2 years old

Pottery Cafe - Review

17:54

Today we had the pleasure of going to the Pottery Cafe to make some Christmas presents and decorations and review the whole process.  The Pottery Cafe has a large selection of Emma Bridgewater pottery to choose from and provides paint and materials to decorate.  You then leave your creations there to be glazed and fired before coming to pick them up on the date given.  It is a fun experience and great for children's Creative Development as they learn to use different techniques to paint the pottery.


There are 3 Pottery Cafe locations in London; Fulham, Battersea and Richmond.  There is a studio fee of £5.99 per person (which I believe is charged as only 1 person if it's 1 adult and child, be sure to ask in advance though) and then each piece of pottery has a set price.  We were provided with one item to decorate and review, and chose the half pint mug to make as a gift for Daddy (it costs £12.95).  We then decided to also do one of their new Christmas tree decorations as well, there's a star, tree, stocking and gingerbread man.  Ethan decided right away that he wanted to do the gingerbread man for our Christmas tree, which cost £8.95.

When we arrived at the studio we chose which pieces of pottery to paint and then one of the staff members came over to explain to us how the process works.  She did a fantastic job of explaining everything to Ethan, he watched intently as she demonstrated how to do the different techniques on the practice plate.  We then chose our paint colours and sponges and set off to painting.  I definitely recommend picking up a practice plate, you can test out the different sponges on there and talk your little one through the gentle stamping process (Ethan wanted to smudge the sponges around, but soon got the hang of it).  And don't be intimidated if you aren't very artistic, the sponges can be used to make an effective background and then to stamp on top as well.  You can create a masterpiece without having to 'draw' anything yourself. 

With the mug we used a natural sponge first and painted the background a nice yellow colour. Ethan was able to do this on his own, with just a bit of guidance from me about filling in all the white spaces.  We then chose some Christmas sponges and alternated with red and green paint to put lovely stamps on the mug.  These we did together, with me holding Ethan's hand to avoid too much smudging.


For the gingerbread man we also used the natural sponge to do a yellow background, as well as Ethan painting with a regular brush.  Then Ethan and I held the brush together as he wanted to paint eyes, a mouth and buttons for his man.  Finally I used the paint in the squeezy bottle to do the writing, I put Ethan on one leg and the year on the other.  I'm thinking that it would be really lovely to go back every year to make another decoration for the tree.


Both of our creations turned out really well, of course we'll have to wait until next week to see the final products, but I'm confident that Ethan made some fantastic pottery today.  We also loved the whole experience, they've made it really simple to do, even if you know nothing about painting.  There are plenty of examples on the wall that you can copy (they've done some very cute things with hand and foot prints, which they will also help you with if you have a wriggly baby).   

It is recommended that you book ahead of time, so that you are ensured a table when you arrive.  It can get quite busy (especially before Christmas).  Make sure you book in before 18th December if you want your creations in time for Christmas.


* This has been a review post, the Pottery Cafe provided us with one item to paint so that we could write a review for them. To see more about my review process please click here. *

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2 comments

  1. We have similar places in this area, I've never taken my children to one yet but think I will soon! Your creations look wonderful :)

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    Replies
    1. thanks, you should definitely give it a try, it's so much fun (and easier than it looks!)

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