All Fired Up is located on a scenic shopping street among lots of restaurants, craft shops and other haunts. Parking was plentiful and convenient but we did need change for the meters. We had negotiated a $10 per child price, which was to have included the child's choice of mug, tile, small plate or small vase to paint, two hours of painting time and a final glaze, which was applied by store personnel. Shop personnel were friendly and flexible about these terms.

The shop is clean and well-lit. There are maybe two dozen glazes from which to choose. All the colors are lead-free and dishwasher- and hot-drink-safe once fired. Also available are a small library of pottery design books for ideas, as well as paper stamps that one kid applied to a cup, painted over and then removed to leave intricate patterns.

The kids really got into it. One of our young artists, who decorated a bowl with tiny dogs and bones for her pooch, kept on repeating "I never expected this to be so much fun". Two kids were done in under 1.5 hours--another two who tackled very complicated designs had to be rushed to finish in 2.5 hours. There was no charge for the extra half hour, but we did cough up $20 more to give the faster kids another small project to work on while the perfectionists finished theirs.

By Thursday, we got the call to come pick up our masterpieces. Everyone seemed happily surprised at how well they had come out.