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The Clay Hole University · Selling Your Work

Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can ClaimPrintable pottery guide

The four claims on paper: what food safe, dishwasher safe, microwave safe and oven safe each commit you to, three home tests, a label you can stand behind, and a log for every glaze you put on a food surface.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Intermediate
  • 24 printable pages
  • 4 video picks
  • 8-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any printer
  • The lesson stays free
The printable, at a glance

What is the Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim printable guide?

It is the free “Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim” lesson rebuilt for paper: what each of the four claims takes, why a glaze in a jar is not a pot, three home tests and what they can and cannot show, how to write a specific label, and six ways a claim goes wrong. Built to be printed, kept beside the label and written in.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 24printable pages, US Letter
  • 8quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 4hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 10glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
For anyone about to write food safe on a label

A label is a promise with your name on it.

Food safe, dishwasher safe, microwave safe. Each one is a promise about one specific pot, made to a stranger who will hold you to it. It is worth knowing what each promise commits you to before you write it down.

The guide gives you the order of things: what food safe takes, what dishwasher and microwave add, three home tests, and a label that says only what that pot has earned. It is plain about what a test on a tile can and cannot show.

It also gives you what a web page cannot: a log to write in. Which glaze, which clay, what the tile did, what the Food Safe Lookup says, and which claims you will write and which you will leave off.

Look inside

Real pages, for beside the label

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark.

  • Page 3 of the “Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim” printable guide: before you begin, shown with the sample watermark
    Before you beginOne page before the first claim: what you will learn, what you need, what is worth knowing, the common pitfalls and what a good result looks like.
  • Page 6 of the “Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim” printable guide: what you need, and the first claim, shown with the sample watermark
    What you need, and the first claimThe six things to have on the table, then what food safe actually rests on: a vitrified body, a fitted glaze, no crazing and no raw color inside.
  • Page 11 of the “Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim” printable guide: when it goes wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    When it goes wrongA crazed glaze under a food safe label, a luster in a microwave and a thick pot that cracks, each with the fix for next time and the fix for this piece. Three more are on the pages after.
  • Page 17 of the “Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim” printable guide: every glaze on a food surface, and what its tile did, shown with the sample watermark
    Every glaze on a food surface, and what its tile didA log to write in: the glaze and clay, what the tile did, what the Food Safe Lookup says, and the claims you will write and leave off.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Why this one belongs on paper

A label, a tile and a page of steps

A claim gets written when the pot is in your hands and the label is in the other. Paper suits that.

  • The tick lists where you can see them

    Each of the four steps ends in a tick list you can work down before anything is printed on a label.

  • A reason for every rule

    No luster in a microwave, a clear over every wash, a lemon on a tile. Each comes with its reason, so you can tell what to leave off when a pot is not quite the usual case.

  • A log for your own glazes

    Columns for what the tile did, what the Food Safe Lookup says, and the claims you will write or leave off. A few lines beat a memory of what you checked.

  • It does not mind a messy bench

    A page stays where you put it, beside the tiles and the labels, and it does not lock its screen.

How this one is built

Rebuilt for paper, not printed from a web page

Every guide in the series is set from scratch for print. Here is what that meant for this one.

  • Read against the studio’s own rules

    We checked the lesson against The Clay Hole’s rules and our other lessons. Where it was out of step, the guide now says what those pages say, including that a glaze’s claim is made glaze by glaze and that a refire never makes a pot food safe.

  • Honest about the home tests

    A lemon on a tile can show a glaze that fails, but no change is not proof that a glaze is safe. The guide says so, and points at the studio’s Food Safe Lookup as the place to start.

  • Video notes that say what the videos say

    Each of the four video notes was rewritten from the video’s own description and chapter list, so it claims no more than they show.

  • Links that go where they say

    Every related lesson was opened and its headings read, and two link blurbs were corrected because the page they pointed at did not cover what they promised.

  • A search line for every video

    On paper a video cannot play, so each one has its title and channel to search for, and a code that opens it.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every link is a short Clay Hole address. If a page moves, we repoint the address and your printed copy still goes to the right place.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Food Safe, Dishwasher Safe, and What You Can Claim” lesson, and that lesson is not going anywhere.

Write only what that pot has earned, and put your name on it. A label that says less and means it is worth more than one that says everything and hopes.

If you want to try it with us, ask the studio team to talk it through. We would love to see what you make.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
The series

Build a little pottery library

Every printable guide in The Clay Hole University series takes one free lesson and rebuilds it for paper, with workbook pages, a glossary and a quiz with a worked answer key. Each one keeps its number for good, so a guide you buy today is the same guide in the same place next year.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

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Sits next to

Three lessons that pick up where this one leaves off

Each one is free to read online, and the codes in the guide take you straight there.

