Fine Craft Guild .com » stoneware

DIY Animal Stencil Mugs

Fine Craft Guild — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 12:57:11 +0000

: this fun and easy way to spruce up plain white mugs and to personalize them with the kids (or your) favorite animals and designs. Stencil your way to the farm ….

Country Living offers free stencils to download of cows, sheep and pigs.

New Year Umbria Jazz Festival

Fine Craft Guild — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:55:00 +0000

Happy New Year from Italy!!! We were partying here on the first day of the New Year.

Umbria Jazz Festival is held every year around this time in the gorgeous Italian city of Orvieto. As this year, New Year’s day fell on a Sunday we enjoyed the happy opportunity to actually go see it and enjoy Funkoff jazz band live parading, playing, and dancing through the street. Funky!!

I taped it, so you can hear them too!

For more info: Umbria Jazz ~ Orvieto’s annual New Year Jazz Fest

Orvieto is also famous for its delicacies, which range from rare black truffles, divine olive oil to top Italian wines. On New Year’s day, on the menu of many restaurants and on all dinner tables at home featured a traditional Italian comfort-food dish that is to bring both luck and prosperity.

What Italians eat at New Year
(click link to see)

Artistically, Orvieto is known for its hand-decorated ceramics. While we might think that all these gorgeous Italian table settings are made in Florence, realize that Orvieto hosts the skilled Italian artisans that we all know so well. Have a look…

Italian Hand-decorated Ceramics
(click link for beautiful photos)

Overall, Orvieto is an amazing cultural center, that dates back to Etruscan times. It’s perched upon a volcanic flat, high up in the sky. Its most visible magnificent art center piece is the monumental 14th century cathedral. Its most famous hidden secret is the original underground Etruscan city. For trip and vacation info and gorgeous travel photos, from now on, visit our other site, http://www.TravelTripVacation.com, where we’ll host more of our travel info, to keep FineCraftGuild purely about art and fine craft.

Shell-bejeweled Pots for Beach Cottage

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:28:00 +0000

Wondering what to do with that ever growing collection of shells? Here’s an idea for the larger ones.

Again, simple design idea

Found in Paris.

Other beach cottage design ideas & DIY tutorials:

A Beach in a Pot
Waterproof Picnic Blanket for the Beach
Bed Sheet with Beach Shell Print – Easy Home Craft

French Design Inspiration from Paris

Fine Craft Guild — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:40:00 +0000

Sharing my secret: I’m in Paris!!!!

Instead of craft & DIY tutorials, you’ll find world-class creative inspirational photos to help you develop your own DIY and craft ideas… for the next 2 weeks!

Some of the articles will be a single brilliant idea (I’ll be calling these articles ‘Creative Ideas from France’, while others are a complete collection of fashion, styles, designs and details (organized in ‘themes’). I’ll update this overview during the next 2-3 weeks as I’ll come across wonderful designs and creative ideas. I’ll make each idea/theme page into clickable links so all you have to do is bookmark this page and come back every day for the next few weeks.

FRENCH DESIGN, DIY AND HOME DECORATION IDEAS FROM PARIS

Theme 1: World-famous Patisserie houses in Paris:
Laduree

Theme 2: French, Fun & Fashion Bags:
Fruity Lunch & Picnic Bags

Theme3: Fashion in Paris 2011 – Galerie Lafayette, Le Marait & Versailles:
Parisian Shoe Fashion 2011

Theme 4: Antiques: Bedroom sets, Desks, Chandeliers & More: Porte de Cliquot:
Italian Antique Bedroom Set (Venice)
French Chandeliers from Baccarat

Theme 5: French Café & Bistro: Montmartre & beyond :
French Cafes in Paris

Theme 6: Table Settings in Paris:
Simple place setting with Ivy

Theme 7: The most Exquisite Parisian taste:

Caviar anyone? (introducing Odiot)

Theme 8: French Garden Designs & Flowers:
Shell-bejeweled Pots

Theme 9: Colors in Paris (French Style Ideas):
Colorful Zafu Medititation Poofs
Unique & Unimaginable Lamps

Theme 10: Some of my Favorite Things in Paris:
Funky Bejeweled Coat Hangers
French Country Farm Lamps

(Links will become active when articles will be published; not in order of theme number)

While I’m working out my longer, more involved themed Paris articles, tomorrow I’ll start with a simple place setting that you can pull of within 2 minutes for a table of 4! Easy and stylish.

