Happy New Year!

We will be closing at 5pm, today, December 31st and we will reopen at 10am on Friday the 2nd.

Starting Monday the 5th, we will again be closed on Mondays.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year and that Santa brought you lots of goodies. I know there were tons of helper elves painting like mad to make wonderful gifts.

See you in 2009!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We will be open from 10-1 on Christmas Eve. Then we will close for Christmas Day and reopen at 10am on Friday the 26th. We will resume our normal hours Friday through and then close early on Wednesday the 31st, New Year's eve. We will be closed on the 1st and reopen at 10am on the 2nd.

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Christmas and Hanukkah. I hope you all enjoy your pottery presents and your gift recipients enjoy their gifts. Thank you for another wonderful year, see you in 2009.

Now open on Mondays

Have you ever wanted to paint pottery or pick up your pottery, but we were closed because it was a Monday? Well, for the month of December, you will be able to access your pottery needs 7 days a week. Starting today, we will be open 10am-7pm on Mondays. See you soon.

Don't forget about our Elf on a Shelf, this Friday evening, see below posting.

Happy THANKSgiving

Happy THANKSgiving. This year I have so much to be thankful for....My family (especially my Reagan), my friends, my studios, and all of my wonderful customers. I am also thankful for the fact that we have been doing this for 5 years and we just keep getting bigger and better! Thank you for your support, friendship, challenges and patronage.

Holiday Hours

We will be closing early on Wednesday so we can go home and bake some pies and get our turkey ready for the oven.

We will be closed all day on Thanksgiving Day.

We will open at 12:00pm on Black Friday and we will stay till the last painter goes home. Typically, we stay pretty late (at least 9:00pm), so give us a call to see if we are open, you never know! We will be passing out grab bags with a free ornament to the first 30 customers at both studios, so don't wait too late or you'll miss out.

Starting December 1st, we will be open on Mondays from 10:00am-7:00pm. Just one more day for you to paint with us and work on those gifts.

Happenings at Doing Dishes

We have so much going on that we just have to share. We will be closed on Thanksgiving Day and we will reopen at 12pm on Friday the 28th. We will be having door prizes all day at both locations on Black Friday, so stop by whenever you can and paint a piece. We are the perfect place to stop and relax and make a few Christmas gifts. With this economy, who wants to spend a fortune? This year, make your own gifts. Everyone loves a handmade gift and Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, etc. just love handprint gifts from their little ones.

Spend $25 now, get $10 to use in the New Year

We wll be starting a special on Friday the 28th, spend $25 in pottery and you will recieve a $10 coupon to use in the New Year. We will be handing out these coupons at both stores through December until we run out.

Elf on a Shelf Night

I learned about Elf on a Shelf from a few of my customers and I just thought it would be a cute project to do during the holidays. The story is that Santa Claus sends out some of his favorite elves to children's homes and every night the elves fly home to the North Pole and give Santa a naughty or nice report. Then, your elf flies back to his child's home, but he always lands on a new shelf. The fun part is to wake up in the morning and try to find which shelf he landed on. We are having a paint your own elf night. Each child will paint an elf, give it a name and decorate some cookies. We will print out a birth certificate and poem of Elf on a Shelf for you to take home with your elf.

When: December 5th 6:00-8:00pm at both locations

Cost: $25 per elf

Reservations are required as space is limited as we only have 20 elves.

Breakfast with Santa

We are so lucky that the big guy (Santa Claus) had a few hours to come hang out with us. He will be here on December 13th at 10am to have breakfast with your child and paint a cookie plate. We will provide juice, coffee, muffins, bagels and fruit. Please join us and make a plate your child will cherish forever.

Blood, Sweat and Tears

-have all been shed, but we are open for business at the Edgewood studio. We had a great grand opening. Thank you to all our wonderful customers who came out to support us. We still have plenty of tiles that need to be painted, so stop by today and paint a tile for our cash counter. More changes are still to come, like new floors and LOTS of new pottery. Check back in often, I will post pictures on a regular basis.

Progess is being made

It is hard to believe that we only have 5 days left before we open. We still have a lot to do, but as you can see, we have made HUGE progess.

Go Gators!!!

I thought I would post some Georgia/Florida pieces since this weekend is the big game, but for some reason we don't get too many Georgia pieces. This is a great Gator plate! I love when people draw their own designs, it makes it look so much more personalized.

Getting into the spirit

These are some great holiday pieces that people have done in the last few weeks. I love the holidays and love when people start to get in the spirit, it makes me more motivated!

and the walls came down

Now we have some paint on the walls, what is left of them, and things are really starting to come along. I will post more pictures tomorrow.

Work in progress

What a great husband I have. Brian came straight from work and started tearing down walls. It sure has opened up the place.

