introducing distinctly Lunt!!

So, for those of you haven't heard yet- Nathan and Tarin Lunt are officially self-employed! Yup, that's right- Nathan has left As You Wish after 5 long years and I leave my census job Thursday to do what? Make pottery!

This is something that Nathan has always enjoyed doing. When this opportunity presented itself, we just couldn't pass it up. It is something that we had discussed doing in the future- but neither of us expected that it would happen so soon! We were thinkin maybe after Nathan had finished up school and we had a kid or two, maybe we would start our own pottery business- never did we imagine that we would have this chance after being married only a little over a year!

In case you are wondering how this came about, the former owner of the company approached Nathan to see if he wanted to take it over. It was a business that she had run with husband for several years, and he had recently passed away; She just didn't want to do it anymore without him. So Nathan and I sat down and ran the number, thought and prayed about it a TON and finally decided that we would take the plunge! We took a few weeks to learn the ropes and officially took the business over on June 1st. It is keeping us very busy so far!

Here are so pictures of our shop:

This is the view of the shop from the back door (where we come in- the store front is a mess right now- we're trying to get in straightened up!) The shelves on the walls are full of ceramic molds, and all the tables you see are the molds that we have on production line right now.

This is a view from the back of the warehouse, it gives a better perspective of the pouring tables. This is the first step in the process. We set up all the molds that we need (or at least as many as we can fit) and then we use a pump to pour clay into the molds. After the caly has set up a bit, we go back and drain the extra clay out of the mold- this is what make the pottery hollow, instead of just a solid mass of clay.

Once, the pottery is drained, we let it sit in the molds for a while and harden/dry. The we unmold the pieces and set them on the shelf to completely dry up.


These are some piece that have been unmolded. They are already dry in these pictures, just waiting to be cleaned.
After the piece are dry, we clean them- which means that we take off the seams left by the mold, and we smooth out and bumps or dips. We basically make it look all pretty and smooth before we put it in the kiln and fire it.

These are some turtles after they have been cleaned, just waiting to go into the nice toasty kiln.

And these are some cupcake boxes- also cleaned and waiting to be fired.

After they are fired, they are unloaded from kiln and placed in our stock room until they get packed up and shipped out in a order.

Part of our animal shelf in the stock room.

A few bud vases in the stock room.

And some tile boxes.

Another cool thing that we do, is custom carved pieces! I was very excited to learn this part.

This is a custom carved snowman that I did.

And this is a custom carved Dallas Cowboys football! Not too bad- but I am hoping that my carving skills get a little better with time. We already have had a handful of custom carved orders, so I am getting a lot of practice.

We have a really big order that we are trying to fill right now, and since I still have to work until Thursday, we had to bring some work home.

Here is a bookshelf full of pottery- sitting in my living room- waiting to be cleaned. I have been trying to do as much as I can before work.

This is my little cleaning table that I have set up a home. Not gonna lie- I am really looking forward to my census job being over so that this mess can just stay at the shop!

Our summer is going to be very busy, but we are hoping to find time to get the front office all cleaned up and presentable, then we might have a little open house thing, so our friends and family can come see the shop in person. Until then, I am sure there will pictures I can post on here.

So, there it folks! That's one of the main reasons I haven't posted anything in so long. Nathan and I have both been so busy taking this business over- it has sucked up most of our spare time. We are looking forward to some of the perks of being business owners though- like making our own schedules! We are actually going to be able to see each other now! No more working opposite shifts! Actually, we are pretty much going to be together almost every single moment of every day. Hopefully we don't get too sick of each other! :p