How to Make a Simple Butterfly Mosaic

Rose — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 05:52:11 +0000

I’ve been inspired by mosaics for some time now. Mosaics can be whimsical, or serious. In consider mosaics classical. And, as historic mosaics in ancient cultures show us, they can be durable.

This weekend, my 5-year-old niece and I ventured out to an mosaic making art workshop. Together, we created a mirror butterfly mosaic. It was really my niece’s art project and she did most of the work. It came out good, don’t think?

It was remarkably easy., You just have to know how and what materials to collect beforehand. I thought to create a beginners tutorial based on the mosaic experience, so that you can make something like this (or better) too.

Grap this button for easy linking from your site to this free tutorial.

3 Easy Steps in Making a Mosaic Tile or Mosaic Mirror Project

STEP 1. DESIGNING YOUR MOSAIC

Create patterns, a focal point and an overall image.

Designing in playful ways:
You can use the mosaic design tool below, or simply get a handful of mosaic pieces (called ‘tesserae’ in official mosaic-making lingo) and start playing with them. We just started to play with mosaic pieces, and that’s a very satisfying way. We obviously stuck to a color scheme, which would suit my daughter’s bedroom.

If you want some order, rather than pure random: find some traditional patterns to look at here. There is also a Photoshop filter that makes a mosaic out of an image, so that might be worth exploring as well.

Designing a specific image:
If you want to make a really exact artwork, you can or you can use a photo or other images as a base. Simply draw or photocopy and re-size the image to the right scale and place tiles on top to match this base design.

Material selection:
Mosaic pieces can be made from a variety of materials. The official durable mosaic pieces are made of ceramic, glass, or marble tiles and smalti (the official name for the tiny, bright-colored mosaic pieces).

However, as least as much fun is to be had with pebbles, rocks, shells, little mirror tiles, beads, broken china, buttons, paper, and whatever you can dream up. I’m going to post an article about a mirror made with credit cards soon….

Ensure the mosaic pieces and the grout color you are using are suitable for its future conditions. Consider heat/light/moisture exposure (sun, water from rain, pond or steam) and usage (being walked on, or hung up).

You can use a range of bases as well. We used a simple wooden butterfly shape that can be bought in any craft shop. Of course, you can make your own butterfly drawing on plywood, and then saw out the shape. For outdoor tiles, I recommend a cement base instead.

STEP 2. CREATING THE PERMANENT MOSAIC

This can be done in a direct and an indirect way. In the direct method, the mosaic pieces are glued straight onto your base. You can put the glue either on the pieces or on the base, covering area by area. You grout the artwork when your glue has dried. This direct mosaic method is faster and easier, perfect for mosaic novices and generally for doing small mosaic projects, so that’s what I’ve used here. It’s also better to use when the thickness of your mosaic pieces vary, and when the front and the back of the pieces differ because the direct method allows you to see the overview of what you’re creating at all times.

For projects whereby you need an even surfaced end-result, use the indirect method (see footnote below)

STEP 3. GROUTING YOUR MOSAIC

Once your mosaic is glued on completely and the glue is dry everywhere, it’s time to put the grout on. Grout is really a powder, which when mixed with water, becomes a paste. Smooth this paste evenly over your artwork and you may use your (gloved) fingers to fill all the spaces between the mosaic pieces. Then, you can use an old credit card, or better: a small squeegee to smooth over. Have a rag handy for clean up and nitpicking.

Let it dry, and you’re done!

Footnote on Color

To get good at the color co-location, I suggest you get inspired (and educated) by some impressionist artwork. After all, color co-location is exactly what these masters were masters at. There is of course, no substitute for trial and error and to first hand determine the effects of a large red block with a small pink versus a small red with a large pink.

When choosing on a color scheme, consult your color wheel. What works well are complementary colors which are opposite each other on the color wheel, or go with a nice family of colors that are adjacent to each other on the color wheel.

Be very mindful of the color of the grout you’ll be choosing, as this will have a major impact on your overall design. Black, white, gray, beige and brown are standard grout colors. Choose the color of grout that best-blends in with your artwork design. (Again, you can use the before mentioned Photoshop filter to make the best selection With that filter, you can even check the effects of different grout widths).

It is possible to colorize your grout by applying a coloring powder. However you’ll find that the actual color of the grout will be shades different from your initial selection after your grout has dried. You have to ensure that your grout batch is large enough for your entire mosaic as there will be color variances between batches, and this would degrade the look of your artwork. So, in the beginning, stick to neutral grey, white or black.

Footnote on Indirect Mosaic Methods

In the indirect method, you create the mosaic back to front. It is fairly easy when you work with glass or other materials of which the front & back are the same, and so are different between mosaic pieces. However, it can be ‘impossibly hard’ when all pieces have the same backing.

