Hi, I’m Jenny Lee. I started working with clay in 2018, and I’m based in Manchester, where I teach pottery. Most of my own studio time goes on small functional things: trinket dishes, planters, the occasional mug that comes out slightly lopsided.
Before clay I worked in graphic design. That background shows up in how I write these tutorials. I try to explain why something works rather than only what to do, because the why is what lets you rescue a project halfway through instead of starting it again.
The honest reason I still make things is that it’s the only part of my week where I’m not thinking about anything else. Clay is unforgiving in a useful way. You can’t rush the drying and you can’t fake the thickness. If you were distracted while you worked, the piece tells on you a few days later.
Teaching is what made me start writing any of this down. So much of what I knew had never been written anywhere. I’d absorbed it by getting things wrong, repeatedly, for years.
How these tutorials get made
Every project here is one I’ve made myself and photographed while making it. The step photos are the real sequence, in order, including the parts where the clay misbehaved.
I include the failures on purpose. Most tutorials show you a finished piece in good light and skip the bit where the base cracked, which is the bit you actually needed. When a project has a step that reliably goes wrong, that step gets its own section.
Every number on this site is one I’ve tested. Drying times, bake temperatures, thicknesses: none of it is copied off the back of a packet. Where I’m not certain, I say I’m not certain.
What you’ll find here
Beginner projects that don’t need a kiln or a wheel. Most of what’s here can be made at a kitchen table with air dry or polymer clay and a handful of cheap tools.
If something isn’t working and you can’t see why, email me. Usually it’s one small thing, and usually it’s something I’ve done myself.