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Family Owned and Operated Since 2004

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All Fired UpAll Fired Up
  • Open Studio
    • Pottery Painting
    • Mosaics
    • Fused Glass
    • Canvas & Acrylic Painting
  • Classes & Camps
    • Summer Camps 2023
  • Take Home Kits
    • Pottery Kits
    • Pottery Bundles
    • Mosaic Kits
  • Kids Parties
    • Birthday Parties
    • Birthday Studio Rental
  • Adult Events & Parties
    • In-Store Group Reservation
    • Studio Rental
    • Mobile Studio – we come to you!
  • Gallery
  • About
    • FAQs
    • Gift Certificates
    • Gift Ideas
    • News
    • Employment Application
    • Contact

News

In the News

COVID-19 Small Business Support – All Fired Up

From Washington Post

Small businesses in high-rent cities face disaster. If they go under, urban life will change.

Liz Winchell, the owner of All Fired Up, prepares orders for customers at her store on Connecticut Avenue NW in Cleveland Park.Liz Winchell, the owner of All Fired Up, prepares orders for customers at her store on Connecticut Avenue NW in Cleveland Park. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

Liz Winchell doesn’t own the Cleveland Park building where she runs a 17-year-old pottery studio called All Fired Up. Her landlord said she wouldn’t have to pay her entire rent for May and June. But a full payment is expected later, she said she was told.

Winchell, who runs a second studio in Bethesda, prizes her Cleveland Park location. All Fired Up is right on the Metro’s Red Line, surrounded by apartment and condo buildings full of young professionals, and right across the street from a new Orangetheory fitness studio. The neighborhood is also a magnet for well-off families willing to shell out $26 to paint a cereal bowl or $25 for a wavy side dish. Before the pandemic, the place was crammed with weekend birthday parties. On Thursday nights, friends painted and caught up over their own cheese and wine.

But since the city’s shutdown of nonessential businesses, Winchell’s revenue has tanked. She laid off two full-time and 10 part-time employees and has resorted to delivering pottery-and-paint kits to people’s homes.

She’s only netting a fraction of her normal revenue — 10 percent, she estimates. She recently received two Paycheck Protection Program loans through the Small Business Administration for the D.C. and Bethesda studios. But the terms require that 75 percent of the funds go toward paying staff, she said, and that she keep workers on her payroll for eight weeks if she wants the loans forgiven.

Most of her employees are fearful about working in the studio’s somewhat tight space, she said. And she really needs the money for rent, which costs about $5,000 a month in Cleveland Park.

“Rent. That’s what I go to bed at night thinking about and what I wake up thinking about,” she said. Her landlord, she said, has been polite, and she respects his position. “But the undertone is, ‘You’re you, I’m me, and I’ll cut this down a little bit, but money is owed.’ ”

Winter SCORES at Johnson Middle School: Pottery making

From Bethesda Magazine

Hometown: A Teacher After All

For Liz Winchell, owning a pottery studio is about more than creating ceramics

When she was in college, Liz Winchell wanted to be a special education teacher. But she has dyslexia, a learning disability that impairs her capacity to read and write, and her professors at New England College in New Hampshire were brutally candid.

“It didn’t work out,” she says. “I did my student teaching and my kids in the fourth grade had a better reading level than I did. So I failed my student teaching. They said, ‘You’re not going to be a teacher.’ ”

They were wrong.

Today, at 42, Winchell runs All Fired Up, a studio on Elm Street in the center of Bethesda where folks can walk through the door, paint a piece of pottery, and go home later with a work of art. The disability that plagued her in college now gives her a keen insight into how to reach customers on their own terms.

Read more

From Washingtonian

7 Romantic Things to Do With Your Sweetheart in Washington

You can go to dinner and a movie any night. Why not woo with something more off the beaten path?

By Erin Williams

You can spend any day of the year having dinner and a movie, but it’s the creative ideas that can make this Valentine’s Day one to remember. We rounded up some of our favorite spots to visit to commemorate this February 14.

Build Something Lasting Together

Read More

Tea (or wine) for two: Tap into your creative side at All Fired Up in Bethesda, and design a couple’s mug set, heart-shaped plates, and more at the store. (The Cleveland Park location will be closed on Valentine’s Day.) Make an early date night of it and bring your own food to enjoy as you sketch out your ideal design. Once your work is complete, it will be dipped in glaze, fired, and ready for pickup in about a week’s time. Weeknights are best to drop in, but staffer Matthew Heller says, “If you really want to assure a spot, you can call ahead.” This place can also work for a family-friendly V-Day activity, as well. E-mail allfiredupquestions@yahoo.com for more information.
3413 Connecticut Ave., NW; 202-363-9590; 4923 Elm St., Bethesda; 301-654-3206; allfiredupdc.com.

*****PLEASE NOTE******Cleveland Park is open on Tuesdays, which means we will be open on Valentine’s Day.  The article was printed incorrectly.

From The Montgomery County Sentinel

Get All Fired Up This Weekend

By Jacqueline Ruttimann
Special to the Sentinel

Standing over a kiln, Liz Winchell, owner of the Bethesda and Cleveland Park pottery studios All Fired Up, carefully loads her customer’s creations so as not to allow them to touch or fall on each other.

