There is a movement everywhere about the benefits of buying handamde items, crafts, gifts, etc. Will you join us and celebrate handmade products with us? What are the benefits? You help your fellow Americans since many of us are here in the US, selling our crafts. There is an array of items like soaps, candles, jewelry, pillows, blankets, pottery, art, photography. You name it! we have it. You can vist my store on etsy. And from there go and look around, you'd be amazed of all the Christmas shopping you could be doing from your computer at home. Stop by and support us, and be totally happy with wonderful things made with love and care!

New Month, New Beginning

All right, all right. I haven't been posting lately just because a lot is going on
over here, but I made myself a promise that I will be more organized and make schedules of things to do etc... First order of the day is to add things to the stores, write here and let you know of my October deal!! Sign up on my mail list
at www.yolanda.firedclayartists.com I will have a raffle at the end of the month, the lucky winner will get $25.00 worth of ceramic beads and pendants.
Good deal huh?? you don't even need to buy anything, but if you do...cool!
Above is a picture of half a wholesale order, kind of chunky was the request, these beads will be incorporated into jewelry with pmc pieces and glass beads by artist Linda Ames who makes beautiful work, her website is listed below.

Birthday Sale!

In celebration of my birthday today I have two different discounts offered at each my FCA store and Etsy.
Click to the links on the right and go and save some money! This offer is good thru August 31. What a way to celebrate huh?? Well, HB to me.

Etsy

I have sold a couple things at etsy, and bought more than sold...lol. But it's been fun being able to create treasuries, I am featured in a couple and have one that ends tomorrow. Go visit and see what you like. I have a couple new things there as well, and will add new beads tomorrow.

FCA August Artist of the Month

I've been chosen as artist of the month at FCA!! Yuppieee! Anyway, it was fun answering the real interview, bringing me back to my beginnins of clay and most important to last year when I started the clay bead making process. Take a look and know a little more about me, visit www.firedclayartists.com/page.php?15 there you can got to the FCA homepage and visit the store directory for other friends' clay pretties.

Summer Contest

Summer Design Contest!
Enter our first contest ever, for your chance to win
over $100 worth of pieces (Pictured Above) from some of the Artists here at FCA!

Create something that screams SUMMER.


It can be made with something you have purchased in one of our stores or some other Artist's work. As long as it has one Artist's piece in it.

This contest ends September 1st! So hurry!
E-mail a picture of your creation to Marla@firedclayartists.com


Winner to be announced Sept 4th!

Sad day

I'm sad to say that the firing I was waiting to open this morning was not that great, lots of pieces turned out
like poop. Time to have the kiln checked and calibrated. Ayy ay ay!

July 24th is the seventh anniversary when my Mom passed away. My brothers and sisters get together on this day and her brithday every year, we celebrate mass in her memory go to the cemetery afterwards and then go home and have a gathering celebrating her life, her cooking and her love for us. I still miss her a lot, she was the glue of our family and life has not been the same since she died. This year is extra special, my oldest brother and his family will be here, he is in the military and not always can be present. So, my eight siblings and our 30 children altogether along with my Dad will have a blast.
Here is a picture of my Mom, my daughter and me.

Working Working

I have spent the last two days working in my studio. I have all these ideas that are hard to contain in my mind. So, rather than writing them all I decided to make a few of each of those ideas. Working on rings, beads, some abstract pieces and pendants. Many are just molded and given texture with my hands with the help of little dryness in the clay already. Some stamping, written mesages, and also making new molds with founbd objects from my yard (and the neighbor's). I am getting into carving a few pieces, I have some way to go in this department. I have a glaze fire that ended this morning but it's still not ready to open, specially with the hot weather here in California. I will have to wait until tomorrow morning.

Talking about hot weather, working in clay at this time is a race against time. If I get distracted clay dries too fast and things crack, that happened to two molds I made yesterday. So continuous covering of the trays and the everynow and then spray bottle action helps. But, no complaint about it, living here is just heaven....

Saturday I was gone for half an hour little after 9 pm to pick up my daughter from our local fair, went there picked her up, came back to a TP'd house. I have a beautiful big Jacaranda tree in my front yard, they covered it in paper like crazy! they even had the time to wrap my light post all around. Those kids... I have to say Christina felt somewhat happy about it, like she meant something to someone. We got the most of it right away because the sprinklers were ready to go on within minutes. We were lucky not to have all this wash down toilet paper on the grass.

I have a couple pictures here of a firing last week, this was fired to cone 5.
Some pieces were refires and for the second time they did not turn out the way I wanted. So to the pile of discards.

Happy 4th!!

Happy Holiday! ahhh freedom, wonderful thing to have. There is no doubt I'm so thankful to live here in the US, I love this country so much. Thank you to all of our soldiers both men and women who give so much for us to enjoy our freedoms. The best to you all.

Okay, I have been putting off my answers to the tag Melanie gave me the other day. I tried to do the fancy thing and add the tags to the meme thing and all of that but just couldn't. So, here are my answers.

What were you doing ten years ago?
I was enjoying life a lot with my five year old daughter. Exactly 10 yrs. ago I was logging on for the first time on the internet.
What were you doing one year ago?
Dealing with the first problems that a teenager gives her mother.
Five snacks you enjoy.
Pretzels, chips & salsa, chocolate, crackers and cheese.
Five songs to which you know the lyrics.
Hold on to the night-Richard Marx
Call me-Blondie
Truly madly deeply-Savage Garden
Living la Vida Loca-Ricky Martin
Amor eterno-Juan Gabriel (this is a song called "eternal love" dedicated to a mother who has passed away). Very touching.
Five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
Hmmmmm.....travel, get a new bigger home, help family, give to charity, rescue/get more pets.
Five bad habits.
Procrastination, too much internet, money spending, stressing about life, being negative sometimes.
Five things you like doing.
Ceramics, going to the beach, shopping, reading, walking my dog.
Five things you would never wear again.
Stockings, a dress, high heels, mascara, lipstick.
Five favorite toys
ipod, laptop, game uno, freesbie, deck of cards.

So there, I guess now I need to tag five people....
Marla James, Jessica Sharrah, Linda Aames, Mary Harding, and Jossie E.

Etsy

I have spent the last couple hours acquainting myself with Etsy. I added my first items for sale. the address is www.yolandasclay.etsy.com Lots of cute stuff.
I'm excited!!

Talk About It

Okay, there is nothing better than to jump into something new. My friend Melanie from www.earthenwoodstudio.com tagged me, there are questions I need to answer and then I must tag five people. I'm still working on it navigating this new project of blogging, so be patient and I should get it in a couple days (I hope). I have a new glaze firing ready to open this afternoon, we'll se what goodies are in there and maybe post some pictures later.

There is always a first time

I have been putting off doing a blog long enough. With the encouragement of my friends at the Beads of Clay Yahoo Group I'm feeling brave today. The main reason for this is to spread the word about our wonderful community of ceramic artists throughout the United States and other countries, and their creations of jewelry components such as beads and pendants as well as handcrafted jewelry pieces by many of them. Everybody's creations are different but all are beautiful. I will be adding in the days to come more information about the group, their blogs and websites. But, first I will start with mine since I know my info by heart. A couple months ago I got started with my first internet store, you can find me at www.yolanda.firedclayartists.com. This is my direct page which is hosted by www.firedclayartists.com and at it you will find many of my fellow ceramic amigas and amigos selling beautiful one of a kind pieces of clay goodies. Please visit us and enjoy our little treasures.

I will also use this blog to let you know a little bit about myself and my life, and how I have become involved in ceramics. That's it for now, until next time. Good Night.