What a week!

Special thanks to fellow Highland Park resident Katherine for posting us on her blog almostgrownla.blogspot.com. You're awesome! We're dedicating this song to you by Artichoke.





Happy weekend :)

We're on Dwell.com!

Holy cow! We're on Dwell.com! Thank you Aaron Britt :) Read here.

Lesson Learned

Picked up some pieces at the studio yesterday.  Looks like the green glaze I used was contaminated with some other glaze and made white streaks.

Aargh.

The perils of working at communal studio. A good lesson. Now looking into using my own bucket of glaze so this doesn't happen again.

Trial and Revision

One of the designs we are working on is a cork lidded vessel. It's still very much in the trial and revision phase.  Working with two parts now, both the lid and mouth must align correctly. So the mouth must be very round to fit the cork lid just right. And the measurement of the vessel when wet has to be calculated, because as it dries and gets fired twice, the black mountain clay shrinks 12%.


Aaargh. Easier said than done!

We're in the LA Times!

Speechless. 

Seeing yourself written up in an article for the first time is such a surreal experience. We have have received such a positive vibe from so many people about our business. Can it be that when you love what you do, everything just falls into place? Oh that, and working our butts off. Still.

Wow.  

Thanks to Lisa Boone of the LA Times for making me sound much more coherent than I usually am. Here's the article.

More Pots

New pots we are working on.

Order Up!

Our first order! This one is being custom made due to the quantity requested. Our first customer will always have a special place in our PUTIKMADE heart :)

What's a Murmuration?

Wow. Happy Weekend :)

Shallow Bowl Planter Part I

Working on a bowl planter.  This one will be a bit larger in size and shallow.  We'll post its progression. 

Part II
Part III

Before and After #2

A PUTIKMADE pot is good

but with a plant, it's so much better!

Baby Apples

It's been cold here in LA.  Well, LA cold. Which means we all have our socks on inside the house, the dogs don't want to be outside, and we had hail over the weekend. But the garden is getting a good soak. The apple tree is starting to fruit.  The apples on this tree are small but yummy.  The birds and squirrels like them too, of course.

So Nice

Having our own business, we have a chance to create our own philosophy. We were discussing the other day some thoughts to keep in mind when it comes to the business:

keep it simple


don't dwell on the negative

be nice


We already implement #1 and #3. #2 was just in case we hit a bump in the road - and we're sure we will at some point. 


So many people have been very kind to us since starting this journey. We are so inspired by that. Thank you.

Arboretum

Cynthia and I visited the Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden this morning to check out our space for the Garden Show in May. We'll be under a gorgeous old oak tree. Score!

Even though it seems to be a busy mating season there, Mr. Peacock here was nice enough to pose for my shot.

Happy Weekend :)

Hanging Pots

Cynthia Vargas has officially partnered up with PUTIKMADE! She's a designer, maker and marketing extraordinaire. Yay!

Oh, and she's a pretty cool friend too. 

Put a Plant in it

A rejected pot is a lonely pot. 

So at our house it gets a plant and hangs out with other rejected pots.  Happier, yes?

Green Again

Wakey, wakey garden.

A Debut of Sorts

PUTIKMADE will be selling pottery at Grow! A Garden Festival at the Los Angeles Arboretum & Botanic Garden on May 4 - 6, 2012.  A three day event with thousands of visitors. Ack! You can't believe it either?


I know.


Super excited.


Come say hi to me and my good friend, Cynthia.  I promise we're nice.

Geeking Out Again

I received my business cards in the mail yesterday. Nice. Did I mention they're letterpress?  Just sayin'. heehee.

In my last pottery class, we learned how to make lids and containers. This one is a simple cap lid. Although I wouldn't exactly call it simple. Let's say it's made with alot of love. 

Soldate 60 with glossy white glaze, leather pull.

Happy weekend :)

Tired Hands

After my putting my son to bed, I managed to throw a couple of 4lb clay balls into vessels late last night. It wasn't the ideal thowing session. I was already pooped from a long day taking care of my son, but somehow I ended up with some slightly newer forms, more wabi sabi-ish.  Perhaps the result of being tired and the clay too hard (I didn't wedge it enough).  But so far i love the result! Funny, how things work out.

The best part of all - is that I can change a design because I want to.

This reminds me of a job I used to have where I had to write certain letters to clients. Before I could mail them out though, I had to submit these letters to three people above me, each higher than the other and each with their own corrections of the letter. So by the time the letter went out, it looked nothing like the original letter I wrote. 

Two lessons I learned:  I suck at letter writing. 

And the other, I so appreciate where I am today.

Break

My son has the flu so I am not able to visit the studio today or get much done.  I feel terrible that I passed the flu onto him - kids look so helpless when they are sick.  All he wants is for me to sit or cuddle with him all day.


While the little guy was napping, I picked these surinam cherries off the tree.  Yup, ate all of them. They were sweet and juicy...sorry husband, I'm pretty sure they don't keep well, uhuh, that's it.

It's up

A little bit cold and cloudy today which means greenware takes a while to dry to leather hard. This gives me a chance to work on other aspects of the business, like social media. Who knew I would ever join Twitter. Not me. Yet here I am. Not quite sure what to tweet...


to my two followers.


Two followers - thank you. 


We all have to start somewhere.


In other news, the husband finally worked on my website.  Yes it's up! It still needs more work but can't believe this was just a mere idea in the beginning of the year. As my son says, happeee.

Junior Potter

Caught the flu bug last week. 

It's frustrating when you want to get things done but all your body wants to do is lie down and sleep. So my little man took over for a bit.

Anyway, feeling alot better :)

Red Socks

When it gets a bit chilly in the house, we all put socks on.  My son's socks are the coolest. Check out the blue pompoms on the side.


These are socks only a loving grandmother can give. In this case, his ninety three years young great-grandma.


Don't worry, I don't make him go to school in these.


Happy Weekend :)

Fig Tree

The fig tree is blooming!