Terra Mia Ceramic Studios

We were here for a birthday party and had a blast.
This quaint studio was such gem. The studio was very well lit and offered many different options of ceramics on their wall. From what I saw and can remember there was a good selection of animals figures, teapots, dishes and cups/​mugs. We did not spend much time in the main studio since we were here for my daughters friends birthday party.
We were directed to the back room when we arrived and it was a pleasant surprise to see the small studio set-​up that they had in the back. We walked through a short hallway and walked into a small sized garden outdoors. They have a good size studio in the back where I suppose they host their children’s birthday parties. It was such a cozy quiet set-​up that we really enjoyed. There were two picnic tables in the yard in addition to a table that was used to set-​up the birthday celebrants cake, plates, cups and drink options.
What I also wanted to mention was that I was very impressed to find out that the paint that they use is very easy to clean up. There was a paint spill at this birthday party and for once we didn’t panic when the paint was accidentally spilled all over one of the girls dress. The paint that they used turned to powder eventually and we just dusted it off. Big thumbs up to that!
We will be returning for a family fun day!

We came in around 5pm on a Saturday. There were a few other groups in here but we were able to play our own music (thanks super friendly staff member) as they cleared out. Grabbed three of the myriad options of ceramic items and the woman quickly explained how to paint and some techniques. The boys got right to it.
I asked a few questions about patterns and colors along with paint strokes and the woman was patient in explaining.
Had a blast and will definitely come back (BYOB!) with friends.

I have been coming to this place since it opened. Love it! I took on of my team for an afternoon of fun and we had a fantastic time. Christine is awesome, very helpful and welcoming. I like to come alone, leave all my thoughts outside the door and enjoy the creative time. Definitely lots of fun !!!

Did a company team event here. Was fun and easy. Pick an item to paint, choose the colors, paint and come back after they bake it. Staff was friendly and helpful.
Definitely recommend the speckled paints, they come out nice!

If you’re looking for something fun and creative to do then this is the spot. Lots of options and the staff is awesome.

I came with a few girlfriends during a bachelorette weekend in SF. We went in late Friday afternoon, and the staff was kind enough to make special arrangements so that our things were fired, glazed, and ready to go before we left the city on Sunday!
There are a lot of choices to make in items to paint and colors to use, and they have lots of «inspiration books» to peruse. Make sure you plan enough time to hem and haw and consider all your options!
We had a lot of fun and are going home with some awesome souvenirs from our trip!

Terra Mia is the best. They’ve been in the same location for 20 years, and they are as good today as they were 15 years ago (that’s as far back as I go — I missed the first five years of Terra Mia). Compared to other ceramics studios, Terra Mia stands out from the crowd. Terra Mia is welcoming to all ages, affordable, and generally a delightful place to paint/​work.

Pretty awesome experience. As other have mentioned, there are many things to paint, and you will def spend a lot of time deciding.
I came with a group of folks and we had a private room to do our painting. Lots of different paint colors were available and the staff was friendly and helpful. Can’t wait to get the finished piece of pottery I painted. Will update once that happens.
This would def make a great date spot as well.

Terra Mia is this neat little getaway in Noe that allows you to spend a few hours and create whatever you want in a very chill, artistic and creative atmosphere. The staff here are very helpful, and make you feel as if you were doing an art project at home. Even if you are not artfully inclined, they have tons of tools, stencils, brushes and ideas for you to pick from to create something really cool. Unlimited colors to choose from and plenty of functional and decorative ceramics fill the shelves. Stop in a few days later and pick up your fancy new art project to bring warmth, style and some memories to your home.

I recently hosted my 29^th birthday party here with 12 friends and had a blast! For a $ 50 (refundable) deposit, I was able to reserve the «garden room» which is a private room at the back of the studio with a garden and party picnic area where we were able to BYOB and easily lay out a spread of food.
They were great at setting us up with the essentials and checking on on us, while also letting us enjoy our time together by not being intrusive. We played music, gossiped, drank, ate, and painted in the span of 4 hours. We were lucky enough to not have a party after us so we had the room for as long as we wanted and weren’t rushed out, which I greatly appreciated.
I will be back to paint more pottery, soon!

