New Shop Shout-outs!

You can now find a great selection of my stripe, herringbone and triangle bottle vases at 2 new shops! 

Please check out the brand new Cambie Design at 1535A Queen St. W, in Toronto!  Their grand opening this Saturday, August 17th, sounds like fun with popsicles, a lemonade stand, and lots to ooh and ahh over in the home decor department!  I love how they have paired my bottle vases with a vintage cabinet, and I spy a little more Vancouver ceramic love with Fleet Objects' Mariner Lamp in the foreground! 

This week I shipped off an order to Finely Crafted Store in Atlanta!  With such a lovely mix of other indie makers and designers, I think my stripe and triangle vases will be in good company! I'll share a little bit more once they arrive in store!

And with that, I'm off for a little last bit of summer vacation before the boys go back to school!  It's been a great summer in our new home and I think we've finally settled in.  My commute to the studio just got more enjoyable with the purchase of a new city bike!  Check out the latest meanderings, (and sneak peeks of work to come soon) on my instagram feed! 

New Shops carrying my Striped Bottle Vase

Hello, hello! Since September, things have really ramped up at the studio and I'm chest deep in shop orders that will be sent out by the end of the month in time for the holiday season!  I spent all day yesterday cutting my 'stickers' for my striped bottle vases (which I will be doing again today!!), as I have an enormous amount of Stripe Bottle Vases heading out the door in time for the holidays. 

Over here on the blog, my Stripe Vases might seem a bit old hat, but I did want to mention that I have added a few new colours to the mix and also changed my slip-casting body to a more pure porcelain, then my previous stoneware casting slip.  The difference is slight- oh, pretty pernickety in the making stage- likes to rip and tear if you don't use the most sharp utensil to cut the rim or seams, but there is a softness to the edges- where the white glaze meets the coloured glaze that makes my little ceramic heart sing.  Yes, I have a ceramic heart inside me- must have one of those to be so persistent and patient with all things clay related. 

So anywhoo, just wanted to pipe up and give a little shout out to a couple of new shops that will be carrying my striped vases soon:

Spruce Collective is a brand new shop that is opening in Abbotsford, BC, with all things vintage and good- this shop will be full of amazing and beautiful finds, I'm sure.  I can't wait to stop by in person soon! What a pretty logo, heh?

Gus & Ruby Letterpress is a letterpress boutique in Portsmouth, New Hampshire that will be getting a batch of my striped bottle vases towards the end of the month.  Their shop and letterpress designs are absolutely lovely and I'm thrilled to have work available at their shop in time for the holidays!

Adesso Atelier is a beautiful shop in Santa Barbara, California that I would love to visit!  I am really loving the studio store-front concept with most of these new shops!  Adesso is already carrying my striped vases as well as a few tall cylinder vases that include my triangle pattern too!

I'll do a post with some of the galleries that will be carrying a wider range of my work this fall- I can't stress how wonderful it is to be working with shops and galleries all across North America.  Many of the shop owners are makers or artists themselves and really understand how much effort and time I put into my work so I'm really grateful to be working with them!

The wonderful world of colour

I'm a big fan of colour grouping and pairing.  In painting class my favourite thing was colour theory class where we would place colours side by side and see what would happen.  Does the colour recede or come forward?  Does it change it's tone depending on what's beside it? With that in mind, we had a little fun at my last photo-shoot with grouping my striped bottle vases together.  Putting all the Turquoise shades together, the cool colours, the bright colours, the summer colours.  It was kind of fun.
As many glazes as I have in the studio these days there are some new colours I want to work on this year.  Thankfully I seem to have the colour of the year already working for me: Tangerine Tango, a great bright orange (the orange stripes in the photo above) with red undertones.  This year, I'd like to delve into the greens a bit more.  Finding a good 'Kelly Green' stain is hard to come by, but I'm looking forward to trying.  I think I've got yellow down, my turquoise selection is quite extensive, along with the blues.  I'm not a big purple and pink fan, but perhaps I need to work on that a little more- you know, broaden my horizons a bit.  (Wouldn't a soft purple look good with the vases below?)

What colours would you like to see me use next? Any suggestions?
photos by Curtis Hildebrand

Recent Uploads

Some recent i-phone uploads for you.  The orange Vespa is in constant need of repair, but it looks oh so cool.  The kitty is well loved and is enjoying the outdoors now that the weather is better.  And coffee with a friend does wonders!
Anyways, I hope you have a wonderful long weekend!  If you are passing through the Airport, I just dropped off a bunch of work! And the up-date on the Anthropologie Store (great post on decor8 with photos on the new shop) was that my vases are selling quickly! Thank you Vancouver for such a warm response!  I also just dropped off more striped bottle vases down at Room6 in Deep Cove.  Megan is just about to launch her new website- can't wait to check it out!

rain drop love

Megan from Room6 has out-done herself with the window-display...
If you've had your eye on my striped vases- please swing over to the Room6 shop to purchase!  I have up-dated my Etsy shop to include the 4 vases (only 3 colours available) that I have left, but I won't have the whole collection in stock until the beginning of April now.  And my shop will be 'on holidays' from March 20-26, and then again from March 30-April 4th.

Scout Magazine Feature

The December SCOUT Magazine  has featured my striped bottle vases along with a number of other lovely people from November's Poppytalk Handmade Market!  The magazine is full of lovely images, food and fashion related! You can find more here, just click on the magazine to view the full issue!