A tiny gingerbread houses that are meant to be perched on the edge of a mug of hot chocolate.

A PDF pattern of gingerbread house pieces which you can open or download right here.

the Gingerbread Snowflake and the Royal Icing recipes from marthastewart.com.

Don't fill your mug of hot chocolate too full, you don't want the bottom of your gingerbread house to get soggy.

Superficiality is tiring and on the other hand surgical interventions are intimidating. Caught in between, English ceramist Beccy Ridsdel is trying to demonstrate to the world that behind every white façade is hidden a flowery reality, an eternal spring that is ready to impress us with its colors. Ridsdel has worked as ceramics technician at York College for nearly 10 years and recently discovered her love of bone china and porcelain – not necessarily for its translucency, but for its fine whiteness. For her it’s like a blank canvas to work on. Inspired by her mother, who is also a ceramist, Ridsdel is constantly exploring new forms and possibilities.

She says about it: "My latest work was originally an installation set up as an interrupted laboratory experiment. Traditional ceramic domestic ware was laid out on a table. To the left were stacks of intact plates, mugs and jugs, in the centre a surgical experiment was taking place – the ceramics were being dissected, like an autopsy, to find out what lays beneath the surface. To the right was a huge pile of discarded dissections. It is evident by looking at the cut surfaces that the ceramics is craft through and through – but the scientist has kept on trying.”

Beccy Ridsdel forms part of a larger community of ceramists/artists that have found in craftsmanship an inspiring shelter. But where starts art and where ends craftsmanship? Ridsdel explains: "This work forms part of an exploration of the differences between art and craft, and ceramics’ relationship to them. After a lot of research I realized that despite the best efforts of many ceramicists, in most people’s minds working with mud is pretty much always seen as craft, and therefore somehow lower than art. This work is a wry look at this attitude". 

"I am currently working on domestic variations of these pieces; the irony of which isn’t lost on me…”.

Name it as you want, Beccy Ridsdel's work is full of challenges and we are more than decided to continue keeping an eye on it.

Advertising Agency: JWT Hong Kong
Executive Creative Director: Steven Lee
Creative Directors: Kwong Chi Kit, Barbara Fu
Art Directors: Kwong Chi Kit, Arthur Tse
Copywriters: Barbara Fu, Daat Lai
Published: March 2009

for more info, please  visit him at his website.

Kate D. MacDowell has made ceramic reach a new level of sexiness

Lamb’s Conduit Street in Bloomsbury is a beautiful street packed to the rafters with wonderful independent retail outlets such as Folk, Kennards and Oliver Spencer. A rather special new edition is Darkroom, a truly inspired concept store which curates an “eclectic mix of high-end fashion, interior and lifestyle accessories alongside bi-monthly art and sculpture exhibitions.” Having only opened last week, Darkroom is already sending shockwaves around the London fashion scene thanks to founders Rhonda Drakeford and Lulu Roper-Caldbeck’s impeccable taste and tireless work in sourcing only the finest and most original stock. Stores and exhibitions that blur the lines between fashion, design and ‘objet d’art’ can all too often be knee deep in pretension, but thankfully not so here, the owners clearly have a healthy obsession with their work and that shows in the shear quality and the graceful cohesion of their product lines. A special venture… and one to watch closely!

These are some of the craziest, awesome products I’ve seen from Kamina. Loving that quirky Chanel-looking cabinet!

ZNAK has made it so much easier for us, there is no more excuses!