To begin, Betty's molds must be clean, then sprayed inside with something to keep them from sticking to us when we came out of the mold. Once we had been poured with liquid porcelain slip, then allowed to set for about 5 minutes, Betty poured out the excess liquid and this left a thin coating of drying porcelain which clung to the inside of the mold. That was the beginning of us. She allowed us to set in the mold, upside down for a couple or 3 hours, then carefully opened the mold. There we were, brand new, but still a little wet. We were set out on a table and left to dry over night.

In the meantime, Betty hand made some roses to be used for my bouquet and a rose bud for his lapel. She carefully placed them in a plastic box with a damp paper towel in the bottom. She will attach these to us later.

 It's the next day and we are good and dry. We have "seams" on us left from the molds, but not to worry, here comes Betty to smooth the seams so they will disappear. This has to be done with several tools. First she scrapes gently and removes the larger parts of the seams. Then she takes a very small sponge to smooth down and make the seams disappear. Wow! Where did they go...Oh...What is that white dust on the table, is that part of us? Not to worry. It is just the seams that we no longer have.

Next Betty puts a few drops of thin slip on the table. She then uses a tool that looks like a needle on a handle, to stick in the center of each rose, dip the bottom of it in the thin slip and stick it to us. She has already wet the place on my hand to stick the rose, so it sticks. She just keeps adding roses until it looks like a ball of roses in my hand. Next she adds the rose bud to his lapel.

 Now we will have to dry over night again. We can't go in the kiln damp, or we will explode when the heat gets up high. It goes past 2000 degrees you know.

This is not a clear picture but you can kinda tell just how many roses she expects me to hold. They are getting heavy. I hope they don't wilt! I wonder what color Betty will make them.

This is the rose bud Betty put on his lapel. I hope she knows what she is doing! Will she paint it to match mine? I guess we will soon see.

After the kiln turns off, Betty will have to wait until the kiln cools to room temperature before she removes us or we might crack. Ouch! That would be bad! When we come out of the kiln, we will be snow white and will have shrunk to three forths of our greenware size. Porcelain shrinks in the firing.

We are shaping up pretty good if I do say so myself...Grin

We still have a good way to go though.

Betty painted his rose bud yellow with just a hint of pink edges. It matches his yellow vest & tie and my roses.

We are almost ready. Betty is gluing tiny pearls, which have no holes, to my dress in all the tiny daises.

Oh! That Betty wants me to have pearls in my bouquet. She also put them on my hair piece, my necklace & earrings.

We are finished now! ... Yes!

Do you like us?