Saturday Artisan: Muddy Heart Pottery

Meet our Saturday Artisan: Melissa of Muddy Heart Pottery. 

I fell in love with her shop as soon as I stumbled upon it. A lots of pretty colorful porcelains you can find for home decor and jewelries. 

Let's get to know Melissa a bit more. Read on. 

Tell us a bit about yourself and what arts/ crafts that you make? 

My name is Melissa, but everyone calls me Meli. I live in beautiful NC with my hubby and my baby doggy. Besides ceramics, I love knitting, sewing, decorating, gardening, cooking, baking, entertaining and working on paper crafts!. Yes, I love doing lots of things!

 
What is the story behind your shop name? 

My pottery shop is called Muddy Heart; I picked this name because for some random reason I see heart shaped things everywhere!!, and when doing pottery, being muddy and dirty is a given! . I thought Muddy Heart was a cute, short memorable name and I went with it *_^

Who is your target market? My target market is all who love colorful, unique and delicate porcelain pieces made by hand . I am constantly imagining new designs and useful items that add whimsy to your home and life. 

Which part of creation process that you like to do the most? I love to paint, so the glazing part is one I enjoy a lot. Every piece I make is hand painted with lots of care!. I am slowly gravitating towards Majolica, which is a beautiful glazing style of pottery, and which suits my love of painting.

For us who love to travel, could you share a bit about your beautiful town/ city? 

Raleigh is beautiful, full of culture, life and great outdoor activities, and being close to the mountains and nature is a fantastic bonus!. If you have never been to the blue ridge parkway, I'd say come on over and enjoy the amazing creation of nature....there's so much to do in NC! 

Could you share on how your organize your products, we all can use a little tips here and there in this department? 

I have my pieces labeled and bubble-wrapped in Ziploc's safely kept in clear container bins. I do try to keep my etsy pieces to a certain size so that I don't run out of storage space quickly.

What is your best seller? 

My most popular items are my necklace pendants , tray dishes and yarn bowls. I know once I add the cool new items that are on the works, they too will be the stars of my shop....yes, I made you curious so remember to come by to see my new weekly additions! 

How does your day go in general? 

I work a 9-5 job from home, which may seem easy enough but in fact is very hectic!; after work ends, I prepare dinner for my hubby, my doggie and me (I love to cook!), spend some quality time with them and afterwards I get to work on my pottery until about midnight ... Of course, life is never predictable, so my days vary, but that's pretty much my schedule if things stay the course *_^ 

How do you balance your personal and work life?

I am a big planner and a list maker...I try to stay on top of "to-do things" in advance so that I don't get stressed with last minute things. By doing this, I feel I have control of things. and in turn, I have a little more time for my family and my "relaxing time" which is working with clay!.

 
What inspires you? 

I am a BIG fashion person!; I constantly read style magazines and pay close attention to trends in colors, textures and patterns... I have an inspiration board right in front of me, where I keep all sorts of pictures I am drawn to. Most of them have nothing to do with pottery, but I love the colors, and that is enough to get my mind going in creating items based on that!. Aside from my inspiration board, I look at tons of things at antique shops and at flea markets; old is new again, and I feel that craftsmen/women back in the day had an amazing talent at making everything more intricate, and I want to emulate that as much as possible.

What is your goal for 2012? And are you on the right track?

I am not one to do new year's resolutions...I feel they lead to disillusions if you don't stay the course. I feel that you know what you want and you have to make it happen; this year I wanted to make my etsy shop happen, and so far It is up and running, I have made good sales and met great people!, and I will work on growing my business, improving my pottery skills and being a better business person. 

Any advice for others running their on-line shop? 

I will say to have patience, and works towards achieving your dream!. I am by no means an Etsy success-yet-, but I hope to be one of those shop owners that get interview on how they quit their day job to do what they're truly best and happiest at!. As Audrey Hepburn once said "Nothing is impossible, the word itself says IM POSSIBLE"

Saving money is important; tell us one thing that you do to save money? 

I will say that shipping and packing materials are by far a huge expense!. Try being green and visit your local supermarket for boxes they're throwing away to use as your shipping boxes; get free newspaper publications and use those as free packing material, and finally, keep all of the packing material you receive in any order you get by mail. It helps being green and saving some green!

