Tag Archives: Craft Ideas

Bellingham Bucket List #44: Spend a rainy afternoon at CreativiTea

You can find the entire Bellingham Bucket List on bellingFAM.

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While it wasn’t technically a rainy day when we visited, CreativiTea is perfect for tucking in your back pocket for when the skies have opened up… and you need to get out of your house with your kids.

While my kids had been to pottery painting places in the past, this was my first time and I confess that I loved it far more than I thought I would.

When you get to the studio, you pick your pottery piece from the huge selection. There are animals and bowls and plates and cars and pretty much anything else you can think of. Once you have your pieces, you wait for a table. We didn’t have to wait long, even though they seemed busy.

At your table, they give you a little tutorial about where to find things and how to get the best results with your paint. Then, you get creating!

We were there for about two-hours. I reminded my girls (Everett didn’t join us for bull in a china shop reasons) that they should take their time and that they only got to paint one piece. I loved how they took their time with what they chose and how careful they were with the paint and supplies. I think that, for them, the processes was just as interesting and fun as the painting itself — getting to pick their own colors and brushes from the station, and even helping to clean up.

The girls adored it here and I did too. It was such a treat and while it’s not somewhere that we will visit weekly (my home can only handle so many painted pigs…), it’s a fun place to add to our list of outings, especially when we’re looking for a place to sit and visit and connect, with some creativity sprinkled in. We already have plans to go back to make some gifts for loved ones!

Cost

There are no studio fees for painting at CreativiTea. All you pay for is your creation, which you pick when you arrive to the studio. From what we saw, most of the kid-favorites were around $16, with smaller and larger pieces available.

Take

You don’t need to bring anything except your imagination and creativity for a visit to CreativiTea. I would recommend wearing clothes that you don’t mind getting a little paint on. My kids did okay, but I can see how it could get messy, quickly. Picking short-sleeves would be a smart choice, too.

Leave

Leave anything extra at home, as there isn’t a lot of storage and when it’s busy, there can be a lot of people milling around, grabbing their paints and brushes. They even have water at little stations around the studio.

What we would leave at home? Or, who we would leave at home? The littlest ones. Unless you are going to be one-on-one with your toddler or young preschooler, we’d recommend keeping this outing to the school-aged/pre-k crowd.

Eat

While it’s not necessary to order something to eat or drink while you’re at CreativiTea, it certainly adds to the fun! They have menus at the table and you can order traditional tea sandwiches and pots of tea to be shared (there are kid-friendly, caffeine-free kinds too!). The prices are reasonable and the food is tasty. The only tricky part about ordering food while you’re visiting CreativiTea is balancing eating and painting — consider waiting until you’re close to being done painting before ordering food. We ordered a large pot of tea for our table, which gave each of the five of us a mug, and it was around $6.

Find

CreativiTea Pottery Painting Studio and Tea Bar
1312 11th St.
Bellingham, WA 98225
Phone: 360.752.1724

Hours:
Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
No reservations necessary

Park

There is a large parking lot, just past CreativiTea, where there were a ton of open spaces on a Sunday afternoon. And, as usual in Fairhaven, there is metered street parking, if you have the patience to drive around the block a few times searching for a spot.

Online

You can visit the CreativiTea website for more details, including information about summer camps and birthday parties.

CreativiTea is also on Facebook and Pinterest.

Have you taken your kids to CreativiTea? What’s your best tip for other parents?

Make this: Daily memory box

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I had pinned this a few months ago on Pinterest (you can see the pin here) and once I finally clicked through to the original post, I realized that it was from Seattle-based Modern Parents Messy Kids, a site that I love.

Keeping track of those little moments, when you’re a family, is priceless and although I’ve tried many, many, MANY methods in the past, I’ve never found one that stuck. I love this box because it literally takes less than a minute to scribble down a memory, a funny quote or an exciting announcement from our day on the card. Having the predated cards keeps me accountable to not skip a day and I keep the box with the cards on my dresser, where I see it before I go to bed each night as a reminder to jot something down.

Lastly, I love that this moves from year-to-year with our family. I can’t wait to get a full-year into writing down these daily memories and look back to see what we were doing last year as a family.

To make my modified version, here’s what I bought:

1 Pack of 4×6-inch lined index cards from Target
A few more rolls of washi tape from Target. In Bellingham, they’re along the side wall, by the stationary. You can get by with just one roll, if you’re on a budget.
1 Ultra fine-tipped Sharpie. I live by these and it works well to write on the washi tape. I bought a pack of four at Target, but you just need one.
1 4×6 plain wood box from Micheal’s. These were in the far back left-hand corner of the store. This one cost about $5.

The total cost was less than $15.

Once you have everything you need, assembly is pretty quick.

Here’s how I made my Daily Memory Box:
As inspired by the DIY Memory Box from Modern Parents Messy Kids

One: Apply the washi tape to the index cards.
There is a bit of a learning curve with the application, but once you get going, it won’t take long. I rotated through my different washis, putting a strip that was long enough on each card for me to write the date. I also tried hard to get the washi on the same spot on the card. (True confessions: I have crafting OCD. I can’t help it.)

Two: Write the dates on the cards.
This is where that heavenly Sharpie comes in handy. It doesn’t matter that you’re not starting at the beginning of the year, because you’ll build on the memories as the years go by. Remember: Only write the date, not the year, on your washi. For example: Write March 20, not March 20, 2014.

Three: Decorate the box.
I used the same washi tapes that I used on the cards to decorate mine and I chose not to decorate the whole thing… yet. I think it will be fun to add a bit each year. You could also easily paint your box or have your kids paint or decorate it. Go crazy!

Four: Get the cards in the box.
I have today’s card on the front of the stack, then I’ll rotate it to the back of the box after I write today’s memory. The inside of the box is a bit rough and I may eventually paint the interior to make it smoother… and cuter.

Five: Start making and writing down those memories.
So far, the memories I’m writing on the cards are all over the place. Some are funny things that the kids have said (Meg: “It’s snowing! I think we should get donuts to celebrate!”). Some are exciting memories for our family that I want to remember, for the future (Janie’s first day of soccer practice). But, most are just little notes about what we did that day (Went to the movies with some of our fave neighbors) or tiny snippets about life in our family (Snow day… again.) Once you get going, you’ll get in your own groove for what works for your own memory-keeping style.

As you can see on the post from Modern Parents Messy Kids, they also incorporated daily pictures, which they printed on that super cool printer (hello. i want that thing!) and stuck them on the back of each card. That’s so smart! As an alternative, I’m going to print some small sticker photos from Printstagram, which uses your Instagram photos. At $10 for 252 photo stickers, it’s a budget-friendly option, although it the tricky part will be figuring out which photos go with which dates!