Coffee & Creativity in Grantown on Spey

Sometimes we need to have a day that is all about fun and self care - our solution, to go and do something creative. We headed to Grantown on Spey and of course before we could do anything else we had to have a coffee and cake break at the lovely Elephants in the Pantry. It's such a nice shop with lots of lovely food related things to buy, and coffee served in beautiful cups.

The reason we chose Grantown is that they have a ceramic painting studio called Smarty Art where we could spend some time getting lost in painting.

The staff are so helpful and on the wall are these great ceramic paint splatters to help you see what the colours you choose will look like once they are glazed and fired in the kiln.

As you can see from above, there was a huge selection of colours and each table had a carousel of paints on it like this one with different sized brushes.

Here's my beloved getting very engrossed in his painting and then showing off his pretty plate - if you're wondering why he's so red in the face it's because he's got a thermal top on and the studio was lovely and warm.

I can't wait to see what our creations look like once they're glazed and fired - we pick them up next weekend. Here's what they looked like once we'd finished painting them.

One of the ladies that run the studio said that she was really impressed that we'd come in as most adults think it's just for children, and we were the only table without children at it. I'm hoping they get Christmas themed things in to paint soon as I'd love to do some personal decorations.

We spent nearly two hours doing our creative bit so when we finished it was time to go for another coffee, this time in a cafe we hadn't tried before and it was really lovely. Great decor and perfect ambience to enjoy our drinks and some icecream.

The two of us - love this man so much (sorry, I couldn't help myself).

So there you have our creative day out. Have you ever tried ceramic painting? If not, give it a go some time as it's really therapeutic.

Until next time, be good, stay safe, and do something creative this week.

Pamela & Ken
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P.S: This is how Cookie Cat often sits in the evening - on her bed with her back to the room, staring at the wall. I suggested to Ken that maybe we should get a picture to put on the wall of some fish so that she has something interesting to look at.