Second week of October

Preparation for Halloween Costumes. 

  

A neighbor invited us and 100 other people over for a fall party. It was fun. 

The neighborhood turkeys came for a visit. So I ran to the backyard and grabbed some birdseed to feed them. They loved it!

Not sure if this video will show, but at about the same time the following night they came back looking for us! This made my day, as you know I grew a love for fowl in our stent in Kansas. We weren't home but they came up to the door and we caught them on our doorbell camera. 

Fall is revving up!

Prior to the start of school as I anticipated having empty days with everyone at school (BEFORE I got a job) I signed up for a pottery class through community ed. I think it's just an 8 week class (my last class is this coming Tuesday) First week was pinch pots and I made these two:

Second week we did slap work and learned how to do impressions and mugs. I made this leaf one... the handle had a stem print that caused a bit of a crack so I put this leave on the handle to cover up the crack and give it more support. Cute how it turned out, hopefully it makes it through the firing and glaze process. 

And While I'm on this topic I'll go ahead and share the other weeks and what I made: 

Week 3 was press plates. I made this sushi set, put some texture on the plates. Yes the texture is staying, my mother asked if I was going to smooth it out, :-P

Fourth week was the first time I got to try the wheel. First and only... haha This piece I made on the wheel but the teacher kinda took over and I never really got a feel for it myself. I tried another piece but it was a wreck and I was kinda over it at this point. 

So for the rest of that class I went back to what I was familiar with and made two little mugs from slab work. Surprised how much the white clay shrunk as it dried. 

Fifth class I wasn't sure what to make, looked up some inspiration photos and decided to try my hand at some platters. These were pretty simple, I cut down the middle folded the edge then used my hands to mold up the sides. 

Also made a little pouring jar for our maple syrup at home, with a press plate saucer. The corn starch on the saucer will go away it was just so it wouldn't stick to the foam or mold. 

6th class. Oh I guess we only have 7 classes. hmmm. Anyway this last week we begun glazing our fired work. We have two classes to glaze then we will come pick up our pieces a few weeks after our last class next week. I did about half my glaze on each piece. It needs 3 coats. 

I did get these finished. I did a white glaze top and bottom and then put these speckles on. The speckles should melt into a color and give it a dotted kind of effect, we'll see how it turns out cuz she wasn't sure how the powder would look. 

Okay back to second week of October: 

House all decorated for halloween. 

First day of REAL work, lol. Orienting to my first unit that I'll cover. 

It's at this moment some crazy inkling in me agreed to head up the Yearbook for our school's PTA. I felt the call, so answered it. Just in time as our Fall Festival was Thursday, October 13th so I dusted off my official camera and began that process to capture photos for the school. This was the first COLD day of fall. It didn't stay cold and kinda a bummer it was so cold for this event, but it was still a fun time. 

We remember this event from years past, it used to be called the "Barn Dance" and was held indoors with a spaghetti dinner. But now is outside. It's the same residency artist that comes weeks prior to teach the kids dances. The grand finale was the 5th grade 'sword' dance, which Isaac got to participate in. 

The next morning we got our first snow! Which I got to walk into work with. 

To finished off the first part of October: Sunday was a chilly flag football day

The walk to school Monday we discovered a neighbor let their sprinklers go in the freezing temps. The kids had fun kicking the grass and seeing it break off.

It was a short school week for MEA break. We had conferences Tuesday night. The kids are all doing so well. It was great to hear the teachers rave about each one. Since we had a sitter for the conferences we took advantage of that and made it a date night. Celebrating our wonderful kiddos!