You may have seen that every year I have a special pottery day with each of my two granddaughters where we make gifts for the family at Christmas. This week we celebrated their 3rd and 6th birthdays.🎂 Last Christmas, my eldest granddaughter Mila completely stole everyone’s hearts by basically “hosting her own YouTube video” impromptu at just 5 years old 😂 She was absolutely amazing… including reminding everyone to “ask a grown up if you need to use sharp stuff!” 😆💜 ( I’ll pop the video link below because it still makes me smile so much ) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8o2w6bPWEc&t=620s Well… Mila has now asked if she can come and spend the day with Nanna and Grumpy on Thursday because her school is closed here in the UK for voting day (they use the school as a polling station). Her little sister will still be in kindergarten, so she’ll get a whole day with us 🥹 And her exact words were: “Nanna, Can we do pottery… and can I make my own YouTube video?” Honestly… my heart melted. Now usually I am FULL of project ideas… but my brain has completely gone blank this time! Plus only got a few days to come up with something! She has tried the wheel once and loved it, but I think hand building would probably work best for a fun filming day. She learns incredibly quickly and made some gorgeous angels last year. I wondered if anyone here has done particularly successful pottery projects with children around this age? Maybe something fun she could make multiples of as Christmas gifts… or perhaps one really special piece for her own room? I’d absolutely love any ideas or inspiration from fellow clay people 💜 All photos to inspire me would get extra brownie points 🤣🤯

Hi everyone, I have not been active on this platform at all sorry, I am finding social media so overwhelming. In fact I am finding life a little overwhelming at the moment. I haven't been able to talk myself into my studio for the last three days, and I have to get back i to it. I have medieval events coming up that I really have to get things done for. I love pottery and feel extremely privileged that it is my full-time, but lately I walk in to my studio look around and just don't know where to go next and end up walking out again. I also have several videos waiting to be edited to go up on my Shoebox Studio Ceramics YT channel, but I can't seem to talk myself into completing them either. It's so frustrating, having so much to do, but feeling unable to do any of it. Do you fellow potters ever get like this, especially those that are full-time potters? How do you get yourselves out of the darkness and back into the joy of pottery? I didn't know you have to select a category for your post, couldn't decide what this should of gone under, Fails, General, Question? I went with Question, I hope that is ok? Much love to you all x

This is a platter I made a month ago and it sold..But I have a request to create an octopus holding up a bowl over his head. This one I dried flat then I glaze glued it to the platter. These are difficult to sculpt as is because I keep breaking the arms off. Any ideas on how to get it lift the arms to dry so I can attach a bowl after bisque. Sponges and lots of them , or hang it upside down and try to slip and score his arms in a bowl shape? Any other ideas to hold up the bowl?

Today was a completely last-minute decision… and somehow turned into one of those days that stays with you 💜 I live in the UK, and like most of us here, I’m very good at moaning about the weather 😅 The rain, the grey skies, the cold… But honestly? I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. Today my husband and I decided to take our Rhodesian Ridgeback Kaiser for a walk at Kinver Edge, a beautiful National Trust spot on the Staffordshire/Worcestershire border. My husband grew up there—it was his childhood playground. We got married in Kinver Church nearby, walked those hills when we were courting, later with our two little boys, and with dogs we’ve loved over the years. We then moved away for many years and only came back to the area about five years ago. Even though we now only live around 30 minutes away, somehow we hadn’t been back to Kinver Edge for far too long. The moment we arrived, the memories came flooding back. The bluebells were out, the sunshine was warm (a rare UK miracle 😂), and the views across the English countryside honestly took my breath away. Kinver village sitting amongst the rolling hills looked just as magical as I remembered. For two precious hours, life slowed down. We reminisced about being 18 and falling in love, marrying young, raising our boys, building a life together… and quietly reflected on the fact we both came through cancer after a very challenging couple of years. Last year we celebrated 40 years of marriage. Today just felt… special. Really special. One of those moments where you suddenly feel incredibly grateful for ordinary things that actually aren’t ordinary at all. And to finish the morning, we stumbled across a newly built farm shop café and had the most beautiful breakfast and coffee together 💜 Life can absolutely be challenging. But it’s also full of rewards and beautiful moments—you sometimes just have to pause long enough to notice them. 💜 It made me wonder…Do you have a place that holds special memories for you?

Hello all of you YouTube stars!!! 🌟 Watching you all doing your great videos, inspires me to try and take a step into making a kiln reveal myself, mostly to be able to share with you all. But since I have absolutely no idea how to go about things, editing and stuff, I want to ask you if you can point out a simple editing software I can use. If I can muddle through this I will try to do this on a semi regular basis. I do things slowly and my glaze firings are few and far between, but I'd love to be able to "show off"😜 a little. I do have access to a ring light, and will just use my phone and to begin with, no microphone. (Would love to get a hint on where to buy a decent, not too pricey one.)