Gone Potty

Hi all, sorry it's been so long since my last post but I have been up to my ears in it again. I promised myself that I would publish my latest book before the end of May so that took the bulk of my time during the last week.

On the pyrography front it has been busy too. Somebody must have started a rumour that there is going to be a shortage of pyrography enhanced trinket boxes in the near future because I've had a run of sales.

This means that I have had to replace my stocks and that comes with mixed blessings. It is good that somebody liked my pyrography enough to part with their hard earned cash, but doing repeat projects isn't as exciting as doing new ones.

On the plus side I like to think that each new trinket pot, even if the design is the same as one that I've done before, will be just that little bit better.

At the end of the day it comes down to money and although I'd like to do something new every time I need to make my pyrography pay its way.

So I thought I'd share the three trinkets pots I have been working on with you, one post at a time. Those who have seen the same pots before will need to bear with me, but even for those readers there will be new information.

We'll start with the Daisy Pot.

 This seems to be a very popular design because I have sold several on www.folksy.com . It has three daisy on the top and four around the sides. I have also used my pyrography iron to burn in the grain in of the wood. The darkness of the burn lines helps the white petals of the daisy to become more pronounced.

The method I follow is to draw the daisy first and then burn them in. Then I do the grain work. Once that is done, I paint the petals and the centre of the daisies white. When the paint is dry, I give the petals another coat of white and do the centre of the flower with cadmium yellow. You may wonder why I make the first coat of the daisy centre white. The answer is that I do it to make the yellow coat become more vibrant.

Once the paint is dry, I give it three successive coats of quick drying  gloss varnish and then kindly ask my wife to give the base inside and out a layer of felt.

Having said that, these trinket boxes sell well you may be wondering why I'm not worried that somebody will steel my design and start making their own. Well I'm not, and that's because I know how long it takes to produce one. People who want to take advantage of another persons hard work are generally only interested in making easy money so my trinket pots will be of little use to them.

By the way if you want to have a go at doing one for you own pleasure please feel free to use my design and I'd love to see a photo of your efforts.

The trinket pot in my next post will be one for the romantics.