Item of the Week - Large Carved Vase

 This week, Palm Tree Pottery is offering a 16" large vase hand carved with fish.  We will only be offering this for a week, so click on over and take advantage of this piece because when it is gone, it is gone.  You will also get free shipping again with this vase.  Go to www.palmtreepottery.com to purchase this.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend!  We had beautiful weather here in North Carolina.  We got our tree on Friday and it was great not be be freezing while picking it out!  We got it up and decorated, but still have some more decorating to do around the house.  Below are some pictures of the actual work.

I have got to go and do a little Christmas shopping, so until next time.  

Thanks again for reading my blog and keeping up with our family and our pottery.  Do not forget to like us on Facebook.  You can find our Facebook button on the home page of Palm Tree Pottery - 

www.palmtreepottery.com.

The Potter's Wife :)

Special Offer from Palm Tree Pottery

Check out our website, www.palmtreepottery.com, for a special offer.  We are featuring our Large Carved Platter on our homepage.  We only have one, with free shipping, so hurry on over and take advantage of this offer.

As for the Hester's, it has been a BUSY summer and fall.  We did three shows in four weeks (that was in October).  Tyler is in graduate school at UNC-G (he graduated from Greensboro College in May) and is an assistant coach for the Varsity Basketball team at High Point Christian.  He also has an assistantship with UNC-G.  Marsh is in his sophomore year at High Point University and doing very well.

We bought a trailer to go with us to our shows and it has made life so much easier with our set up.  The only draw back is I cannot back the thing!!!  I can pull it, but have not mastered the backing part.  So, Marsh is our official backer and he is a natural at it!!!

We were home for Thanksgiving and enjoyed just being with each other.  Mac and the boys smoked a turkey on the grill and I made everything to go with it.  We are looking forward to Christmas and will be getting our tree this weekend.  Marsh and Tyler will be on break soon, and that will be nice to have them here and not on a schedule.

Smoking the turkey, raking leaves, and cleaning the pool.  My multi-taskers!!
Of course, Izzy is supervising them all in my absence!

Mac watching Marsh carve the turkey and trying not to give any advice on how to do it!!

When you check out our website, be sure and click our Facebook button and like us on Facebook.  Also, share our link with all of your friends.

Thanks for stopping by.  Check out our special and be on the look out for more to come.  

The Potter's Wife :)

www.palmtreepottery.com

Getting Ready for Seagrove

This weekend is the 4th Annual North Carolina Pottery Festival. It is being held at the Seagrove Elementary School at 528 Old Plank Road, Seagrove, NC. The times will be 9 am to 6 pm on both Saturday and Sunday the 14th and the 15th. Palm Tree Pottery is booth number 31. I hope everyone will come out and see us and all the other potters that will be there.

In getting ready for the show we have been finishing up some new pieces and glazing like crazy!!! To top it all off, one of our relays went out on our bisque kiln. Both kilns went down right before Christmas and we just had all of the elements changed, so this hit hard. It has been a long time since we operated with only one kiln. But we made it.

Below is a peak at some of the pieces that have come out of the kiln this week - actually they are still in the kiln in the picture :)

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of our pieces. We look forward to seeing everyone this weekend!

The Potter's Wife :)

www.palmtreepottery.com

Trying to Get Back into Blogging!!!

Life has been happening and Palm Tree Pottery is still going!!! We have graduated another son from high school - last May, 2011. Now we are going to graduate one from college this May!!! So it goes with the Hester's. Marsh just finished his freshman year at High Point University and Tyler will graduate from Greensboro College in May.

As for the pottery - we are gearing up for our year. We will be doing a few more shows this year - a few are new to us and at the beach - which we have not done before. But first, I want to let everyone know that our first show is coming up, The 4th Annual NC Pottery Festival on April 14 and 15 in Seagrove, North Carolina. Instead of this show being in Greensboro at the coliseum this year, it will be in Seagrove at Seagrove Elementary School. We will have some new colors that are not on our website. They are also on white clay. We have started adding white clay as well as still using our speckled brownstone. We look forward to seeing everyone in Seagrove.

Here are a few pictures from this past year:

Marsh's Graduation

Tyler coaching his JV team

Just a few pictures of some new pieces

Also, remember to like us on Facebook and tell all of your friends!

Glad to have you stop by. Keep looking for more posts with some of our new colors.

The Potter's Wife :)

www.palmtreepottery.com

It Has Been A While - AGAIN!!!

Okay - I know it has been awhile and I am sorry.  There is a lot to tell, but today I am just going with - this is what The Potter's Wife is having for dinner.

Tonight I made Chicken Enchiladas - The Potter's Wife style.  I only have a picture of the enchiladas before they went into the oven and then when they came out. Sorry for not thinking ahead.  But here is how I made them.

First, I baked two skinless, boneless chicken breasts sprinkled with salt, cumin, and pepper.  I drizzled it all with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and baked at 375 degrees until done.

