Pottery Painting at Inspired Pots – review

31st May 2026 0 By Rachael Stray

We recently enjoyed a pottery painting session at Inspired Pots in Hexham so thought I’d share an honest review.

During our recent staycation in Hexham, we decided to embrace the rainy weather rather than let it spoil our plans.

After checking the rather gloomy forecast the night before, we booked a family pottery painting session at Inspired Pots — and it turned out to be one of the loveliest mornings of our trip.

We thought pottery painting would be the perfect family-friendly mindful activity to keep us entertained while staying warm and dry.

Elsie had done pottery painting before with my parents, but it was a completely new experience for Steve and I, which somehow made it even more exciting.

The hardest part at the beginning was definitely choosing what to paint.

There were so many lovely pieces available and we spent quite a while browsing the shelves.

Steve was helping Elsie with hers, so between us we only needed to choose two pieces.

I’d originally hoped to find a pretty jewellery dish, but there wasn’t anything quite like that available on the day.

Instead, I chose a small trinket box which was absolutely lovely and actually turned out to be the perfect choice.

Meanwhile, Elsie had her sights firmly set on a fairy garden house and there was absolutely no changing her mind.

Once we’d chosen our pottery, we were free to pick any table in the studio.

The owner was incredibly welcoming and explained the whole process to us, including where to find things like stencils, pencils and extra tools.

It all felt very relaxed and friendly straight away.

There was an impressive range of paint colours to choose from and, with aprons on, we got started.

The first step was cleaning the pottery with water and a sponge before painting, which somehow made it all feel very official.

I decided to freehand pastel stripes around the lid and base of my trinket box, before adding a little heart stencil for extra detail.

I loved how calming it was to sit and slowly build up the design.

Elsie took a completely different approach and chose lots of colours for her fairy house.

She used several different shades of brown to bring out the wood grain around the door, which actually looked incredibly effective.

One thing that surprised us all was how long pottery painting takes.

We each painted three coats onto our pottery and the time disappeared so quickly.

The session was supposed to last around two hours, but the owner was wonderfully relaxed and told us to take as much time as we needed — which ended up being just over two hours in total.

It really was such a mindful and enjoyable experience.

There’s something incredibly therapeutic about sitting quietly and concentrating on painting, especially while listening to the gentle background chatter of other families doing exactly the same thing.

Towards the end, Elsie did start to get a little restless, but she was very happily distracted by a lovely baby girl.

We genuinely all enjoyed pottery painting far more than we expected and it’s definitely something we’d do again, especially on a rainy holiday day when you want something slower paced and creative.

We paid a deposit when booking the session (£5 per person although they didn’t charge for Steve despite us offering), which was then deducted from the final cost.

Our two pottery pieces came to £50, which felt quite reasonable for such a lovely family experience — especially considering how much time we spent there.

The studio also offered drinks and snacks if you fancied staying even longer, although we decided to head out for lunch afterwards instead.

You can either pay postage to have your pottery posted to you once glazed and fired or you can collect in person

So a week later we popped back to Inspired Pots and collected our creations we then enjoyed a few hours at Wallington National Trust before heading home.

If you’re visiting Hexham and looking for a cosy indoor activity for children and adults alike, pottery painting at Inspired Pots is such a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.

Calm, creative and genuinely enjoyable for all ages — exactly the kind of staycation memory we love making together.