Community Projects, Council Programme, Arts Council, Re-Generation Programme, Community Development, Arts & Crafts Grants, Creative Sector

Community or Council Initiatives

Country Love Crafts (formerly Country Love Ceramics) is one of UK's largest wholesalers, suppliers, distributors products for the contemporary "paint your own pottery" and crafts businesses.

We offer a full mentoring service from inception through to establishment of new businesses in this field and currently supply over 1200 businesses (mostly UK based). We also formed the “Guild of Ceramic Studios”.

Pottery Painting:

Pottery Painting offers a creative experience for men and women, young and old. Once established, programmes can be developed to introduce a more diverse range of crafts.

It is worth noting the following positive points regarding pottery painting:

No artistic skill is required: - even polka dots can look good.
Great entertainment: pottery painting is particularly popular for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, School Holidays, Hen Parties, Birthday Parties, Corporate Team Building, Christenings, Communions and most other special events or occasions.
Unique gift/keepsake: footprints and handprints (from a newborn baby or child) look great on pottery. Signature plates provide a sentimental keepsake for a wedding gift or leaving present and personalised pottery suits almost any occasion.
Educational opportunities: Some of our clients run low-cost school trips to teach children the basics of pottery, glazing and kiln firing. In addition, groups like the WI often invite pottery painting businesses to present or demonstrate basic ceramic decorating skills.
Therapeutic qualities: Crafts can benefit lives by encouraging and improving creativity, perseverance, concentration, gratification, social interaction, expression, manual dexterity, and motor skills.
Wide target audience: There’s something for everyone! Families, schools, playgroups, nurseries, charities, colleges, care homes, special needs groups, community groups, Brownies, Cubs, Scouts, Guides, Women’s Institutes, Churches, birthday parties, hen parties, after school cubs, membership associations, tourists – lots of people can enjoy this activity.
Repeat/returning custom: Customers need to return (on a pre-agreed date) to collect the finished item once fired.
Other Crafts:

In conjunction with pottery painting, there are a number of other creative activities that can be introduced as the business evolves. For example activities such as: craft painting projects (glass, porcelain, wood, candle, soap, stone, terracotta etc), enamelling, silver clay keepsakes and decoupage.

Our products will promote craft activities on three levels for a venue:

1. Customers looking for something to fill time or to start a new hobby.
2. Customers that enjoy the process of making something.
3. Customers that love/appreciate hand-made things and just want to buy them.

This is a marvellous opportunity for communities. According to an article in Good Housekeeping, nearly 32 billion was spent on crafts in 2009, which is a 7-percent increase over the previous year. In addition, TV programmes such as “Kirstie’s Homemade Home”, which has returned to our prime-time screens for a second series, underlines that crafting is no longer a past-time for the minority but is fast becoming a mainstream trend.

This concept is hard to grasp if you have no pottery painting experience. Therefore, we would urge you to look at examples of the pieces made by existing businesses by visiting our Facebook pages at Country Love Crafts and The Guild of Ceramic Studios.

Please call if you would like more information - 01235 861700.