The next step was to shred the chicken in a bowl.  To the shredded chicken I added two wedges of Laughing Cow Light Queso Fresco & Chipotle cheese and two handfuls of Four Cheese Mexican Blend fancy shredded cheese from Harris Teeter.  To this I poured the liquid from cooking the chicken breasts.  I mixed it all together, making sure the chicken was moist.  

For the tortillas I used Tumaro's Gourmet Tortillas - Honey Wheat (8 inch).  I cut them in half and put some of the chicken mixture on the tortilla and rolled it up.  I placed the rolled up chicken tortilla, seam down, in my pottery casserole dish (that I made).  Back up - first you need to spray the dish with cooking spray and pour enough enchilada sauce to cover the bottom.

After making all the enchiladas, I had a little chicken mixture left and I just scattered it across the enchiladas.  Then I put a couple of handfuls of the shredded cheese over that and poured the rest of the enchilada sauce over all.  I baked the enchiladas at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  You know until the cheese is really good and melted and the enchilada sauce is bubbly.  Yummy!!!

  

The picture on the top is before cooking and the one on the bottom is right after taking it out of the oven.  Notice all the pottery serving pieces.  I made the casserole dish, the bowl with the cheese was made by Marsh and the piece with the cherry tomatoes was made by Tyler.  Of course, the berry bowl holding the grapes was made by the true potter - Mac.

While the enchiladas were cooking I went over to one of my favorite blogs - The Happy Housewife to find her recipe on how to make my own refried beans since I already had some pinto beans cooked.  Here is the link -http://thehappyhousewife.com/cooking/refried-beans/. (They were awesome and the best part - I know what was in them!!!!)

Now to set the table and finish up getting the lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, and extra shredded cheese to go with the enchiladas and refried beans.

Ready for dinner.  Notice the plate - pottery by Palm Tree Pottery!!!

For dessert, we had brownies and homemade Peppermint Ice Cream that I made over the weekend.  Because I had left over candy canes from Christmas I decided to try this recipe I found at another of my favorite blog spots - Finding Joy in My Kitchen.  Here is the link for the recipe - http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2011/01/peppermint-ice-cream.html.  

Really easy to make and so,so good.

So there you have it.  Hopefully, I can get back to some posts on pottery. 

Thanks for stopping by. Until the next time . . .

The Potter's Wife :)

www.palmtreepottery.com

Getting Ready for the Woolly Worm Festival

We are busy getting ready for the Woolly Worm Festival this weekend in Banner Elk, North Carolina.  If you have never been you should make the trip.  It is in downtown Banner Elk (which is beautiful in itself) and so much fun.  They actually race woolly worms.  (That is what is going on in the picture above.)  There is a cash prize for the top winner of the day.  When I was an assistant in kindergarten, I would always bring back a live woolly worm for the kids to see and show them how they are raced.  They race up a string attached to this huge board.  It really is fun and everyone has a great time.  

This weekend is supposed to be very nice and sunny - unlike last year when it snowed!!!  We are in our same spot, booth number 5.  We would love for everyone to come to the festival and if you do, please stop by our booth and see us. You could even get in a little Christmas shopping -preferably with Palm Tree Pottery :)  Really, there are great vendors there and you could knock out some of your shopping while enjoying the beautiful mountains and watching the woolly worms race.  

Just to catch up since the last blog, we have changed our booth at Artwalk.  Not the actual booth, we are still in the same spot, but the "decor" if you will of the booth.  We think it looks really good.  When you are in Boone, please stop in and see what we have done.  (Actually, we need to get one more piece of furniture - the tall skinny one - and then it will be finished. It is hard to buy furniture and visualize it at the same time.)

This is our booth before.

Here are my guys doing the work.

Here is the finished booth.

Hope to see you at the Woolly Worm Festival!!!

Until the next time . . .

The Potter's Wife :)

Palm Tree Pottery

Sawtooth School for Visual Art

This fall Mac is taking his first official pottery class at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art.  We found out about the classes through a mutual potter friend, Gaff Pearce.  Gaff is the teacher of this class and he owns the Lazy Lizard Pottery.  We met him and his wife, Martha, at the first Seagrove pottery show we did in Greensboro, NC.  They do beautiful work.  Anyway, we like their style and Mac decided he would like to learn from Gaff.

We had never been to Sawtooth and when we got there, we were in awe!!  They have just renovated their pottery studio and it is fantastic.  We wish we had a studio that large.  There are windows all around the area where the potters throw.  It is very open and well laid out.

I know Mac will learn a lot from Gaff.  He has already taken away some new techniques and there will be more to come.  I cannot believe we have had our pottery business for seven years (we incorporated in 2003) and Mac has been throwing since 2000, but this is the first official class he has ever taken.  Too bad they cannot help me!!!  Actually, it is a good thing.  If I could throw, I am sure there would be another wheel bought and I would be put to work more than I am now!!!  Really, I wish there has been either a handbuilding class during his or one on precious metal clay jewelry.  Those are the areas I would be interested in. 

The picture of Mac shows part of the windows behind him.  You can kind of imagine what the studio looks like.  

Until the next time.  . .

The Potter's Wife :)

Palm Tree Pottery