Garden Room Potting Table Project

I am about to start the massive Garden Room project for Suzan Z!
I first talked about it here last April.
You can see that the details are getting further refined. I have no idea what any of it means at this point.

Monty the LabDoodle was bored with the whole thing but enjoyed the cool floor.

Likewise, Ralph.



Suzan and I decided that the legs of the table would be all flowers and the backsplash-like panels would be solid Fiesta pottery with some interesting 3-D pieces mixed in. I chose all contemporary colors so that additional plates would be easy to reorder. Tangerine, Lemongrass, Scarlet, Peacock, Plum and Shamrock.

The Shamrock green on the bottom will be the solid I combine with the flowers on the legs.

Two 65-pound boxes of Fiesta were delivered to my porch. Thanks UPS! They were quite dusty, but not a one was broken. Not that it would have mattered anyway.


The black, white and vintage Chartreuse bread plates (splurge buy!) are tentatively scheduled to be used alone on the narrow shelves to the right of the potting table, which is, apparently, a seperate (sic) piece in theme sort of.

Here they are, down in my studio, awaiting the nippers of death. Or nippers of reincarnation, depending upon your interpretation. The contractor who built the Cashiers Village Hillside Shops is constructing the table in workable pieces so I can create at home and he can transport and attach to the walls at the Z. house. Stay tuned. Should be a very interesting project!

Hold Me Closer, Tiny Dancer

Proud Grama Field B. came to the Hillside Shops in early July with her daughter Kelly B. Field loved my pique assiette work, and was especially fond of the mirror below (available for sale in my etsy store!) Her son had just sent her a professionally shot 8x10 photo of granddaughter, Eleanor, at her first ballet recital and Field wanted to commission a frame for it. An hour later, she was back with hubby John and the photo. (I shot a photo of the photo for inspiration, of course!)

Field loved the porcelain rose on my heart mirror and as serendipity would have it, I had one left that I'd been saving for years. I got a sense of the color scheme in their mountain home and Field gave me ideas on which patterns she favored that I'd used on other pieces.

As always, the lazy art interns were ever-present in the studio. Creative Director Annie likes to think "inside the box" when we work. Leah mostly pants.


I was happy with the frame and while Field and John are out of town for a couple of weeks, daughter Kelly picked it up for them last weekend and assured me that it matches their decor perfectly and that Field would love it. Couldn't resist the ballet slipper broach from eBay!

Or the ballerina one.

These gorgeous white flowers are two of close to 50 that I scored when a friend's lamp fell over and shattered. I got the entire lamp base, which is nothing but wall-to-wall white flower clusters!

After a creatively rewarding day in the studio the lazy interns retreated to the office, exhausted.

Thank you for this most wonderful custom opportunity, Field! I'd love to post a photo of the original photo in the frame on its easel in your home.