Jay Craft Center

@KaidenPottery tried out a new way to do his tree designs. Normally he paints all the trees but with this new designer liner applicator it goes much faster; guess we know what will be in our next order .

Well that was fast ! And then there were two...

I guess yesterday was the day for pine tree mugs; three of the four we had our Etsy store sold . They are headed to their new homes in Maine and down state to Syracuse area today, so we added 2 new mugs to take their place. Go check them out before they are gone too! https://www.etsy.com/shop/jaycraftcenter

Happy Easter and Happy Spring! We are excited for our perennials to come back and for it to be warm enough to plant more flowers. In the meantime here is a garden mug to hold us all over until everything starts to bloom again. After watching episode 4 of The Great Pottery Throwdown where they had the potters make bone china daisies Kaiden decided to add some daisies to a mug. He used some window screening instead of wrecking a tea strainer. Hopefully it stays together during firing .

Etsy store is now live! This update has the most of Kaiden's mugs that we’ve ever listed online. That means if you have had your eye on his trees, mountains, Adirondack mugs or other carved designs, go check out our Etsy page. His designs usually go quickly so grab them while you can! http://etsy.com/shop/jaycraftcenter

It’s taken longer than we expected, but our next #Etsy update is all set to go live tomorrow at 5 pm EST. Thank you for your patience! Check out our story for a countdown reminder.

Don’t forget we are open 11-5 today. Valentines Day is less than a month away come pick up the perfect handmade gift and greeting card for that special person in your life. After you enjoy the fresh powder at @Whiteface_Mt of course!

Christmas part two! We first tried @diamondcoretools at Halloween and now we have a full fledged addiction.

First kiln firing of the year is underway! I love loading bisque firings since you can stack and let pots touch and it doesn’t matter since there is no glaze to fuse together.

Thanks for sharing pictures of your new ornaments Christopher! We're glad you are enjoying them.

We are excited to announce the winner of our $25 gift card drawing is @AdirondackGardenArts ! Karissa is a new follower to our Instagram and is even a local potter living in the next town over from us! It’s so crazy to us how social media not only connects us to people all over the world, but also to people in our own backyard. Thank you to all our new followers and everyone who entered our contestwe enjoyed reading all your comments. We hope you’ll stick around for our re...gular content, and we also plan on doing a few more contests this year. If you didn’t get a chance to tell us what you would like to see from us on social media this year, please comment below. We would still love to know what you think. Your comments and likes are so important to us and help us make more posts that you want to see. We are still pretty new to this and can use all the help we can get .

We loaded and turned on the kiln last night and now it’s done and cooling down. We have so many orders we couldn’t fit them all in one load like we planned . Guess we’ll have to unload and reload quickly tomorrow to get everything done in time. We can’t wait for Christmas, so we can relax and make things at our own pace . I did get to relax and enjoy an early Christmas present this morning thanks to @pegrogz41 and watched a zoom class with @thepottersclass featuring @helenbeardceramics. It was really cool to learn some new techniques in a style much different than my own. I can’t wait to play around with some new designs this winter.

The new tools were begging to be used, so @KaidenPottery tried out a new design. What’s your favorite kind of bird? Pileated Woodpeckers are one of our favorites because we used to have one visit our yard frequently and you’d hear it hammering away, but you’d have to be very stealthy to get to see it.

We only get time to go hiking in the winter because we’re so busy in the summer. What’s your favorite winter hike? Don’t forget today is the last day to enter our Instagram contest to win a $25 gift card! Check out our Instagram @JayCraftCenter for more info on how to enter and make sure you complete your entry by midnight tonight. The winner will be announced tomorrow!

New Year new designs! What do you think of this prototype that @KaidenPottery is working on? Before you get too excited it’s not available for sale yet, although if you would like to place a preorder for when they are ready please message us.

@KaidenPottery has a serious case of carving fever. Playing with these #DiamondCoreTools is like saying you’ll only eat one Pringle, suddenly you’ve carved everything that isn’t bone dry. Although sometimes once you pop the fun does stop when you cut through the side of a stemless wine glass. Maybe we can salvage it into a little planter for one of our succulents that is getting too big for it’s current pot. I think we are going to have to start trying out some sunflowers since these tests definitely show the potential for making awesome textured seed heads.

It makes us so happy to see our pots in their new homes and to read such kind words from their new owners. We want to see more! For a Christmas present to us this year, will you please tag @JayCraftCenter or @KaidenPottery in a picture of our pottery in use on either Facebook or Instagram? Or if you would rather you can write us a review on Etsy, Facebook or Google. We love the feedback and seeing our art come to life when it’s filled with your homemade recipes or steaming cups of coffee.