I try to be a social butterfly when I'm not in my pottery studio, if you want to keep in touch with me, here's how: ♥ My shop: www.muddyheartpottery.etsy.com ♥ My Blog ♥: domestiquette.blogspot.com/ ♥ My Email: muddyheart(at)gmail.com ♥ My Facebook: Muddy Heart ♥ My Pinterest: Domestiquette ♥ My Twitter: BDOMESTIQUETTE

Stay-tuned for tomorrow's giveaway!

Giveaway: Ceramic Love Birds by Orly Design

What about a chance of winning a beautiful pair of love birds?

Better yet, YOU choose the color!

Thank you Orly Design for sponsoring this week giveaway. Head over to my interview with her yesterday, if you haven't .


There are a few ways to enter. Please make sure you leave a separate comment for every entry.

How to enter to win:

Mandatory entry:

• Go to Orly Design. Return to my Adore By Nat blog and simply leave a comment here about your favorite item from her store.

Extra entries (only qualify once mandatory entry is fulfilled):

• Earn 2 entries - Go to yesterday's post to know her more. Leave a comment there (yesterday's post) on at least one the following: what you learn from the interview, what you want to see more on her shop and why, or any constructive feedbacks are always appreciated.
  
  Come back here and leave 2 comments that you did, to ensure your entries are counted.

• Heart Orly Design and earn an entry. Simply let us know your Etsy username.
• Follow Orly Design on twitter to earn an entry.
• Follow my blog and you earn another entry. If you're already a follower, you still get an entry, just says you're following already.
• Tweet about this giveaway, add "@adorebynat or @orlydesignshop" in your tweet. Each tweet worths one entry and you can tweet each day until the end of the contest (a maximum of one tweet per day is counted). That's a total of 7 entries!

• Blog about this giveaway to earn 2 entries. Leave two separate comments here please providing me with the link to your post.

• Purchase an item from Orly Design and earn 10 entries for each purchase. Don't forget letting us know by leaving comments :-)

Contest starts now and ends on July 17th, 2010. Contest opens worldwide.

Don't forget to leave me your e-mail address. Entries without contact information will be disqualified. Entries that do not follow the rules will be disqualified. Contest winner will be drawn on Sunday, July 18th by a random number generator, by the artist. Winner must respond within 48 hours after being contacted otherwise another winner will be randomly selected.

Saturday Artisan: Orly Design

Saturday Artisan this week is all the way from Israel. I love international artists and it's so nice that Etsy is so global and allows all artists to meet in one place. Orly Design offers ceramic art ware, perfect for your home or as a gift. Furthermore, Orly Design does custom design for weddings. Here is Orly in her own words: My name is Orly, I’m married and a mother of 3 beautiful children. In the past 7 years we live in a moshav (village) in Israel.

Since I remember myself, even as a child in my parent’s house, creation was always there. My parents had a factory for knitwear, which sold all over Israel. I understand today that my attraction to the handmade creation field started back then. Over the years I have tried working with different materials and techniques, but once I tried ceramic – I fell in love! It’s a wonderful feeling to take a lump of clay with no shape or color and turn it into a personal, lively and unique creation. This kind of creation offers me endless possibilities. I enjoy creating sculptures, jewelry, functional and decorative items. I like to combine in my ceramic work other materials from the nature, such as rocks, wood, glass and more.

My favorite… One of the things I stared creating lately (and I just love!), are items for weddings. I’m so excited when someone chooses one of my creations for their big day!

Until 6 months ago I taught computer networks collage. At the same time I also created and taught art. I’ve decided to quit my day job, and choose to create full time. During the day I spend most of my time in my home studio, where I create and teach art and ceramics for kids and adults. The hardest part in my creation…Every time I turn on the kiln I literally count the hours, minutes and seconds till I can open it, and this kind of kiln when working with ceramics, there are a LOT of minutes to count. In my nature I’m a kind of person who wants to see immediate results, so waiting is the hardest part of my creation process. For me, to open the kiln in the end of the process – it's like to open a treasury box with many colorful unique surprises … In the past I sold my work to friends, but due to increasing demand and friends recommendations I decided to open my Etsy shop, and I got hooked! I love the exposure, support and the wonderful atmosphere in this new world. To make other people happy with little simple things from daily life makes me so happy….

Orly's ceramics are great, aren't they? Wait till tomorrow, one of you maybe a lucky winner winning her ceramic :-) Stay-tuned!