EDIT 8÷29÷14: The owner, Christine, was really nice and contacted me to refund the full amount of the studio time. Thank you so much! I really appreciate all the effort you went through to do that. I will reconsider coming back for more pottery painting sessions in the future as I do enjoy using their studio very much. :)
****The 4-​star review:
I’ve been to this place 3 – 4 times now and I’ve always enjoyed my time here. It has a nice bright atmosphere with a lot of pottery variety to choose from (compared to other places like Color Me Mine). Also, if you ask them for help, they give some very good advice on paint and brush techniques to get the texture you want. Whenever my friends and I want to paint some pottery I always persuade them to come here instead of the other places because of the good pottery selection and multitude of colors (not to mention speckled paint).
The only down side is that it’s somewhat pricey:
$ 14 – 16 for a mug + $ 10 whole day studio time + $ 1 glazing + tax = almost $ 30 for one piece of pottery
But that’s okay. It’s fun and it’s a very special gift if you are making it for someone special.
**The 2-​star review:
At the end of March, I went in to pick up 2 pieces I painted a few days before. One of them had a chip with a different color on it. They apologized to me and explained that during the glazing process, probably someone else’s piece was touching mine at that spot and thus, the damage was done. I thought, oh well, that’s okay, it happens. But to compensate for it, they were very nice to offer me one free studio time (and I can stay for as long as I want), which I thought was very generous and I was very happy about.
I came in yesterday morning to use my free session. Before I started, I asked if I still had this free session available. They looked it up in their book and assured me that the free offers don’t expire and that I could use it today. 2 – 3 hours later, I happily finished painting 2 pieces and brought them to the counter. I was surprised to find out they are charging me for the second piece. Then I realized it made sense: since only one piece was damaged, so I get only one piece free. Reasonable and on my part, I probably should have asked about that first.
What was NOT OKAY was they charged me the FULL price of studio time because «I painted another piece»! That does not make sense! If I came in without this free offer and painted 2 pieces, I would have been charged for the 2 pieces, $ 10 studio time, and $ 1 glazing. In other words, the regular studio time is still $ 10 for 2 pieces because I only used one studio time! Now since I am suppose to receive one free unlimited studio time for one free piece of pottery (mind you, they never clarified beforehand that this is limited to one piece) and I come in painting 2 pieces, it would be logical to charge for only 1 piece, at most half the price of studio time ($ 5), and $ 1 glaze. THAT would have been reasonable.
Now I have to pay the FULL price for the promised «FREE unlimited studio time» just because I painted another piece within the same amount of time used to paint one piece? It wasn’t like we were loud and being a nuisance or hogging a table or anything, there was hardly anybody there that day. I even washed all the brushes, sponges, mugs, and tiles my friend and I used instead of leaving them in the sink like many other people did.
Sure, $ 5 – 10 does not sound like that much money. The money is one thing, but what I really cannot tolerate are people who are not faithful to keep their word. I am really disappointed and they have just lost my future business with them. I’ll settle for less variety elsewhere if I can get a more reasonable service and fair treatment.

My boyfriend took me here on a Saturday since we expected it to rain in San Francisco (nope, forecast lied). Nonetheless, I had an awesome time.
We walked in and was greeted by the lady who works there. She gave us some time to pick what we would like to work on from a relatively good array of different ceramic pieces on the right wall. There were teapots, tumblers, salad dishes, sushi dishes, skulls, animal figures, etc. A fair warning to all you indecisive people out there: it took me around 10 – 15 to actually decide on something.
I tried to look for a small sized plant pot for my succulents, but I was unable to find any. I think the pieces change from time to time, perhaps depending on what they have in stock at the moment. My bf and I decided to paint salad dishes together (flat enough for us to draw on).
Now onto round two of indecisiveness.
SO MANYYY COLORS! This took me another 10 – 15 minutes gathering the paints, brushes, and water cups. There were colored tiles next to the respective colors, demonstrating what it would look like after the glaze. All materials were provided, just let your imagination and creativity run wild!
When we were done, she placed our pieces on a rack and gave us a receipt for our pick up date (a Wednesday). We did not end up picking it up until the following Saturday. In the end, our pieces came out nicely — glossy and colorful!
Just a wonderful little place for children and adult alike :)

Awesome date spot.
And you get a beautiful keepsake!
So, the good part is that you get to choose from a huge wall of pottery — really nice pieces, and get to paint your heart out. Tons of colors. There are a variety of big and medium mugs, vases, bowls, random creature sculptures, you name it. It’s really fun to see what people paint, and to do it yourself!
Only downside is that it can get a little noisy, and/​or parent-​y. I’d say come around dinnertime, like say, 5 – 7? I’d say that’s your best bet for a nice painting time, and the optimal ambiance.

