hopefully they’ll find some good homes! (But if not… they’re more than welcome to stay in mine!)

Picasso wine bottle stopper in hand

Picasso wine bottle stopper in hand

Stands – prototypes made, design sent to Ponoko for cutting

Hello hello!  I finished up my stand designs and sent them off to Ponoko to be made in black acrylic, white oak, and cork.  I printed out the design, pasted it down to some foamcore, and then cut it out by hand to make sure it all worked.  Whadaya think?

New glaze colors, epoxy success

Hello!  Life’s been busy the last few weeks, and I’ve made some good progress with the wine stoppers.  I ordered up some new epoxy from an industrial supply catalog, some extra nozzles, and a gun to make applying it easier.  After some trial and error, I’ve actually got a process that works well – all of these were glued up after about 30min of prep and 15min of choreographed gluing.

Just epoxied stoppers

You’ll notice a few new color combinations in there too – I’m loving the speckled blue and the pink/purple combinations!

I’ve got a good number of these guys done now – next up: a display stand and some business cards.  (And some good photos of each!)

Wine Stopper Mob Unleashed!

Stopper Mob

Stopper Mob, wave 1

The mob has arrived! Aaannnddd… they look great!  (If, you know, I do say so myself.)  More pictures to come, but at least this way you can see them all. Getting the bodies connected to the stainless steel bases from Torne-Lignum.com has been quite a long road. Here’s the story:

First, I tried something called E6000, which was recommended in a few places. (A lot of places refer to E6000 as an epoxy, but it turns out it isn’t – its a craft glue. This is an important distinction!) The first try was a stopper with a solid flat bottom. After setting for about 24 hours, the body pulled away from the base when I applied force to it. Whups. The glue easily peeled away from both ceramic stopper body and steel stopper base. Essentially, it looked and acted almost like rubber cement. (It wasn’t hard, like I expected.) I decided to try again, thinking maybe it just needed to cure longer. I glued up the original stopper again, as well as two that I had hollowed out the bodies of. For the ones with the voids, I first glued a short metal rod into the steel stopper, then filled the void in the ceramic body with E6000 and dropped the metal stopper and post down into the glue. Clean up the glue that squeezed out between metal stopper and clay body, rubber-band down to apply pressure, and wait a full week.

Unfortunately, even after a full week, just a small amount of pressure sideways to the piece, and it peeled away. The E6000 inside the body hadn’t dried even a little bit – it was still completely fresh. Not what I expected at all, and clearly not going to work. The piece with the flat bottom seems to have worked well, but all of my stoppers have holes in the base now, so that isn’t really helpful.

I finally went and picked up some Loctite instant-mix two-part epoxy. Sets in 5 minutes, has two nozzles with fine tips that allow me to easily inject the right amount of epoxy into the pieces, and dries rock-hard inside of 24 hours.

Here’s the comparison as I see it:
E6000 (glue)

    Pros:

  • strong, flexible bond – would probably work very well with fabrics, etc
  • dries clear
    Cons:

  • Takes forever to cure
  • Doesn’t fill voids well – after a week it was still completely uncured inside stopper bodies

Loctite (two-part epoxy)

    Pros:

  • rock-solid once dry
  • movable in 20 minutes, fully cured in 24 hours, even inside a sealed volume (so the pieces with the large voids still are solid)
  • self-mixing inside its included nozzles – this made getting the epoxy inside the 3/16″ holes in the stoppers and the ceramic bodies easy and very clean
    Cons:

  • more expensive – approx $4 for a 14ml tube, which was enough for six stoppers, two of which had very large voids to fill
  • The self-mixing nozzles have curing epoxy in them, so once you start applying you have about 5 minutes before they lock up solid unless you keep the epoxy moving. The case comes with two nozzles, so you can have two sessions, but you need to work fast. I got better at this as I worked, but it meant filling the holes, matching up the halves, and cleaning up any extra had to happen in a minute or less per piece. No room for errors!
  • the package said it dried translucent yellow, but it looks perfectly clear to me. Maybe over time?

So, epoxy for the win! More photos and maybe an etsy post or two soon.

Ring stands are up!

I love these little guys. Very cute, glazes worked well, and the photos came out great too. I’m predicting these little buggers will sell like hotcakes! (Little, curly hotcakes.)

Blueish one (#9) is here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/50264731/curly-creature-9-ring-stand-light-blue
Tan/green one (#10) is here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/50272654/curly-creature-10-ring-stand-tan-with

Continue reading Ring stands are up!