We aren't giving up

Times are rough for us all! We are no exception to that. We are a SMALL business, family owned and operated, and we feel the same pains as the rest of you with lack of funding, time and energy. We started out here in Canton just as a Paint your own pottery studio to give families something to do. Today, we have a bigger vision! We began classes and camps for kids and adults. We went beyond just pottery as an art form, both with selling in the store and our crafts we did at the camps. We have donated several gift certificates to several organizations and causes in Canton and around Canton, we worked with Girl Scouts to help them raise funds for their troop by pouring bowls they painted and auctioned off at their Ice Cream Social fundraiser, we helped the Boy Scouts earn some art badges, we participated in Lincoln Days and Eastview Day, we joined in the merchant booth at Friendship Festival and set up a booth on the Spoon River Drive at Jones Park. All of these things were done 1) to help our community, 2) let people know we are here and 3) cos we like to help and serve where we can. Many of you already know I have 4 children. My oldest is married and had a boy/girl set of twins this summer, our first grandbabies. My younger 3 children are often seen at the store.. I currently homeschool the middle 2 and the 3rd will be again next school year as my oldest middle child will be graduating High School this summer at 16. These children are our future!! We are trying to teach them to be servants to our Lord, and one way to do that is to serve and help in our community. We look around our neighborhoods and schools and churches and we see kids who are left home alone when no school simply because babysitting is so expensive that parents can't pay for it. Our goal is to make our prices affordable. We have done so by purchasing our own molds to pour on our pieces which helps us keep our costs down. We offer camps for kids when there is 1/2 day or no day school and we do 3-5 crafts in the 2 hour time frame and do ALOT of planning and preparing way in advance to purchase supplies at discounted prices so we can keep our costs down and still be able to be affordable for Canton. Youth need structure, guidance, fun and education even when not in school!! Our goal is to give them a FUN-ducation. We want them to learn but have fun doing so. With art projects we do, they are always learning. I love to throw out questions to make them think while they are doing a craft. For instance, we are doing a craft from felt; do you know how long felt has been around? Well way back in pioneer days they were using felt. Wool as most of know was the first fabric used, but wool is a hard fabric to work crafts with at times so we use felt. I want kids who have a love of art in any form to be able to experience it, even if it's only 2 hours once a month, and feed that love for it. Unfortunately, business has been very slow this year. There have been many contributing factors we know. A year ago our town experienced great devastation with the gas explosion and many businesses weren't open at a huge shopping time of the year and several were unable to reopen after that explosion. Not knowing what would happen with insurance and the new president and changes he was making etc. We went through all of these issues beside each of you and continued to fight and work to better ourselves, our business and still help in our community.

I won't lie, we are concerned for the upcoming year. We added more classes, even adult classes this fall, but little to no sign ups for them. These classes help us greatly to make ends meet as do our camps. We are in the planning stages and early doing stages of becoming wholesale as well. We hope to be able to pour items and sell to other studios as we were buying from a 3rd party. I have had a couple customers that come in and just buy the bisque (pottery) off the shelf. They take them home and paint them because they use stains or other medium that doesn't need to be fired. Yes, we do offer that. All of our pieces at the stage on the floor are bisque which is fired once and while they are still fragile and breakable they are much stronger than greenware which just comes out of the molds and not fired. Just to squeeze these pieces a bit to hard with break them. So we are looking to sell by the case which could be anywhere from 3-12 pieces of the same item or some of our pieces are sold in a set. Some of you may have seen at the Festival or Drive I had 2 pieces that were sets attached to a base. One was a family of ghosts with a scarecrow and the other was a set of 3 witches, cat, cauldron and broom stick. I painted mine to resemble the Sanderson Sisters (from movie Hocus Pocus). These we would sell as a complete set but you can paint at home or sell in your own studio or art class. We are in hopes making this addition will help bridge the gap of expenses and income to remain open and operating in this small community where we do not have much else for families or groups to do.

We are coming up (one week) on the biggest shopping season of the year! We will be closed Black Friday but we encourage you all to come out and support us as well as the rest for Small Business Saturday (Nov. 25th) . We realize you may have lots of shopping to get done and just cant take 2 hours to stop and paint something. So we suggest you purchase gift certificates for your Christmas giving. One of my favorite things to do was when my sister and I got together with my 4 kids and her 2 kids and we all painted together. We each picked our own piece but we got to visit and paint together. Make it a family event after the Christmas season. Like something to do in February or March when everyone is sick of the snow and being cooped up indoors with nothing to do. Come in with your certificates and spend a few hours together outside of the house, but still in a warm place making memories and a keepsake of it.

As always you can find us on facebook and under the events tab you can find all the events (classes and camps) we have scheduled. If you'd like to see a particular class or themed camp, let us know and we will add it to the event schedule. We are here for YOU!! We want you to enjoy your time and your art.

While we attempt to come up with new ideas and keep fighting to stay open for you, spread the word, shop small, and come get your paint on or sign up for some fun camps and classes.