Artful Designs — Attraction in Bloomington

Every time I've been here it's been FREEZING! Dress for sub-zero temps and bring hand warmers to use while waiting for coats of paint to dry. I think we asked to turn the heat up 3 times and were once told "you'll be sweating here in a few minutes!" by one of the apparent employees, she was a young heavy set woman who seemed to basically just come in to eat fast food paint some pottery and tell a couple employees about some reviews the gossip and chat before disappearing. She couldn't have been more wrong though!

I continued to shiver, have goose bumps and purple & numb hands from the cold. When I got home and took my shoes off at the door my toes were red and ice cold still! The warmest it ever got was 70 on the thermostat right buy the kiln door, after they opened the kiln room door for a while, which I had requested much earlier when they said the kiln was on. Previously the thermostat was reading 66, AFTER they told us they turned it up at least twice.

The tiny little Asian girl that works there has been kind of rude and unhelpful in the past, and this time was no exception. She also checked a woman out telling her it was 2 for 1 studio fee that day, but when we checked out hours later the employees had changed and the deal was actually the following day so they wouldn't honour it.

The employees are hard to find when you have questions, they always seem to be hanging out in the back room, probably because it's warm there, or talking to one another in a corner with their backs turned. This has been the case the last few years. They also spelled my mum's name wrong after she spelled it multiple times, she doesn't have a complicated first name and doesn't have a strange accent either.

They used to have the fine tip bottles and stencils out for you to get on your own, but now they're behind the front counter so you have to wait for someone to show their face, or try to get their attention, before you can look for, or ask for what you want/need. I do like the silkscreen options though!

I don't know if they changed suppliers, but now pottery is stamped with "MADE IN CHINA" on the bottom and it doesn't come off! Kind of takes away from the handmade one of a kind feel, or ability to write dates or messages on the bottom. Speaking of which, good luck finding a relatively sharp pencil to write on the bottom apparently "yeah, no one likes to sharpen them because they're not like regular lead." Umm, excuse me? I'm sorry but that's a pretty lame excuse! I sharpened them all while I was there, YOU'RE WELCOME!

Their selection of pieces has also changed, the last couple times it seems I haven't been able to find what I've wanted and they get rid of something so fast, never to be seen again. It's buy it then or not at all. You can always bring it back and paying it later.

I give them HUGE PROPS on the 2 Jewish items they had though! Although this town has a small Jewish population it's nice to see something for those of us non-Christians. Now if they would have stopped playing the Christian pop music in the background...

This place was so much better several years ago, when I was still living in town, and the owner was around more. Not so impressed in later years, but I think it's the only place...

My husband and I went in there recently with some friends. We have never been pottery painting before and I must say it was a somewhat nice experience once we got to painting... When we arrived we were greeted by a woman who asked if we were there to pick up or paint, my husband stated that we weren’t sure how it all worked and she got a tad bit snarky saying that we were there to paint and that is what she asked us. We then had a guy at the counter start explaining the whole process to us and he was very helpful.

Whenever we had questions or overheard that someone else had a question the two woman who were working seemed extremely rude and short. They did not seem as though they wanted to help anyone and acted as if we were supposed to know these things already. The majority of the paint brushes were extremely tattered and over used. I would seriously recommend they invest in some new brushes and I would recommend bringing your own if you want an easier painting experience.

Throughout our time there we overheard the employees explaining things to people which we were not made aware of. No one told us to clean our pottery before painting it but we heard them telling so many other people to do so. There were a lot of things that were never explained to us and were not made to feel as if questions were welcome. When we were finished painting and went to get rung up the prices just seemed a little high for everything. The woman who we believed to be the owner was rather rude when she checked us out and seemed as if she didn’t want to be there.

Overall our experience painting was good and it was fun thing to do with friends. Our pieces turned out the way we wanted after picking them up, we were just disappointed by the service we were provided by...

Weird customer service interaction with Pat. Inquired about a refund for an event that was still72 hours away, and was told it could only be a store credit. When I questioned why since the website said “ Refunds for cancellations are only applicable when notice is given at least 48 hours prior to the scheduled start of the event. In certain cases, store credit may be applied to cancellations.“ Pat then told me they “weren’t there to argue with me” and attached fine print from the ticket that said “ Refunds are offered in the form of store credit for cancellations that occur 48 hours in advance."

Again, got the refund- but the response was very condescending.

Edit: Condescending seems to be their thing. Apparently they accept payment through CashApp in the website, but can’t issue refunds through that system. So my only option was to pick up cash in person. Luckily, I have a sister in town who could pick it up, but she said they were rude and kept talking over her/not letting her say anything either. So it seems the customer service at this place just sucks so far, and I have no plans of returning or telling anyone to...