If you’re looking for pottery painting in Bournemouth, All Fired Up Ceramics Cafe is a great place to visit. Located just a short walk from Bournemouth Square, the ceramics café is in a convenient central location for a creative day out by the coast. Whether you’re painting pottery with friends, family, or little ones, it’s also one of the best indoor activities in Bournemouth and perfect for a rainy day.
There’s plenty of parking options in Bournemouth with just a short walk into the square. I would advise booking a table at All Fired Up if you’re planning on a weekend as we found it to be quite busy.
If you are looking for birthday parties in Bournemouth, you may also be interested to read that All Fired Up cater for children’s and adult parties.
Choose Your Ceramics
Once seated at your table, there is a wide choice of ceramics to choose from. These are all displayed along the back wall of the cafe so you can take your time choosing. Ceramics include mugs, plates, trinket bowls and so much more. There are seasonal items to paint and plenty of shapes and sizes. In fact there is over 150 different items to choose from.
Each ceramic piece is labelled in pencil with the price so you know what you’re paying before you choose. I was slightly concerned when painting my mug that the pencil mark was going to stay, however I was assured it burns off in the kiln.
Ceramic Painting Experience
Once we were seated at the table and had chosen our ceramic, it was time to choose the paints. There is a handy colour chart on the tables, but it was nice to select from the pots on the shelves at the back too.
Make sure you select a couple of different sized paint brushes to get creative with as sometimes we realised a smaller brush was needed for detail. There is water and dabbing sponges already on the table so this was very handy for keeping everything clean.
If you’re not sure what to create, there are plenty of different finished pieces on the shelves waiting to be collected. These can’t be touched but they are great for looking at for inspiration.
If you also order drinks from the cafe car, your teapots, milks jugs etc all have cute little designs on them. No two pieces are the same which is really nice.
Our whole painting experience lasted for around two hours. We weren’t rushed and it was a nice way to chill out with friends and get creative.
Once you have finished your pottery piece, take it to the till for payment. You will be charged for your selected piece plus a studio fee of £3. This covers the paints, brushes and glaze etc.
Refreshments
I can recommend the coffee in All Fired Up, it was delicious. We actually ended up with two cups each during our visit. There are a selection of cakes on offer as well and we did also try a couple of pieces.
Collection of Your Finished Piece
Your finished item will be fired and glazed after you leave. It’s generally ready within seven days, but the time frame will be written on your receipt for you too.
I found the collection process simple as well. We were a party of four, and I only had three receipts with me. I was allowed to collect all four pieces as we had paid within minutes of each other and thee items were easy to find on their system.
Top tip if you’re collecting multiple pieces is to take a bag with you. I didn’t and it was lucky I had just been to a different shop. The pieces are well wrapped in tissue paper, but I didn’t want to risk dropping anything on the way home.