Your top is gorgeous 

That is one humdinger of a beautiful flower!  A whole bunch of them together would look like a pot of zinnias.  I hope you make some orange and yellow ones.  Is that you name stamped or written in the center?

latterberry said:

Is that you name stamped or written in the center?

Yes, Mrs. Eagle Eye, that's my name stamped in the center.    There's a guy who makes tiny stamps like that for clayers, leatherworkers, etc.  I sometimes put the stamp on the backs of pieces that I like but this time I put the stamp on a small circle of clay to put in the center of the flower before I baked it.   That's not my real signature; he had about a jillion fonts to choose from and I probably spent two or three hours browsing his fonts to find one that kind of looked like my handwriting. 

judyinohio said:

Is Miss MaryJane friendly or fierce? 

she is stoned....

Fantasy flowers are equally lovely as real ones.

Cris in MT

I love the idea of these flowers for your pots.  They'll add a lot of color and won't wilt if the squirrels dig around them.

You've got it! 

As long as I have a neighbor two houses down who puts out unshelled peanuts and hangs dried corncobs for the squirrels and I have my own oak and hickory trees in our north lot I am conceding that the critters will win the Battle of the Pots.

Since the squirrels will dig I'm working on a gold-spotted black clay "varmint monster" for my next bit of creativity. He might even have fangs. (I'm thinking of perhaps a hybrid of a Darth Vader/Wookie kind of thing.)

I might as well have fun with my defeat.

Thank you, Cris.  I love your thinking. 

judyinohio said:

Since the squirrels will dig I'm working on a gold-spotted black clay "varmint monster" for my next bit of creativity. He might even have fangs. (I'm thinking of perhaps a hybrid of a Darth Vader/Wookie kind of thing.) I might as well have fun with my defeat.

Your varmint monster sounds like loads of fun to make.  I may need some varmint monsters next summer because I plan on having several pots of flowers on our deck instead of taking care of flower beds.  I'll have two new knees but the rest of me still won't like bending over to pull weeds and plant flowers.

You will find that you will really miss the "therapy" of crawling around in the flower beds and mindlessly weeding in between the hostas and daylilies and such. I know I still do and it's been three years (or maybe four) since I had our flower beds taken out. It was such tedious work and yet relaxing at the same time ...

My work with pots just wasn't the same and the squirrels just regard my large pots as their safe deposit boxes/playgrounds. They hop from one pot to the next, flicking tails and glancing at the windows of the house to see if I am watching them ...