How has everyone been holding up? This has been a tense couple days of waiting for results and we hope you all have been taking care of yourselves. @KaidenPottery decided to turn his anxiety into some Christmas ornaments that sum up his feelings about this year. He was planning on just making them to give as presents, but what do you think, should we make more to sell?

Week number 6 of our Half-Price Sale! We have a couple of outtakes from a custom order that we’ve added to the sale. Personally we prefer our new Adirondacks mugs with the mountains on the label, but these mugs would still be a great addition to your camp, lake house or year round home. Normally $28, these are only $14 each, so you could get two for the price of one! Come by Wednesday to add these to your collection. Do you like that the sale lasts so long this year? Do you think we should set up next year’s sale the same way or go back to one weekend only? Please let us know what you think.

We just got gift cards! Plus we set up e-gift cards so whether you are nearby or out of state you can get the perfect gift for everyone on your list. This has been an unusual year and we appreciate everyone who has shopped with us and those who are making the extra effort to shop locally this holiday season. It makes a huge difference to small businesses like ours. Please stop by and check out our sale and pick up a gift card for a friend, or get it sent straight to their email by going online to https://squareup.com/gift/VAJP1JTT5SMGT/order

Today’s the day! GO VOTE! If you haven’t voted yet and have an absentee ballot don’t mail the ballot, go vote in person or hand deliver your ballot. Remember if you are in line when polls close you are still allowed to cast your vote as long as you don’t leave the line. If you are a local don’t forget that voting this year isn’t at the JEMS theatre it’s in AuSable at the Town Offices (aka the annex for those of us who had kids go to 5th and 6th grade there). Polls are open 6am-9pm: 11 School Lane, AuSable Forks. GO VOTE!!!!!

You know it must be Christmas time when yesterday we unloaded a glaze firing, reloaded and started a bisque firing all in one day. The efficiency feels great, but the stress of getting everyone’s holiday orders ready in time without problems isn’t exactly our favorite feeling. Next up is getting another glaze load together before the end of the week. that we have everything dry in time to be fired!

Each Monday during the sale I will be featuring a different mug. This week’s is an altered shape gourd mug that is one of @railroadpottery ‘s recent glaze tests. It’s in the sale because it has some pitting on the outside (glaze imperfections). Normally it would be $34 but it’s on sale for $17 and holds about 21 ounces. Just a reminder that if you see something you want to buy that’s in the sale, please come into the store. We aren’t reserving or shipping sale items.

Today’s the big day! We are excited to see everyone! Remember the sale lasts until Christmas Eve so don’t worry about everyone coming on the first day. Plus we are open every day this week!

It’s coming together!

I hope everyone has a fun, safe and socially distant Halloween. We are closed today so we can finish setting up for the sale to start Sunday. Appointments are available for people who are high risk, from 10-11, give us a call to schedule yours.

Sale transformation of the store is underway!

We’ve got a fresh crop of hand knit berry hats along with more catnip kitties and bunnies just in time for holiday shopping. New hats include a strawberry, blueberry, lemon and a pumpkin. These make great gifts for all those quarantine babies that are starting to arrive and for everyone who decided that being home all the time meant it was the perfect time to adopt a cat. It’s almost time for the sale to start(Sunday)! It’s strange to not be having the sale in the studio, it means we don’t have set up to give you a sneak peek yet. We are just going to have to change the store over from regular to sale all in one day. Tomorrow is going to be FUN!

Talk about a throwback Thursday!I’ve been digging through the shelves and boxes all week picking out things to put in the sale and stumbled across an old box of hanging planters from the 70’s. One is even dated ‘74. Not the best day for a photo shoot but I tried. Does anyone still use these? Should we start making them again? Some don’t have anything to hang them by currently, but what do you think, should I put them in the sale?

Well it’s been a multi-day process to get three pumpkins carved. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I carved a pumpkin, maybe 2010? I’m super impressed with these new carving tools from @diamondcoretools especially for the fine lines around the pinecone of our new logo and the bats on the sale pumpkin. I can’t wait to use them on clay! Only a couple days to go before our sale starts Sunday. Unfortunately I have an appointment in Plattsburgh tomorrow so we’ll be closed Thursday and on Saturday to change the store over for the sale. Next week (11/1-11/7) we will be open 7 days. Don’t forget to go vote! Vote in person or return your absentee ballot in person!