You're Invited!
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Friday, November 19th - 10-6pmSaturday, November 20th - 10-6pmEmail here for location
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Presented by Jean Elton Studio and GalleryLois BarkerKathy SackettAmy Willers
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Hand Made OrnamentsSpecialty Table Top ItemsChristmas DinnerwareHand Painted GlasswareCandleholders with Holiday WreathsDecorated Wrought IronHandcrafted JewelryHoliday Sweets and Treats
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Sip some coffee or cider as youBrowse one of a kind beautifully designed piecesAs you check off your Christmas Gift List.
Janet Webster is the Business Manager at Jean Elton and has become an invaluable partner in the company. Her ideas and insight are important in all the business's decision-making.
Janet first became involved with Jean Elton after meeting Bill Barker (co-founder and owner) to discuss the purchase of another franchise. Though she did not go ahead with that purchase, she did decide she'd like to work with Bill on another project. "I have worked in finance, product management, consulting, and sales, and as we spoke about the different things he was involved in, the Jean Elton business (accompanied by iPhone pictures) sounded and looked compelling," says Janet. After meeting Lois Barker and becoming more involved in the business, she began to research and evaluate the new target market of customized dinnerware for brides. "I looked at primary and secondary market research. Lois and Bill liked the work, and offered me a role as Lois’ Business Manager. After working with Jean Elton’s senior management team over a six month period, we completed a strategic and operational audit, and selected a couple of organizational and infrastructure challenges to work on which we felt would impact our ability to grow. Shortly thereafter, we organized the mission statement workshop. Now Lois and I are reworking the wholesale distribution strategy, and have begun to explore new strategic alliances in the southern Connecticut and New York Metropolitan area.”
So what appealed to Janet about Jean Elton over some of the other projects that were presented to her? She fell in love with the dishes and home decor pieces! "I enjoy them both for their beauty and for their utility. I have often curled up with a mug of tea on a chilly day." She uses the hand-painted dinnerware and over time has added mugs, bowls, vases, and even a lamp to match! Janet just added the new teapot to her collection, and is “over the moon” about the design!
"The Jean Elton team are a great company asset; I am in awe of Lois' creative drive and the way she consistently moves product design forward! On a personal level, having worked in services businesses for most of my life, I appreciate the opportunity to get involved with a manufacturing entity.”
Wow, has our little studio been busy! Not only have we been steadily working on our project for the Bridgeport Rescue Mission, we've been getting ahead and working on Christmas projects as well!First of all, here's Lois working on the vases for the BRM. These vases were poured into slip molds, and then taken apart once the slip (a very wet clay) has dried and taken the shape of the mold. Then they are taken out of the mold and cleaned up, as Lois is doing here.
Next, we have been preparing for an upcoming corporate show hosted by our friends at Al-Lynn Sales. This includes pressing mugs, bowls, and plates, and impressing corporate names and logos into each piece.
As you can see by the picture above, we are also preparing for a large corporate Christmas order. As we create pieces for various orders, we try to make some for our Christmas home show as well.
In addition to plates and bowls for our Christmas home show, we are once again making ornaments! Remember all the ornament posts from last year? Well, we're doing it again! The picture below is an example of a personalized snowman ornament. It's only in its beginning stages, but once it's done, it sure will be cute!
And finally, we are making Christmas pendants, to go along with our new line of jewelry. There are snowmen, gingerbread men, hearts, bears, and crosses. But that's not all! We'll make sure to take more pictures as more and more of them are done.
We are very excited to be working on a couple projects for Bridgeport Rescue Mission this month!
Bridgeport Rescue Mission demonstrates the love of God to hungry, homeless and addicted people throughout Fairfield County, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We fight poverty from the inside out by providing a place of hope and dignity through a yearlong educational program, biblical counseling and case management.
Click on the link above for ways to get involved with the Mission.
We are so excited to introduce our new series of plates called "Pass-It-On". These plates offer a unique, gift-giving experience. The idea is to give a plate, perhaps with some fruit and cheese, or some brownies, for a special occasion. Then, the receiver of the plate can pass it on to the next person to have the same type of occasion, and so forth. The series will include the following phrases:
So if you like the idea of giving a plate instead of just another card and bouquet of flowers, order yours today!
We here at Jean Elton Studio continue to develop many new products. One such piece is our new teapot, which is handmade from a slip mold of a jar. A slip mold is a mold made out of plaster that is filled with a very wet clay called slip. The plaster of the mold begins to absorb some of the water from the slip, which causes it to attach to the sides of the mold. After a short amount of time (usually about an hour), the molds are turned upside-down to pour out the remaining slip. They are left like that overnight and then taken apart the next day. Watch the video for the rest of the process.
You've seen the jar mold turned into a lamp and turned into a teapot, but now we have the jar as a teapot lamp!
Interested in how it's made? Check back later this week for a video of the jar to teapot from start to finish!
In our studio, we have many machines that aid in the production of our pottery, like our pugmill and our slab roller. The slab roller itself is very unassuming and doesn't take up space, but we use it to create many different items!
First, we take a log of newly extruded clay and cut it in half lengthwise.
Next, it is smooshed (a very technical term) down with other thin pieces of clay. We tend to use two to three whole logs of clay for a good sized slab.
The slab of clay is very thick at first, so we roll it through several times. Each time, we turn the knobs on either side of the roller to press the clay flatter and flatter.
We then use the resulting slab of clay on our various molds for vases and bowls.
Or we use it for our ornaments...
Or wall-hangings.
So as you can see, our slab roller is a very important part of our studio! Without it, we wouldn't be able to create some of your favorite pieces.
If you enjoyed learning about this machine, read our post on the pugmill and keep checking back for more posts about various other machines in our studio.