Questions

Good to know

How is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is not going anywhere. The guide is that teaching rebuilt for paper: a learning dashboard at the front, a glaze log to write in, a one page summary, a glossary and a quiz with an answer key that explains every answer.
Does the guide say my pots are food safe?
No. Nothing can say that for a pot it has not seen. The guide tells you what each claim commits you to and how to write only the claims a pot has earned. The claim on a label is always the maker’s.
Is a test on a tile proof that a glaze is safe?
No, and the guide says so plainly. A lemon on a tile can show a glaze that fails. No change is not proof, which is why the guide sends you to the studio’s Food Safe Lookup first.
Do I need to be a member of The Clay Hole to use it?
No. The method works at any bench in any studio. Where a line is only ours, the guide says so.
Is this too early for me?
It is marked Intermediate. It assumes you have glazed and fired a few pots, and the glossary fills in the words.
Do the videos play on paper?
No. Each video has its title and channel to search for and a code that opens it. The four videos come from other makers and a supplier, and none of them is ours.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is set for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Does it print in black and white?
Yes. The text, the tick boxes and the tables are black on white, and color is used for headings and small labels.
Can I print just part of it?
Yes, and most people do. The one page summary and the glaze log are the two worth having beside the label. They are numbered pages like any other, so you can print those and leave the rest on a screen.
How does delivery work?
It is a digital download. The link arrives by email and on the order confirmation page right after checkout, so you can have it printed and beside the label the same evening.
What happens if the guide is updated?
Every edition carries its version number on the last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old one in the shop, and we can send the updated link to anybody who already bought it.
Can I share it?
It is licensed for your own use. Print as many copies for yourself as you like, on as many of your own devices as you like. Please do not pass the file on, upload it or use it with a class or a group without asking us first.

One pot, one tile, one honest label

Test a tile, check the Food Safe Lookup, write only what that pot has earned and put your name on it. The guide keeps every step in front of you at the bench.

Get the guide · $5.00

The Clay Hole University Printable Guide Terms

Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms

Your copy is yours. The guide is not.

Your purchase gives one individual purchaser a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use only. You may download the guide to your own devices, print copies for your own use, write all over them, spill clay water on them, replace a coffee-damaged copy, and generally use the heck out of what you bought.

What you may not do is distribute the guide to anyone else, whether you charge for it or not.

That means you may not share, forward, email, upload, post, publish, copy, reproduce, resell, sublicense, redistribute, or otherwise provide the guide, or any substantial portion of it, to another person. You may not place it in a shared drive, group chat, membership library, online community, file-sharing service, studio resource folder, classroom packet, employee handbook, course, workshop, or other shared collection. You may not make copies for students, members, employees, friends, classes, studios, schools, groups, or organizations.

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If you would like to use one of our guides with a class, studio, school, team, or other group, contact The Clay Hole about permission or group licensing. Please do not make twenty copies and call it manifesting.

Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

These guides are provided for general educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for hands-on training, competent supervision, your studio’s safety procedures, applicable laws or codes, Safety Data Sheets, or the instructions and warnings supplied by the manufacturers of your clay, glaze, chemicals, tools, kilns, equipment, protective gear, or other materials.

Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

Use appropriate protective equipment. Use adequate ventilation and dust control. Read manufacturer instructions and Safety Data Sheets. Follow your studio’s rules. Obtain qualified instruction when a process or piece of equipment requires it. Test materials and techniques before committing important work to them. If you do not understand how to perform something safely, do not proceed until you do.

Never assume that a ceramic surface, glaze, clay body, firing method, finished vessel, repair, decoration, or other result is food-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe, structurally sound, chemically stable, or suitable for any particular purpose solely because it appears in or is discussed in one of our guides. Verify suitability independently when it matters.

Ceramics also refuses to sign contracts promising beautiful results. Colors change. Glazes move. Kilns have opinions. Pots crack. Materials interact unexpectedly. Manufacturers reformulate products. Equipment behaves differently. The Clay Hole does not guarantee any particular aesthetic, functional, firing, glazing, structural, or other result.

By choosing to use the information in a guide, you accept responsibility for your own materials, equipment, workspace, safety decisions, testing, methods, and results. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, The Clay Hole and its owners, employees, contributors, and affiliates are not responsible for injury, illness, property damage, lost work, failed projects, kiln or equipment damage, financial loss, or other loss arising from or related to your use of, or reliance upon, the guide.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b