ShprixieLand

“Tasty Vittles” Photo Contest.

Wondering what your mom would love for Mother’s Day? Well wonder no more.

Introducing the ShprixieLand “Tasty Vittles” Photo Contest!

You can enter by making one of the Tasty Vittles recipes on our blog and sending us a picture, or you can make your own favourite recipe and photograph it on a piece of ShprixieLand pottery (be sure to include your recipe). Email the photo to us or post it on our Facebook page by midnight on May 13th, Mother’s Day. We’ll then hold a draw and the lucky winner will receive a $50 dollar gift certificate for any of our pottery you desire, plus we’ll pay the shipping. We’ll announce the winner on Monday.

Good Luck!

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Dandelion Fritters

Dang those pesky dandelions! Do you know the best way to get your revenge? Eat em!

I know, I know, you’ve been working all day, you get home and need supper but the weeds in the garden are starting to take over. Now you can kill two birds with one stone.

Before those pretty little flowers get a chance to turn into seedy balls of mayhem pick them and make these tasty dandelion fritters.

Dandelion Fritters

Pick about 50 dandelion flowers in the middle of a sunny day when they’re open wide

Lightly beat 1 egg with 3/4 cup of milk

Stir in 1 cup of flour (we used white spelt flower)

Add a pinch of salt

Heat about a half an inch of oil (we used olive oil and a couple tablespoons of coconut oil) over medium heat in a heavy bottom pan (we used a small pan so we wouldn’t need to use so much oil).

Dip flowers in the batter and fry in small batches until one side is golden and then flip and do the other side.

Serve on your favourite ShprixieLand plates or platter and enjoy. Don’t forget your wee dishes for dipping in dressing or for a sweet treat try maple or violet syrup.

And we just discovered that you can dip nettles in the same batter for nettle fritters.

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Glorious Days!

That big nuclear furnace in the sky burns out the winter clouds filling us with all this extra energy and how do we use it up? Well let me tell ya.

We started the spring craft fair season with the Make It show in Vancouver. The blooming magnolias and blossoming fruit trees seemed to make the heart race with excitement as these little country bumpkins indulged in the big city craziness.

Once we got home the season seemed to have raced ahead of us and now we’re doing a million things at once. With Dog Patch Pottery in Crawford Bay opening on May 5th and the Lilac Festival in Calgary on May 27th we have to get our pottery stock built back up.

Our jumbo mugs were a big hit in Vancouver as well as our ever popular wee little dishes. There’s also an array of new decal designs we want to create and maybe even some Owl and Pussy Cat sushi boats so we can give a nod to one of our favourite Edward Lear poems.

Seeing as the garden is virtually irresistible these days we have to get out and plant our new blueberry bushes and to make a hoop house for our tomato and pepper plants that will be really epic when it’s time to put them in the ground.

Indoor gardening is also on the agenda this year. Recently we’ve become really excited by mushroom growing. We have bags of shiitake and oyster mushroom mycelium that we’re about to shock into giving us our second flush of mushrooms. Can’t wait!

And as you might have read in a previous post, we still have our kitchen reno to get back to. Our new countertop has arrived so now we have to design and build our cabinets. Of course we can’t just have any old cabinets. These have to live up to the standard of our ridiculously ornate ShprixieLand style.

Since the winter we’ve been living in the other building we have here and so we’ve been having to cross the bridge every time we want to go to the studio. Did I just say bridge? You heard right. There is a bridge that connects the two buildings here. I know, what a terrible commute to have to make to work every day right?

So why am I wasting time writing this blog post you ask? You’re right. I best get back to work.

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ShprixieLand on TV!

Check out the little televised plug we got today by clicking here.

You can also check out the Make It page to see the rest of the fabulous designers.

See you this weekend Vancouver!

If you take a picture of this with your phone you can show it at the door to get 2 for 1 admission!

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Boats, Bowls, Blog and More.

It seems we’ve been living on perogies and easter chocolate for the last couple of weeks but now as our last kiln load of pottery fires and we find ourselves surrounded with new work we feel like it’s all been worth it.

We’re so excited to get to roll out our new designs for the Vancouver Make It show this weekend. We’ve had so many ideas brewing all winter and some of them we’ve seen to fruition while others are still being developed (hopefully we’ll have those ready for the Calgary Lilac Fest at the end of May).

One of our new favourites is our sushi boats! They come as a set with chopsticks and a fish shaped dipping dish that swims along side.

We must have been fantasizing about being in Vancouver all winter because we’ve made lots of sushi sets. We’ve even started introducing our ever popular owl decals into them.

We spent a lot of time drawing this winter and at last those drawings have made it onto our pots. The shelves are filled with rice bowls, noodle bowls and soup bowls (which come with their own clay spoon) as well as mugs and tumblers.

All of this we’re presently packing up and getting ready to take with us to Vancouver for the Make It market which happens this weekend from Friday, April 20th to Sunday at the Croation Cultural Centre, 3250 Commercial Drive.

Oh Yeah. Did I mention Wee Little Dishes? Yeah we made a pile of those too.

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Shprixie News and New Pots

It has been ages since we last posted!! We’ve had quite the busy winter this year. Much of our time has been spent working on house renovations. Early in the New Year we discovered that the kitchen sink had been leaking, most likely for a few years, and that the water had been seeping under the kitchen cabinets and flooring. We had to gut the entire kitchen and replace a bunch of the flooring to get rid of the black mould that had infested the place.

This seemed like an awful thing at the time, but as Heath was working on it we had the idea that if we moved the kitchen across the room, we would be able to double the size of it (5ft. of counter space is awfully small for someone who loves to cook). This also would give us the added bonus of being able to look out of the window at the mountains and the lake whilst washing the dishes, instead of staring at the ugly wall behind the sink. It would also mean that the sofa would be moved so that when you sat on it you would also be looking out the windows at the mountains, rather than the old view of the ugly kitchen. A win win situation really!
The only real drawback was that we lost some of the precious winter. We happen to love the snowy blowy season around here because it is the time that we get to play and experiment the most with clay. There is nothing better than being in the studio with the little wood stove chugging away, drinking hot tea, and listening to some captivating audio book, while outside there is a blizzard blowing about. But there will be another winter next year!
Now that spring is upon us we have had to put the renovations on the back burner for now, and concentrate on making work for all of our upcoming shows. The first big one that we have is one of our favourites. We’ll be heading to Vancouver in April for the Make It Show. If you’ve never been to one of these and you are in the Vancouver area we seriously suggest checking it out. There are over 100 artisans, designers, and crafters selling so many unique and fun items. There is live music and a fully licensed bar! It feels more like a party than a craft fair!!
If you take a picture of this with your phone you can show it at the door to get 2 for 1 admission!

We’ve been working hard these last few weeks making all kinds of pots with new images on them. Here’s a little sampling of what we’ll be bringing with us.