I still hate balloons...

  Finally back playing in the mud a little.  I managed to make a few new coffee cups with fun little messages inside and came up with a new idea how to get the words to stand out a little better.  I'll underglaze them before I bisque and that way I can sand off any excess when they are leather hard making the color more distinct.  (keep your fingers crossed this is still just a theoretical fix) So after a good day of turning I had quite a few "word mugs" ready for the test.

The good news is, this idea appears to have worked out quite well...Once bisqued the words came out much darker and more detailed than the mugs I've tried in the past.  Hopefully, this theoretical fix will actually work.  

Next step is to figure out how to glaze the insides clear so the words are still visible and manage to glaze the outside in other colors.  I started with the clear interiors...so far so good.  (but the hard part is next) 

So I saw this really cool idea online. (stop laughing, I know you all do that too) In this guy's post he was using a balloon to keep from getting the glaze on the insides of his mugs, a problem I am intimately familiar with when trying to glaze the inside and outside 2 different colors.  

  The joke here is that I really hate balloons...REALLY hate balloons.  When I was a District Manager my store teams used to call and ask where I was going to be on event day because if it was their store then they knew there were NO BALLOONS!

  I had to give it a try...and guess what, it's really awkward, and a little scary, but it works!  Stay tuned to see if these mugs survive their battle with the kiln (the kiln is always the enemy!)

  I don't know that I am quite ready to give up my dipping tongs, but I may have a little less hatred for the balloons after this endeavor...until next time, stay muddy my friends!