That other project…. porcelain candle lights

In a couple of weeks (give or take a few) I’m becoming a mom. Hooray!

According to Belgian tradition, when the baby is born you give every visitor a small box of sweets as a thank you for their gifts or visit, called ‘doopsuiker’. It’s a huge tradition which requires quite a bit of preparation: choosing which candy you want to give,  the boxing, the color schemes, the display, etc.

So I thought: lets keep it simple. I’m not going to make, glaze and fire 100 little ceramic bowls. That’s crazy work and I’ll need to save my energy. I’ll just buy some basic little boxes at the store.  Good for me… Should I? …Hmmm, no it’s crazy. Yes, let’s stay rational.

Well, that lasted about a month. Soon enough, my fingers started itching and I could no longer resist. Goodbye rationality 🙂

So, I started on the ceramic bowls. I wanted to make little bowls to contain the candy, but I also wanted them to be re-used afterwards as candle lights. That’s when the porcelain came into the picture. It allowed me to make very thin bowls, as white as snow at the outside and brightly colored on the inside. And once you put a candle in, it would become semi-translucent.  I worked with 2 moulds to speed up the process and just started pouring, sanding, firing, etc. The good thing about producing large amounts is that the routine gets you to practice your technique. I eventually settled on 75 bowls though.

After the first firing, a couple of friends spend the evening glazing each and every one of these bowls for me with transparent, green and turquoise glaze. After that, they all went into the kiln one last time. And voila!

It’s been a lot of work,  but now I have something personal as a thank you gift and souvenir for the little one.