Charm Continuation...

So I baked my glass painted charms on Saturday night. I had to resort to glass painting for the final coat because they were not accepting any more vitreous enamel or high heat (I guess I found one of the limiations of copper clay). So the final layer and my back signature had to be done with something requiring low heat. The glass paints worked very well. I had some sacrifices to the gods of craft experimentation . I think I ended up with almost 10 sacrificed and unusable. That would mean that I had an average 20% loss. Not a good percentage. Now I'm on the wait for a good %off coupon from Michael's so that I can purchase a small pottery wheel. I think I'd like to try throwing a pot from copper or bronze clay. Why not? There are a lot of drawbacks to it, and I've heard that these small wheels won't work for this application. But if I can get one of these "toys" for $12-$13, it seems worth the experiment to me. And I'm sure I can figure out other things to use the wheel for also.

And Le Tour is on again. Call me happy! I truly love watching the major races - Le Tour, the Giro, the Vueleta, etc. But Le Tour is the biggie and I try to not miss any of it. I'll be very disappointed to have to miss next week while I'm out of town. I'll catch what I can on text message and on-line, but it won't be the same. It's a sacrifice, but I'll learn a lot about my craft so it's a sacrifice that I felt was worth it. But I'll still miss my daily "Le Tour fix". (My picture isn't from the 2009 Tour, but isn't it it a lovely one? The peloton sillouetted against the clouds - perfect!)