The lip has been twisted this way and that, just like the Waltza fairground ride it rides up and down throwing the edge around in wild curves.

The body looks like they simply grasped it just a bit too hard before it was fired and rather than reject it or rework just went right ahead and finished it off anyway.

Then just to finish off what would have been a rather attractive deep green vase with a complimentary coloured brown interior out came the paint brush to daub some dubious marigold style flower on the side.

It’s an unlikely contender for the ugliest vase of the year, but it sure ain’t the prettiest by a long stretch!

I guess it’s supposed to resemble a bucket, but it’s not that good. It has what appear to be wooden staves made from clay encircled up a few random rolled bands dotted with fake nail heads to represent brass bands holding the bucket together.

Sadly the picture makes this vase look quite clean and vibrant, in reality it’s dull, dirty and looks like it’s be rolled in the mud and never cleaned.

It’s also shockingly badly made, having obviously been two moulded halves mashed together and then the bands applied. There was no care to even try to mask the join which runs down one side, across the base and up the opposite side. Quite honestly it looks as if someone simply smoothed the joint with their thumb and couldn’t wait to get on with the next.

I’m surprised this has lasted as long as it has, it really doesn’t have any great hope of being a cared for treasure of the future.

I suppose it makes sense to have frosted glass to hide any gunk and dirt that gathers inside the vase, but haven’t these people heard of cleaning? Or better still if you’re too lazy to keep your vase clean why not have a naturally opaque material - oh yeah, we do, it’s called clay and not glass.

Having said that this vase is highly unlikely to get dirty anyway the fluted neck is far too narrow for anything but a single stem. Why someone would make a vase that’s impossible to use and then not only frost it but also apply intricate decoration with gold is beyond me.

Unbelievably someone has actually tried to use this vase, deep inside are a couple of stalks of some kind of dried grass. There’s no way to get them out short of smashing the vase, or waiting for them to rot. Chances are that, if the vase survives and isn’t left in a damp place, the grass will still be there in a hundred years time.

I call it a vase, and I suppose it is as the hollow tree stump at the rear will just about hold some water and support a few stems, but quite honestly I don’t think when this was made it was ever intended to be used (kinda pointless really, but that appears to be the case for a lot of vases).

As hand made stoneware goes this has to be one of the most tedious to make that I’ve ever seen, a jumbled heap of leaves twigs and various oddments strew the forest floor beneath the tree, just as you might expect in autumn in the woods. But why go to all this effort for a vase which is barely large enough for a couple of buds? If they’d scrapped the superfluous decoration this could have been a decent size vase made at a fraction of the cost.

Of course hand made doesn’t always equate to quality, sometimes quite the opposite and this little jug is no exception. The body of the vase is great, although small it’s a great shape for holding a reservoir of water for the flowers. Even the colours of the brown leading into a green neck and darker brown lip aren’t that bad.

It’s the handle that does ruins it for me, rather than a proper jug handle someone dreamt up the idea of nipping the top of the vase to form a flange, punching a hole through and looping a snake of clay around to form a looped handle.

Well I guess having the idea wasn’t bad, but it’s one of those ideas that should be tried once and then rejected. This one should never have made it out of the factory, sometimes traditional methods are the best and shouldn’t be messed about. That’s why they become traditional, because they work and this just doesn’t.

Not so this one though, it’s wood cleverly wrapped around a ceramic pot. It’s only about five inches tall but it’s quite cute, although being wood there are obvious signs of wear with the odd chip, scrape, scratch and loss of varnish.

Not only is it made from wood, but someone carefully laminated different coloured wood together before machining it into a barrel shape formed to hold the pot inside.

Although the work to construct this is admirable the end result doesn’t really justify the effort. At the end of the day it’s just some rather odd looking lumps of wood glued around a pot. It looks more like a high school child’s project than something you’d be willing to pay good money for.

Now call me squeamish as I sit here writing wearing my (leather) shoes and (leather) belt, but somehow having a dead cows skin wrapped around a vase which I’m then going to put on display doesn’t appeal in the slightest.

Most people eat meat, even those who don’t generally wear animal products on their feet, but surely making it into a vase is just going a step too far?

Mind you regardless the lack of taste you have to admire the workmanship that’s gone into creating this. The leather is worked as well as on the best bound books with the picture standing in sharp relief. The bull and matador are well executed with the other three sides covered in floral decorations and yes, even the base of the bottle is leather.

There’s a heck of a lot of skill gone into creating this vase, it’s just a shame the result is revolting.

It’s so obvious, everything for babies are either blue for boys, pink for girls, or yellow because we don’t know what sex the baby will be when it’s born. Now I know the old pink/blue thing is a bit sexist, but don’t blame me, I didn’t make these vases, I just found them.

You’ll be pleased to know that this pink version is just as cheap, tacky and plastic as the blue one. If you’ve got a girl and a boy (and they don’t mind pink and blue), then these are just the gifts to tweak their interest in gardening.

On the other hand if you couldn’t bear to have them in your house do me a favour… keep a look out and let me know if you ever see a yellow one to complete the set.

You’d be wrong!

This vase really is as dull as it looks, it’s a decorated with a landscape theme all executed in various shades of brown. Brown trees, brown sky, brown fields, brown hedgerows, just brown.

Quite frankly I think I’d have preferred this vase and found it not quite as ugly if there was no pretense of a country scene and it was just a light brown vase with a dark brown top and bottom. At least then it would just be a vase, the horrible colouring on the image has definitely earned this a place in the ugly corner.

Of course I wouldn’t dream of smashing an attractive vase, not matter how much it was begging to be hurled, but this just doesn’t fit the bill. It’s got a rippled sides from the potters wheel which strikes me as pure laziness, it must just be too much hard work to produce a smooth finish.

The flower decorating the side is reminiscent of a butterfly at the base and suns in place of the buds. Also I’ve never seen a flower that the main stem split into three with a flower at the top of each, normally each flower would sit atop it’s own stem rising from the base of the plant.

This one is just too tempting to keep…. has anyone out there got a baseball bat I could borrow?