Ladies Night is this Thursday

Please join us for our famous Ladies Night. It is this Thursday, Oct. 23rd, and we still have spots available. The event starts at 7pm and we usually roll out of there about 9ish. We will have snacks, door prizes and a very special suprise for those who attend. Please call the studio if you would like to reserve your space. 730-3729

Yep, I have lost my mind!

It's true, I have lost my mind, but in a good way. I haven't had time to post lately, because I was in the process of buying another studio. We are now officially a chain! Two weeks ago, I learned that Achy Breaky Ceramics was closing and I approached them regarding selling their assetts to me and reopening it as Doing Dishes. Well, a few weeks later, a lot of sleepless nights and a wing and a prayer, we are now the proud owners of 2 pottery studios. The new studio will reopen as Doing Dishes on November 4th. We will be having a Grand Opening and I hope you can all come. Our 1st 100 customers will be given a 4 inch tile to paint for our front counter. I am so excited about this new challenge and I hope you all contiune to grow and learn with us. Here are some pictures of the studio "before" and I will post pictures of our progess as we make some.

Check out the before pictures

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21300539@N03/?saved=1

Piece of the week

Here is the piece of the week from last week, an awesome footprint and handprint piece. The small grapes around the edges are the older children and the footprint was taken soon after the family adopted their newest addition. What a great way to celebrate the addition to the family.

This piece is from this week and was painted by Danielle, who was one of our summer campers from a few years ago. She painted this for her big sister, Brooke. She used our new pink foundations glaze and also a plate from our new Circles Dinnerware line. I love the look of this plate!

Happy Hour all week

We are having a Happy Hour Special. Don't worry, kids are allowed!!!!

This week only, Tuesday - Friday, from 4pm - 6pm. Come paint with us and receive 1/2 off your studio fee. As long as you get here between 4-6, you will get our Happy Hour special rate. Grab dinner at one of our awesome restaurants in the shopping center, then sit down and paint a piece.

Sill, this is only half of it

This is still just half of what we got almost 2 weeks ago. We just can't unbox it fast enough and we are running out of shelf space. Come in and see our new stuff, there are so many new styles to spark your creativity.

Piece of the week (Last week)

This is the piece of the week from last week. I couldn't find my camera until this morning. This is a snowman piece done by Kathy Rohm. Isn't it awesome!!!

This is only half of it!

We got 3 truck loads of new pottery yesterday. I think the girls about passed out when they saw how much I bought. Check in soon, hopefully this weekend will will have the majority of it unboxed.

UPS must love me

The pottery has started pouring in and I think our new UPS girl and I are going to become very good friends. This is only 1/2 of what we got yesterday. Stephanie was here all night putting stuff away and I have been at it for an hour this morning. It will be coming in streams for the next few months. Come by the studio and see what new stuff we have on the shelves.

Wednesday is free slumping day

From now on, hump day will be free slump day. Make a piece of glass on Wednesday and we will slump it for free. What is slumping you ask? Slumping is taking a piece of flat fused glass and placing it in a mold and firing it again. When we re-fire it, it slumps over the mold to make the glass take shape. We can slump things into different shape plates, bowls, vases and candle holders.

We made national news

This is the blog by Heidi Floyd from the Vera Bradley Foundation:

http://verabradleyfoundation.blogspot.com/

What great publicity for all pottery studios. You will be hearing a lot about pottery and Vera Bradley doing great things for this cause.

"It's been a long days night"

Some of the great new glass pieces that I found, I can't wait to get to the studio and start making some more samples.
I won this piece at the auction. It is supposed to be an ice cream topping server, but I think I am going to use it in the studio for something else, I just don't know what.
This clock sold for $8,000 at the auction. This year we changed our charity from Susan G. Koman to the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer. There was a rep from Vera Bradley and she was crying when this piece sold for so much. It was so great to see so many people donate so much of their hard earned money. This year, we raised approximately $33,000. Isn't that amazing?!
This is our future pottery studio owner, just contemplating on what pieces she should buy for Doing Dishes.

We just arrived home from the 2008 CCSA Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. As a few of you may remember from years past, this convention is AWESOME!!! Last year I decided to stay home since I was busy nursing Reagan, but I really missed going and getting new ideas and feeling a rejuvenated. This year, we were lucky because Brian's parents have an apartment in Phoenix, so we (Brian, Reagan and I) all flew out last Thursday. Convention started Saturday and I have to say, I think this was my favorite out of the 5 I have attended. It was held at the Arizona Biltmore and both Brian and I were sad that we didn't stay there. It is a beautiful resort and the convention areas were so nice and the people there were wonderful. I spent plenty of time walking around all the suppliers booths and getting all the newest catalogs and samples. I took lots of business classes and a few painting classes. I learned a lot and I can't wait to go to the studio tomorrow and start implementing some of my new ideas.