Hen-rietta's New Hat

HAHAHAHAHA! Sharon made a funny. This is, of course, Henrietta. She raises chickens and is thinking they’re just the greatest thing ever. Her favorite chick is the Rhode Island Red Hen. In fact, she loves that chicken so much she decided to wear it to church last Sunday. You can imagine the stares they endured…but Henrietta stood her ground and was as “happy as a hen” with her new millinery. She’s thinking maybe next week she might give Ricky the Rooster a chance to attend Sunday service. After all, he always insures she’s on time!

That's the write up I'm going to put with this new sugar skull on Etsy. The skulls are getting more and more complicated...and more and more fun.

Thank the powers that be that this bead wasn't in the kiln when I had my "blow out". Well, nothing actually blew up - it melted. I included a picture of my mess and I'm blaming it all on menopause. It's probably more like I'm doing too much and got distracted after I turned the kiln back up to high to hit that all important annealing temperature one additional time. Now why would I think I needed to do that? Duh, heck if I know...but I did.

Then I promptly turned around to go and fold some laundry and left the kiln running and running...........running................and.........running..............and running...............and heating...........for the next seven hours (overnight).

Luckily I go down every morning early, before work, to check how I did the evening before. And again, luckily, I am a safe person when I set things up. So, under that kiln and against that wall is heat protection made to withstand a wood stove. The kiln was over 2000 degrees and had maxed out when I caught it. Nice to know I could throw pottery and then glaze it in that tiny kiln but what a mess I made. The glass melted and dripped below the kiln shelf (on which I had put some fiber board for cushion for heavy beads) and on to the bottom fire brick. Probably a good thing I had coated that long ago with kiln wash. As it was I had to dig some clumps out of the brick and scrape glass off the shelf where the board hadn't protected it.

Tonight's beads came after my clean up and putting kiln wash on everything again. Nothing major in the way of great - no skulls. Just a retest on that kiln which took a lickin' and kept on ticking. Who'd of thunk! Go Jen-Ken.

Oh, and Ms. Mallory Hoffman tagged me....I'm thinking I'm it! I'm going to her blog to figure it out and be "it" for awhile. I could use a good it after the melt. Or maybe find a hen for my head...or Rhode Island Red for the next fun dye job since my pink is now faded to a memory.