“It’s kind of like a puzzle,” Winchell said when describing the process. She uses, similar words about why she started her business, becoming first a manager at the Cleveland Park studio after only several months of working there in 2001 and then the owner of the two pottery studios last year. “It just agreed with me. It’s just the right amount of interaction with people and the creative process. It’s a good balance.”

Read More

At All Fired Up, pottery isn’t the only thing that is set ablaze. So are the imaginations of people both young and old. At this studio, people choose from a wide assortment of items–ranging from animals, magnets, light fixtures and furniture knobs to the more traditional cups and platters-to either paint or create a mosaic on.

“You’ll find pieces for everyone,” said Winchell. “We have more boys that come in here now.”

For just the price of the piece, which starts at around $16 to $21, depending on the size and shape, customers are allowed free range to a galore of materials, from paints and tiles, to stencils and sponges, for the more artistically timid. Water-filled mugs and bowls are set at each table both for practical purposes and for encouraging design techniques.

“Some people end up painting the exact bowl or mug on their table but that’s OK because they were inspired,” said Winchell. Friendly staff, such as Winchell and Amy Shaller of the Bethesda store, is also available to encourage and aid in the artistic process.

“People are surprised that they end up having a good time,” said Shaller. “You get past a certain age and you lose touch of your creative side.”

In order to further bolster the customer’s creativity, there is even a wall of fame set up at the front window of the store, where outstanding customer pieces selected by the staff are displayed along with the photo the customer-artist.

“Customers who come in can often be heard saying ‘I wonder if I’ll make it to the Wall of Fame.’ It’s amazing to hear people in their 30s, 40s and 50s say this since it’s some thing you hear children say,” said Winchell. “It brings out their inner spirit.”

Special programs and deals are offered for the people of all ages. An assortment of birthday party packages is offered for children typically on the weekends, however there have been parties designed for adults celebrating their 40th birthday or wedding showers as well. Adults can also retreat from their office and work on a piece while on their lunch break, when selected items are discounted at 15 percent. Thursday nights is Ladies Night, in which females who bring a friend can also get a price reduction. Happy Hours are even encouraged on Friday nights from 6 to 9 pm, where people can bring in their own beverage and food and listen to what Winchell describes as “chill” music, everything from the Clash to Miles Davis.

“It’s really relaxing. It’s chill,” said Lydia Chammas of Friendship Heights, M.D. who came in with her two friends, Alex Weinberg of Vienna, Va., and Mary O’Donoghue of Bethesda, to hang out before each of them go off in their separate directions to college.

Her friend, Mary O’Donoghue, agrees, adding that it is novel experience.

“We thought it’d be fun to do,” said O’Donoghue. “Everyone is getting sick of doing the same thing when they go out: movie-restaurant, movie-restaurant.”

All Fired Up has two locations, one in Bethesda at 4923 Elm Street and the other in Washington, D.C. at 3413 Connecticut Ave, NW (across from the Cleveland Park Metro). To make reservations and for more information, call either 301-654-3206 or 202-363-9590 or visit the Web site at www.allfiredupdc.com.

Employment Opportunities

At All Fired Up, we’re always looking for great people to come and work with us. If you are a people person, personally motivated and love creativity and kids, then apply here. We hope to see you soon at All Fired Up!

In The Community

We support our local schools and can help you in a variety of ways!

AUCTIONS

We will donate a $25 gift certificate. We give a 15% discount off pottery going towards a class project for school auctions. We love to help you with ideas and planning for your class projects.  Tiled mirror projects are very popular among school auctions.  They are easy to put together and look fabulous.

ADVERTISING

We advertise in school directories, newspapers and yearbooks. If you would like to discuss how we can help, please call Liz at the Bethesda Studio.

Some of the Schools we have Supported in the Past

  • Bethesda Elementary School
  • Chevy Chase Elementary School
  • North Chevy Chase Elementary School
  • Walt Whitman High School
  • Bethesda Community School
  • Jewish Primary Day
  • The Primary Day School
  • Washington Episcopal School
  • Chevy Chase Children’s Center
  • Ivymount School
  • Sidwell Friends
  • Oneness Preschool
  • Washington International School
  • St. James Children’s School
  • St. Patrick’s School
  • Holy Redeemer School
  • Keen Fest School
  • NCRC
  • National Cathedral School
  • Friends of Wells/Robertson House, Inc.
  • Norwood School
  • Bethesda – Chevy Chase High School

 

Off-Site and/or Large Community-Based Projects

  • National Institutes of Health: specialized art programs for youth
  • Latin American Youth Center
  • Bar Mitzvahs/Bat Mitzvahs: 200 attendees enjoyed this special day of painting
  • All Fired Up
  • 3413 Connecticut Ave. Washington, DC 20008
  • 202-363-9590
  • cpallfiredupdc.com

Hours

  • Monday: Closed (Except if posted otherwise)
  • Tuesday – Saturday: 12:00pm-8:00pm
  • Sunday: 12:00pm-6:00pm

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