I consider this technique only suitable for the very organized and more advanced mosaic artisan. This method is often used for larger scale work, for artwork made off-location and for floor mosaics.

Mosaic Making Resources

Free tool to plan your mosaic design online

Other Butterfly Craft

“Painting” with 3D Paper Butterflies – free tutorial
Our recently added library with Free Butterfly Craft Ideas & Tutorials

Craft Parties

This free give-away tutorial has been entered into several craft parties. Click on the link to learn more about them.

Ceramics: Notes on Glaze Formulation and Firing

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:47:04 +0000

Continuation of part 1 of the article.

Firing Conditions

First, from my experience glazes fire better in periodic kilns than in tunnel kilns. Matching the tunnel kiln cycle to the periodic kiln’s cycle may not give the same results. The spatial configurations are different as is the atmosphere.

The firing curve naturally has heat up and cool down periods.

In between these slopes is a flat or modified soaking time/temperature.

During heat up, the binders are removed from the glaze.

They must be completely removed and they must not be reduced to carbon during heat up (preheat). This does not mean that you can’t approach reducing conditions. Some compounds like MnO and FeO can greatly improve melting although they are often in the glaze only in tiny amounts as impurities. These compounds do not form under oxidizing conditions. Anyway, do not reduce the binders to carbon. It’s near impossible to remove for many glazes during the rest of the firing.

There are a number of instruments to determine the nature of the burnout for a particular binder. Thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) and Differential Thermal Analysis (DTA) come to this old head.

The preheat or heat up is usually a production standard for tunnel kilns. Therefore if you are not getting what you are looking for, you must adjust the burners or heating input in this zone. You don’t want bubbles from binder forming all during the soak period. You have enough bubble problems without that.

During the soak phase and at all higher temperatures the glaze is changing composition. That is, the glaze is loosing volatile elements because of the high temperatures. This can be complex as when one component of a glaze is removed it may increase the volatility of other components.

For you chemical engineers, this would be somewhat like steam distillation.

When you lose volatile elements you also increase glaze viscosity in the molten state. For this reason, and others I suppose, fast firing is often better than a long firing cycle. In fact, I’ve seen glazes that required fast firing.

Cooling is important to both the glaze and ceramic ware. You can cool quickly to just above the silica phase transition and then cool slowly through the transitions. This may not be good for the glaze which is trying to get rid of the bubbles created after the glaze melted. This can put you between a rock and a hard place. You have to be able to control the whole cooling zone of a tunnel kiln from the minute the ware comes out of the hot zone.

John T. Jones, Ph.D. (tjbooks@hotmail.com, a retired VP of R&D for Lenox China, is author of detective & western novels, nonfiction (business, scientific, engineering, humor), poetry, etc. He coauthored Ceramics: Industrial Processing and Testing. Former editor of Ceramic Industry Magazine. He is Executive Representative of IWS sellers of Tyler Hicks wealth-success books and kits. He also sells TopFlight flagpoles. He calls himself “Taylor Jones, the hack writer in some ezinemagazine.com articles.”
More info: http://www.tjbooks.com
Business web site: http://www.ceramicdefects.com.

Ceramics: Notes on Glaze Formulation and Firing – 1

Fine Craft Guild — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:38:50 +0000

I hesitate to write an article on glaze formulation when there is so much on the Internet. Still, there are a few generalities that might be useful.

Some years ago I categorized many glaze formulations according to firing temperature and surface finish. I did this for lead and non-lead glazes both glossy and matt. I was amazed how easy it was to correlate composition with firing temperature (pyrometric cone or Buller ring).

You might run the same type of exercise if you are looking at many glaze compositions trying to come up with just one. You can start your formulation activities using the averages of the ranges of composition for each oxide addition for the temperature range you are shooting for.

The properties of a glaze can be calculated from the composition. For example, you can calculate the thermal expansion coefficient. In my experience, the calculation do not match the measured properties of the final glaze. However, relative calculations are usually true. You might not calculate the exact measured value but you will know that Glaze A will have a higher expansion and lower viscosity than Glaze B.

My associates formulated hundreds of glazes over the years for earthenware and fine china. Much of this work was done in a joint effort with frit suppliers as existing frits don’t always do the trick in large production operations.

Here are some factors that I found to be important:

Glaze Composition

Lead is magic in glazes. It must be used in fritted form and in the minimum amount possible to maintain the proper glaze flow in the molten state. The glazed ware must pass all FDA and other restrictive testing. If lead is allowed, your problems are minimized. Your workers must be monitored for lead in the blood if lead air levels exceed OSHA standards. Borate frits can help reduce lead content but may increase solubility.

