Menagerie Wine

I live in wine country, pretty much perfectly between Napa and Amador counties, inarguably the best places in the United States for wine. I'm a short distance from Lodi, too, and Lodi is no slouch in the winemaking department, either.

As a result of living in such a wine-rich environment, I've collected quite a few wine accessories. Among my very favorite is a gift from a friend, a zombie wine pourer.

Unfortunately for me, I went to use it, and the rubber sleeve had somehow disappeared. I wasn't about to throw it away, so I used the good old search engine to see if I could get a replacement. I found it on the Menagerie website. I'm happy to say, I found out they have more nifty wine pourers of all kinds! Skulls, vampires, and witches and jack-o'-lanterns to come!

They have more "normal" wine pourers, for those who want them. Each are whimsical and would make wonderful gifts for your wine enthusiast friends.

Of course, the wine pourers would be best with a lovely wine cup from my ShellHawk's Creations shop... (Like that incredibly smooth plug?)

More here...

News and New in the Shop

Our Coda-bear, smiling for the camera.

It's been a busy week around here. Lots of work and changes, and then a big setback for one of our fur kids, Coda.

I was outside, doing some cleaning and tidying up. The dogs had come out into the beautiful, sunny day and were chasing each other around. Then I heard the "yip!" I turned around and Coda had her leg drawn up and wouldn't put any weight on it. My heart sank, because I'd seen this before with our old dog, Gromit, when he blew out his knee.

By the end of the day, she still hadn't put her weight on it and we had made an appointment with the orthopaedic specialist the next day. They confirmed it; she'd torn her cruciate ligament, may have torn another ligament and possibly torn her meniscus, to boot.

Fortunately, there's a surgery to get her fixed up, and she'll end up with a steel plate in her leg. Yes, it's expensive, but our girl is only 2 1/2, and we want her to have the opportunity to run around and have fun for many years to come. It's still heartbreaking to see her in pain and not be able to tell her that she's going to be good as new in a few months.

Meanwhile, I've been slowly getting pictures taken of the last kiln load of textured yunomi and cups. This one is my favorite, I have to say, because of the way the colors  turned out.

I've been playing with the tumbler shape, too, for those with smaller hands who still like their tea served in handle-less cups.

They're available in my ShellHawk's Creations shop on Etsy, if you're interested!

Well, time to get ready to take my girl in to get her surgery. Wish us luck! 

Kiln Fruit

A quick peek into the kiln, because I just couldn't wait to see!

Remember all those cups I stamped a while back? Well, I spent this past weekend glazing them and was finally able to unload the kiln on Wednesday afternoon!

 I am really pleased with the results, and I think I can honestly say this is the best kiln load, so far!

As you can see, there are some glaze drips to grind down, but not many, and nothing which will ruin the piece!

The only tragedy I had was the larger of the two teapots. I'll have to replace the lid since the original developed a glaze drip on the inside, which created a lip so that the lid couldn't be removed. As Gilda Radner said, "It's always something!"

Keep an eye out for these guys to be in my Etsy store soon!