The holiday season is like entering a different country. A country where your phone doesn't work because you're too busy to take calls and so are all of your friends, who are also buried under piles of orders. The food is terrible, and the natives are anxious, if not downright hostile. It's the most magical time of the year!
Aside from the terrible food-- I mean, whhhhhhy are there crappy, store-bought cookies EVERYwhere right now?-- I'm actually feeling pretty damn good. I've got this holiday thing down. I've only lost one order so far and I found it again before the customer knew I lost it. I had a plague of broken stuff, all the same item, going to different people, broken in the exact same way. Why why why? I have no idea. I just made it all again, packed it in big boxes, and moved on. I crank my Duran Duran station and I feel ever so slightly pleased.
Then, I made an amazing discovery. My red glaze has been cursed for a while now. I started having this problem where it was coming out with nasty dark spots that looked like bruises. So annoying. Someone ordered a set of nesting lotus bowls in red and they came out so bad, with bruises all over, that I immediately hid them away from myself so I wouldn't have to look at them, and cancelled the order with the customer. Then I pulled them out a couple of weeks ago and decided they weren't so bad, but there was some glaze crawling that needed to be fixed up so I ran them through the kiln again. The kiln overfired by a bit, and the bowls came out SHINY PERFECT RED. Bruises, gone. I discovered the cure, which is the red needs to get just a teeny tiny bit hotter than a perfect cone 5. I got so excited I added it as a color option to my new website. Yes, I will charge you more because I'm still nervous, but look at this gorgeous baby:
Aside from the terrible food-- I mean, whhhhhhy are there crappy, store-bought cookies EVERYwhere right now?-- I'm actually feeling pretty damn good. I've got this holiday thing down. I've only lost one order so far and I found it again before the customer knew I lost it. I had a plague of broken stuff, all the same item, going to different people, broken in the exact same way. Why why why? I have no idea. I just made it all again, packed it in big boxes, and moved on. I crank my Duran Duran station and I feel ever so slightly pleased.
Then, I made an amazing discovery. My red glaze has been cursed for a while now. I started having this problem where it was coming out with nasty dark spots that looked like bruises. So annoying. Someone ordered a set of nesting lotus bowls in red and they came out so bad, with bruises all over, that I immediately hid them away from myself so I wouldn't have to look at them, and cancelled the order with the customer. Then I pulled them out a couple of weeks ago and decided they weren't so bad, but there was some glaze crawling that needed to be fixed up so I ran them through the kiln again. The kiln overfired by a bit, and the bowls came out SHINY PERFECT RED. Bruises, gone. I discovered the cure, which is the red needs to get just a teeny tiny bit hotter than a perfect cone 5. I got so excited I added it as a color option to my new website. Yes, I will charge you more because I'm still nervous, but look at this gorgeous baby:
And really, that's all I want for Christmas: glaze that behaves.