Complexity of formula is important. Every element you add to a glaze impacts the final-glaze properties. For example, too much alkali content will increase the solubility of a glaze, raise its thermal expansion, and in general raise havoc. A minimum amount of alkali content will give the glaze fusibility. Also, individual alkalis act differently in extent. Therefore one would use more than one alkali and the minimum amount of each that yields the best balance in properties.

The same is true of the alkaline earths, the glaze modifiers, and the glass formers.

You should consider the entire periodic table of the elements when formulating a glaze.

Remember that a very small addition of a particular element might give you a property you want, but increasing the amount only slightly can ruin your progress. As an inconvenience to glaze formulators, other elements interfere.

One other thing: You should use the minimum amount of binder. Sometimes it’s best to use several binders in small amounts rather than just one binder. Binders can be purified clays or organic compositions like gums or resins. Like I say, a mixture is usually best. None would be better.

To learn how to formulate gazes from scratch or using frits you can find it in my book Ceramics: Industrial Processing and Testing. You can read the contents at http://www.tjbooks.com/ceram.htm

Click here for part 2 of the article.

By John T Jones, PhD

How to make Ceramic Art Cards

Fine Craft Guild — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 07:13:20 +0000

Having seen the most exquisite mosaics in Italy & France this summer, my interest in ceramics is certainly heightened! In an attempt to learn more about this fine craft and the materials used, I have been collecting articles on the topic of tiling, ceramics and mosaics to share with you. This is a very first & simple project to familiarize yourself with this medium. There are no tile patterns to worry about – it is just about playing with ceramics.

“Make Your Own Personalized Ceramics” by Tony Lucks, Nov ’05

If you are looking for a part-time business and think you could make items made of porcelain – not difficult, see below; you may be interested in learning of our experience.

We make greeting cards – personalized porcelain greeting cards! We also make personalized commemorative plates and other items, but in this article I want to tell you how you can build a great little business making greeting cards.

Of course a greeting card is no use unless you can put a message in it, and you can do that by writing directly onto the surface of the china with a special pen that contains a type of paint. We take our cards to a large market and do great business by adding people’s personal messages to the cards. They sell very well. We also sell our cards and commemorative plates via the Internet and on these we glaze the message onto the china – we won’t be telling you how to do that as we don’t want competition!

The card from ceramiccards.co.uk

Our cards measure about 3 x 2.5 inches. You can see a picture of our cards at www.ceramiccards.co.uk. There is a greeting on the front – Happy Birthday, Mom, Wedding, etc, etc. There is also a choice of design – flowers, cute ones like a dormouse, penguins, a hippo, and a pink pig! Inside the card we write the message.

If you want to make cards like these you need to first make a master out of clay. This is a skilled job which you can give to an expert to do for you. The task of actually making the cards is not particularly difficult and we had no training.

Once you have the master you make a mold, again this task can be passed to a company specializing in this process. When you have several molds you are ready to make your cards. Fill with ‘slip’, liquid clay which is available from various suppliers. Leave for about 20 minutes and open the mold and remove the card. Leave until nearly dry, then, with a damp sponge, smooth the edges. Let the card dry thoroughly then gently smooth the flat surface with a fine sanding block and remove the dust.

You are now ready to fire your cards in a kiln. You will need a small electric kiln that can be run off household electricity. The firing takes about 24 hours, most of which is the time taken to cool.

Now on to the glazing stage: dip your cards into a bucket of glaze and allow to dry. Smooth off any runs. Fire the cards in the kiln again.

The final stage is decorating the card. The wording for the greeting and the design are types of transfer known as ceramic decals which can be purchased from various companies. There is a company in the UK that produces a range of wording and ships worldwide – if you need contact details e-mail us. Just soak them in water for a couple of minutes and slide them onto the card. Wipe to remove any air bubbles and allow to dry. Fire in the kiln again and the end result is decorated china just like your diner plate or coffee mug.

The writing inside the card can be done with a gold or silver pen made by Pilot. The writing takes a few minutes to dry and is then permanent.

Take your cards to anywhere large numbers of people gather and set up your stall. You will find you can sell as many cards as you can make. My wife and I have been making cards like this for ten years and the business we built up paid all our bills. We now sell only via the Internet and have added commemorative plates to our range.

About the Author
Tony Luck has an interest in heraldry. His website http://www.familycrests.biz has additional information on coats of arms and family crests.