Hand Made Dishes, Not Just for Sushi - New for the Gifting Season!

We think these new slab built dishes are serene, chic, and elegant, if we do say so ourselves. Hand built from white stoneware, they vary in size from 8" x 6" down to 2" x 4". Beautiful for serving small delicacies like sushi, cheeses, etc.. They could also hold a pillar candle, a bar of soap, live in the bathroom to hold jewels or make-up, or in the hall for your keys... lots of possibilities!

The turquoise glaze is luscious and silky to the touch. The edges are glazed in a warm sienna, cobalt blue, or rich iron oxide, showing glimpses of the turquoise beneath. The graceful, imperfect shapes were cut from a hand rolled slab and draped on a plaster mold. The plant and fish motifs were hand painted with black underglaze and have an elegant ink-brush feel.

Gift Idea: you could buy a set, and present them individually as holiday hostess gifts, on their own, or holding a beautiful bar of soap, a round of good brie, or a scented candle. To purchase a set of four in your choice of colour/motif, click on the "buy now" button below.

choose design/edge colour

fish with blue edge leafy with sand edge leafy with iron brown edge

Terra Home Holiday Events & A Special Offer on Our Beautiful Venetian Urn Tile

Special Holiday Offer
This gorgeous tile from our Firenze Collection measures 6" x 8" and features a Renaissance urn in high relief. The glaze is Dry Stone, which creates a warm, aged effect. This tile makes a beautiful stand-alone decorative piece, either hung on the wall or displayed on a small easel. We think this piece would be an elegant holiday gift, so we are offering free regular shipping (to Continental U.S and Canada) until December 24th, and including a display easel and hand written descriptive card gratis with all orders. You can complete your purchase right here by clicking the button below, or just give us a call at (250) 335-3149.

Terra Home Holiday Events
If you are on beautiful Vancouver Island, we invite you to join us at one or all of these upcoming events:

• The Denman Island Christmas Craft Faire, Dec. 5 & 6 An island tradition for 28 years, featuring quality art and fine craft from all over Vancouver Island. Visit our award winning booth just inside the doors of the Community Hall. For more info and directions, go here.
  
• An Afternoon to Celebrate Women and Creativity, Nov. 22 at the Courtenay Museum, Courtenay. I'll be one of several features women artists on hand to chat about my work and about the challenges and joys of living a creative life. I'll also have some of our new Not-Just-For-Sushi dishes available for purchase. This event will include a screening of the film Who Does She Think She Is. Learn more and purchase a ticket here.
• Open Studio at Terra Home. We'll be opening the studio for the December weekends (Fri, Sat, Sun, 12 -4) leading up to Christmas. Come by for mulled cider, and browse our gift selection. We're also happy to show you around the production side of the studio, and talk to you about tiles and your renovation projects. If you're going to be on the island, call for directions to the studio (250) 335-3149.
  

Hand Made Tile Installations

A gallery of a few of our recent installations - enjoy! To view a slideshow of these images, click here. Do you have an installation of our tiles? We'd love to see it! Just e-mail us.

Hand Made Tile Inspirations

A gallery of concept boards, showing ideas for installing our tiles. Enjoy! To see a slideshow of these inspirations, click here.

Hand Painted Tiles Inspired by the Tuscan Landscape and Kitchen: Our Italian Sketchbook Collection

The tiles of our Italian Sketchbook series are decorated with a wax resist technique which gives a beautiful fluid surface to the glaze. The motifs on the tiles of our Italian Sketchbook evolved from Bronwyn's notes, photos, and sketchbooks made when she lived in Florence. The goal was to create designs that were whimsical but not cutesy, simple line drawings that would evoke memories of Italian afternoons. The whimsical scenes and objects are emblematic of the Tuscan landscape and kitchen. The tiles are decorated with a wax resist technique which gives a beautiful fluid surface to the glaze. We love the simplicity of the lines combined with the complexity of the glazed surface. These tiles would be wonderful in a kitchen back splash, but they also make great stand-alone pieces, hung on the wall, set on an easel, or used as a coaster.

Bronwyn with her sketchbook in the garden of her apartment in Florence, 2001.

Handmade Tile Inspired by the Northwest Coast: Our Vancouver Island Collection

Above: Pine Plaques, 4" x 12" accent tiles. Wonderful as side pieces for a fireplace. Available in a range of glaze colours, shown here in Teak. Click on the image to see full page.

The handmade relief tiles in our Vancouver Island Collection are inspired by the natural beauty of the Northwest Coast that surrounds us every day at Terra Home. Each design in this collection is an original Terra Home creation. The relief images are cast from actual natural objects gathered from forests and beaches; real pine cones, pine boughs, and seashells. Once the master mold is created, subsequent tiles are pressed by hand into the mold, in a labour-intensive, traditional process. No machines or presses are used in the creation of our decorative relief tiles - just the touch of the human hand.

Above: Pinecone Pair, 4" accent tile. Available in a range of glaze colours, shown here in Teak. Click on the image to see full page.

Above: Pinecone, 4" accent tile. Available in a range of glaze colours, shown here in Teak. Click on the image to see full page.

Above: Small Pinecones, 4" x 2" accent tile, 2" accent tiles. Available in a range of glaze colours, shown here in Teak. Click on the image to see full page.

Above: Pinecone and Pinecone Pair, 4" accent tiles shown here with 4" Teak field tile. Available in a range of glaze colours, shown here in Teak. Click on the image to see full page.

Above: Installation idea for handmade pinecone tiles.Above: Seashells, 4" accent tile. Shown here in Sand, available in a range of glaze colours. Above: Seashells, 4" accent tile. Shown here in Sand, available in a range of glaze colours.

For purchase information, visit our How to Order page.

Hand Painted Tiles Inspired by the Frescoes of Pompeii + Video of Painting a Handmade Tile!

I'd like to share with you the process of hand painting a tile with slips and underglazes. This video shows me working on a 6" tile for our Pompeii Collection. These designs are inspired by the frescoes of Pompeii which I visited in 2001. I especially loved the garden murals in the Villa of Venus, with their worn surfaces and naive, charming songbirds and flowers. I wanted to capture that naive charm and something of that mysterious, aged surface in my hand painted, hand made songbird tiles for this collection. These hand cut tiles are rustic red earthenware. In the video above, I have already covered the unfired tile with a coat of pale yellow slip, and worked back into the slip to create an antiqued, distressed surface. The colours in the paintbox are not watercolours as they appear, but specially prepared underglazes. After painting, the tile will be fired, then glazed with a clear crackle glaze, and fired again. For purchase information, call 250.335.3149, or visit our How to Order page.

Above: Songbird , 4" accent tile from our Pompeii Collection. Below: two murals in the Villa of Venus at Pompeii, which provided inspiration for the tiles.