Easy Pottery Gifts: DIY Ideas for Everyone

The weather in North Carolina has finally cooled down just ahead of this weekend’s impending time change. The yellow and orange leaves remind me that the holidays are just around the corner. It’s been a few years since I sat down at my pottery wheel or rolled at a slab of clay to make holiday gifts for friends and family. When I started a new hobby of quail keeping, the incubation and brooding took over my pottery studio / garage parking spot. Quail bedding, dust, and feathers do not mix well with wet clay. Now that I think of it, a sweet little quail footprint stamp is something I should make before I shut down that hobby completely.

If you are a hobby potter, you too are probably known and appreciated for sharing the abundance of your kiln. The following is a list of fun, easy projects that made sweet gifts for family, friends, neighbors, etc. If you can get your hands on a set of vintage letterpress (I found sets on Etsy many years ago), it’s a great way to add extra personalization like a date or fun message.

Personalized Ornament

I use cookie cutter shapes and punch out shapes to make the ceramic ornaments lighter. I also have played with fern and lace imprints and letterpress messages. There was one season I purchased cookie cutter states to make ornaments for family in Tennessee, Virginia and Florida. You can elevate the ornament with satin chord, leather chord, or wood bead work. A clay hole cutter tool will make a much cleaner hole in the ornament. Be sure to size up for your chord of choice as the clay will shrink in the kiln.

Mini Cup

The key to this mini cup is that you don’t have to fuss with a handle, and you can quickly make many of them. You also don’t have to define its use! I’ve used mine as a shot glass, a bud vase and a ramekin for soy sauce on fried dumpling night. Surface application is also versatile. I tried dipping dental floss in Speedball underglaze to get the thin stripes on the white cups and used the flick of a paintbrush for the splatters. Next time I make these, I will try stamping the surface (perhaps with a quail footprint) and apply an underglaze.

Teaspoon Rest

Even more simple than the ornament, the teaspoon rest is perfect for the tea drinkers in your life. These are always very satisfying to make as they are small and don’t require any cutouts or trimming — you wouldn’t want the tea to dribble through to the table. There’s something about smoothing down the sides with a sponge that is really enjoyable to me. Sometimes I’ll even burnish the surface with a smooth stone after the imprinted piece is leather hard for extra shine.

Again, I love using the letterpress on these. Garden herbs work well for the imprints as the leaves are generally small. I’d love to get more herbal tea-appropriate foliage in the future such as mint, chamomile, lemon balm, bergamot, calendula and lemon verbena. As for that “Smooth Move” tea bag pictured with the “thyme for tea” set, there’s no shame in a little cuppa for motivation. For my American friends “cuppa” is a phrase I keep hearing more in podcasts and on the show Troppo. It is British and Australian term for a cup of tea, and I couldn’t resist using the new-to-me phrase.

Garden Markers

There was one summer I grew 24 varieties of tomatoes and 8 varieties of peppers, so I ended up making a set of very specific plant markers. These are far more durable than the plastic plant markers. My biggest beef with the plastic is that it doesn’t hold the permanent marker or paint pen by the end of the summer. These ceramic plant markers won’t fade or break down in the sun.

Decorative Spoons

It’s been a long time since I have pulled spoons or pressed them in a mold, but these were such an eye-catcher on my tutorials. The lace imprints are great for glazes like a shino that break over texture. For a crisply colored imprint, a clear underglaze and clear glaze look great. A hole in the end allows the recipient to hang the spoon for display.

My personal Etsy shop is “on vacation” and has been for years. As I clean up my space and get back into clay, let me know if you try any of these ideas or have some other fun project ideas I should try.

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