A fun new thing - Pottery Class!

Thanks, Catherine, but I hung that one up in my gazebo just the other day. I love working with ferns though, and I'm sure I'll do some others and I will let you know.
IL's post inspired me, and I hand-built this one today. It was done with a textured rolling pin, not actual plant impressions. I think I'll play around with these some more because they are fun. There are some things I would do differently next time, but I was in a hurry to get this one done before class began. Of course it isn't glazed or anything yet.

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I love that shape!

I recently finished up and planted this succulent garden. It was a class project and we used the teacher's template, but chose our own colors and texture designs, embellishments, etc. (I did not make the little owl. I bought him a long time ago, and he just seemed to fit into this miniature garden quite nicely).
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Then there is all this stuff that DH and I brought home about a week ago:
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Love the little garden!

I’m sorry to piggyback on your thread about pots you make, but I thought you might be interested in seeing my collection of small hand built pots acquired in the past 12 months.

The one in the last photo is super Duper cool and very expensive. It has so many finishes, and they all work together beautifully, it fascinates me. I’m trying out different plants in it. I wanted something soft and free flowing, not some stiff little succulent plant for it.

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IL: I am delighted to have you on my thread! I've actually been playing around with succulent planters since you mentioned them, because I really like projects that combine my love of plants with pottery.
The first picture is one I made from red clay, which is easier to work with for hand building, but the glaze treatment isn't too exciting. The next 3 pictures are of one I did with white clay. I really like how the surface decoration came out (especially the bug), but the pot is a bit wonky. The white clay is a bit more difficult to work with for hand building projects. So I haven't hit it quite right yet, but it's fun to play around:
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Very nice, rr. I really like the third one.

Thanks, Happy. The second, third and fourth pics are different sides of the same pot.

Yesterday was our first real attempt at selling some pottery. It was an interesting experience in a lot of ways. It was a local, low-end "Crafts Fair and Flea Market," and a low-risk, low-reward proposition. The table only cost $30., so it seemed like a good opportunity to try the waters. Our net earnings were $181 dollars after the table fee, so I'm glad we're not trying to support ourselves with this. Our stuff was priced very low, so I'm kind of surprised we didn't do better, but the event seemed more flea market/yard sale oriented. I do think we did better than a lot of the other craft sellers. Some observations:
It was more fun and less tedious than I expected. I actually enjoyed talking to the people who visited our table, much to my surprise.
We got a lot of positive comments on how beautiful our stuff was and several people mentioned that they liked our color choices.
A lot of women middle-aged and up commented on how they loved our stuff but already had too much stuff at home to buy more.
Some of our better sales were people buying gifts for others.
The attendance at the event wasn't huge, so more traffic would have probably generated more sales.
My biggest takeaways were that we would probably do better at a fair that's a little more crafty and less flea-markety, and timed closer to the holidays when people tend to be more in gift buying mode. It would also be more worth our while to do a venue with more traffic. I think we did pretty well with the aesthetics of our display for a first-time effort. My biggest regret is that we went there with 10 boxes of pottery and came home with 9! If anyone has input or constructive criticism, feel free to offer it. I think we would like to do a couple of these a year to help keep our inventory under control.
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PS: As far as prices go, we had 4 or 5 pieces for $25, and everything else was less than that. We had an "oops box" of $1.00 stuff that did very well. Most of our items were between $5.00 - $15.00.

Glad to hear that, overall, it was a success! I think your assessments are pretty much spot-on.

I wish you would have been able to get rid of more than one box, but making close to a couple hundred dollars seems fine. Was this a two day affair? i’m glad it wasn’t tedious for you to sit there for a day or two.

I’m going to the big St. Louis art fair in a few weeks and will be looking at ceramics, prints, and paintings.