Recently we received a very special plate from our son that his grandparents helped him paint by hand, literally–the white plate is covered in blue hand prints of our son. With the weather still a little chilly to plan outdoor activities, we thought we’d visit Claytime in Shrewsbury and make some gifts for the grandparents. Claytime is a paint-your-own-pottery and creative studio offering tons of craft projects you can work on with your kids.

On the weekends they advise you to make a reservation; we didn’t have one, but they didn’t care. We were greeted by an enthusiastic and very helpful staff member when we entered the studio and she explained how the entire process worked. You choose from a wide array of pottery (clay plates, bowls, cups, mugs, picture frames and many more) and then find a table to start working. Our helper showed us the various color options and explained some of the different techniques. The color options are displayed on large clay platters so you can see what they will look like when finished, and each has a number to help in retrieving the right bottle from the paint rack. In less than 10 minutes we were painting our plates.

The price of each piece of pottery is written on the bottom, so it’s easy to shop around the shelves for something your kid likes and within your budget. The total cost is the price of the item plus ½ of that price for the studio fee. Our small, oval plates were $12 + $6 for a total of $18 each. Size and complexity of the piece seemed to determine the price. The studio fee covers using the facility, the paint, glazing, kiln drying, and very helpful staff members to assist you.

Our biggest impression of Claytime was how helpful the staff was in getting our project to come out looking halfway decent (we are not the best artists). While we kept our plates pretty simple, the displayed artwork throughout the entire studio provides inspiration for many different projects. The staff at Claytime checked in on us quite often to see if we needed anything or had any questions.

Claytime offers many other craft activities such as beading, glass fusing, mosaics, and stuffed critters. You can rent one of their private rooms for a party with a group of 10 or more; there were two birthday parties for children going on while we were there. Claytime also allows adults to bring their own ‘adult’ beverages during the evening hours, and on Wacky Wednesdays adults get 50% off the studio fee.

Mom Says: I can’t say enough about the staff. They could see that we had our hands full with our son and were ready to help out at a moment’s notice. As soon as we had the paint ready to go they came by and worked with us to get the hand and foot prints just right. They even cleaned up for us in the end. We have to wait 12 days to pick up our plates and I’m already counting down…

Dad Says: I was a little apprehensive about pottery at first, but it brought me right back to high school art class and I hit my stride pretty quickly. This place is well run and offers a wide variety of craft activiites for the kids.

Check out the Claytime web site at http://www.claytimestudio.com/

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 11:00 pm and is filed under Places to Go, Sites. If you use RSS, you can subscribe to the RSS feed , or if you would rather receive an e-mail, please subscribe to the e-mail in the lower right hand corner of this page. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.