Really nice staff, great selection, decent and relatively low prices. Really cute space.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself and would return.

Well now. This is a nice friendly place to make all of your plates and bowls for your house. Even if you’re not good at art, you’re allowed to paint stuff (your own stuff, not other peoples stuff. They probably wouldn’t appreciate it like you would)
I did a portal 2 bowl and the nice girl working knew what it was. I’d give her 100 tacos but I have small hands. I went with a friend of mine and she did pickles with a strawberry on it. Not as cool as my bowl but like i said, even if you’re not good at art, you’ll enjoy it.
Shirt and shoes are required (don’t ask)

My friend and I came here for my birthday when we first moved to San Francisco. I just bookmarked this place to come back.
There aren’t enough places like this in San Francisco. With all the choices of pottery, and all the supplies you can’t help but feel creative.

This place was so much fun! What could be better than spending $ 10 for all day fun (+ actual objects you paint). Only downside is that there are a LOT of children here. If you hate kids or you are barren and seeing a child brings tears to your eyes, then you should avoid this place. Otherwise, come and enjoy. I have always loved some good pottery painting, so I am glad to have found an option close to home.
Best different & rewarding type of entertainment around.

My man took me here for a date last week. So fun!
There were lots of kids running around for abirthday party when we arrived but they left shortly after we arrived.
The people working there were really friendly and nice and it was fun to paint and feel like a kid.
I would go back again.
I can’t wait to see how our vases turned out!

This place is so cute and relaxing. Now I understand how many people spend hours and hours on end here… you can’t put a time limit on creativity!!!
The owner was extremely helpful, and she could tell that we were complete newbies at this thing. She was great at offering beginner tips while we explored the area and our creativity. They have so many things to choose from to paint… they get new stuff that comes in periodically too! When we came to pick up our pieces, we saw some new items that we hadn’t seen a couple weeks before.
Giant cookie jars, cupcake design trays, espresso cups/​saucers, mugs, beer tankards, pet accessories, giant cupcakes, figurines, various plates/​dishes, photo frames, office accessories, and SO MUCH MORE!!!
Now on Wednesdays through October, bring in canned food to waive your studio time! :)
This place is really not just for kids and women — I can honestly say that everyone will be able to enjoy it. It’s extremely relaxing and it feels great to pick up what you painted! After you glaze your items, they are dishwasher safe but not microwave safe. Wow, dishwasher safe is more than good enough for me! You can also add cute little items to stick onto your creations (check the photo I uploaded with the little heart inside the mug). :)
Not recommended if you’re on a tight schedule! My friend and I came in here thinking that we’d only need 1.5−2 hours max (he painted a cookie jar and I painted a tankard and a mini photo frame), and we ended up staying at least 3 hours until closing. We really wished that we had arrived earlier, but we’ll know for next time!
They also have this thing where they can put photo images of real faces onto dishes/​plates. It’s quite pricey to do it, but it looks AWESOME! They have a lot of examples of finished pieces and binders and binders of images/​photos if you need some extra inspiration.

Fun date activity to let out your creativity: D
So my boyfriend bought the groupon for us both for Terra Mia. So it saved us money because originally it would be pretty pricey. We spent a total of about 3hours here. Haha whenever the lady said «See you in a couple of hours» My boyfriend was like «What? A couple of hours? I think we’ll be done in 1 hour.» But no. haha we were there for 3 hours. We both chosed 2 coffee mugs & 2 heart-​shaped plates. Then we picked the comfy corner with the cushiony seat & pillows to set out to draw/​paint our items. It was fun & relaxing. Can’t wait to see the finished product tomorrow! :D
Would definitely do something like this again :)