A hand painted personalised ceramic horseshoe makes such a special wedding gift for the Bride and Groom, with their names, special date and a message from you on it. It is also a traditional good luck charm for their home, you can read all about the tradition in my “Why are horseshoes traditional good luck gifts at a wedding” blog post.
I get asked “What design can you do?” “What writing or colours can we have” so my starting point to create it for you is usually the colour scheme from the Wedding or Anniversary and then if there is a pattern or design on the invitations which can be used. I just need a photo of the wedding invitation to work from.
I sketch the design on with a test fired pencil to ensure it will burn off cleanly in the kiln firing process and then I can paint the patterns on with different style brushes and one stroke ceramic colours. Once the colours have dried for 24 hours, I then fire the horseshoe to 1010 Celsius to set the colour to the pottery surface. This takes 8/9 hours to fire in “Kelvin” the kiln and then 16 hours to cool to cold. After the horseshoe is removed from the kiln allowed to go totally cold, I can do any touching up and then dip it into a clear glaze which is made from finely ground glass. Once this has dried for a minimum of 24 hours, I can then fire the horseshoe again to cure the glaze which involves another 24 hours in Kelvin the kiln.
The horseshoe is then finished off with a coloured satin ribbon to match the colours as close as possible, then the Bride can carry it on her wedding day. The wedding gift can then be hung on display as a good luck charm the lucky way up in their home.
To order a personalised hand painted ceramic horseshoe please click here or to ask any questions click here.