We swapped a busy restaurant for a romantic evening at home, with a kit that gave us uninterrupted time together
For a unique date night at home, we swapped our go-to for a cosy painting kit and wished we’d done it sooner
A romantic candlelight dinner or a day filled with personalised gifts and chocolate, that’s many people’s idea of a Valentine’s Day well spent. As the date quickly approaches, my fiancé and I have found a unique way to mark the occasion as a newly engaged couple.
It didn’t involve booking a restaurant six months in advance or a huge bouquet of flowers and an obscene cost. We ditched a typical date night for something far more creative, an evening spent painting keepsakes to add to our home with a set from Pott’d.
Swapping an overcrowded restaurant and bar for mixing paint colours and laughing at each other’s attempts to create a homeware masterpiece. The £39 Paint-A-Mug set proved to be an ideal kit for a cosy night in.
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Now, our creations won’t catch the eye of Van Gogh or Picasso fans ( although he started out in ceramic art), but it did see us spend two hours of uninterrupted, sentimental time together – arguably the whole point of a date night.
Ideal for beginners, the Paint-A-Mug set was perfect for two novices like ourselves. The kit includes two generous-sized mugs, 12 paints, four paintbrushes, and a paint cloth – just in case, like me, anyone needs to start over. What I love about the set is that each mug is different with what Pott’d call ‘charming imperfections’, they are big enough for an indulgent cuppa – a generous 375ml capacity to be exact.
Date Night Paint-A-Mug Set
The kit we used for our cosy date night in is the on-sale £39 set. The pack offers a step-by-step guide to help crafters curate their desired designs – all from the comfort of their own home.
- Easy to use and glaze in the oven
- Mugs are stylish and generous size
- Everything for a sip and paint event at home
- It would be even better with stamps or stencils added in the pack
For those with a more artistic flair, the Red Rose Candle and Clay Kit, now on sale for £49, from £69, gives all the tools for couples to shape, pour, and paint their own candles. Or the Date Night Home Pottery Kit, with clay and paint to create Valentine-inspired figures like photo frames, hearts, or flowers.
This is similar to the make-from-scratch sets available at Sclupd, which offer a pottery kit with clay and acrylic paints for £45. Hobbycraft also do at-home painting kits, with lots of designs for children. Starting at £5, this Paint Your Own Heart Trinket set could be a fun option for couples too, looking to stick with the Valentine’s theme. The quality of these will be different, though, as they aren’t glazed in the oven; instead, a layer of varnish is added.
Our own Sip and Paint at home
The kit allowed us to create our own sip and paint-esque date night at home, personalising it with what we both enjoy. A playlist racked up, a bottle of our favourite wine, nibbles and the painting kit. A past-time quirky bars in London charge an extortionate price for, in my opinion.
The mugs are ‘chunky’ (in Alex’s words), so to make them of their statement design, we both went with bold, out there patterns. Alex did a neutral black and white, while I kept with the date-night theme.
I went with a Valentine’s Day-inspired pink stripe and red heart design. Admittedly, we did both cheat, slightly, using masking tape to mark out the stripes.
The colours mix easily, so I was able to get a more pastel pink than in the pot, but because it was light it was hard to get on evenly and even glazed there are patches…aesthetically homemade if you ask me. Something that is missing in the kit, however, is stencils.
Branded as ‘great for beginners’, I think there should be more to help those with a less steady hand – I certainly could have benefited from it. This would have helped with my stripe design, but also the hearts – either stencils or stamp choices would help add more detail.
Out of the box to ready-to-use in two hours
The whole process took about two hours, but that included the cooling time post-oven. I was slightly dubious about the at-home glazing process, but the Pott’d steps made it really easy. There are even step-by-step design ideas for those who’d prefer.
Once we’d finished painting, we had to wait half an hour before popping them in the oven at 150 degrees (but without letting it preheat). Keep it in for 30 minutes, and voila. Don’t forget to let them cool, as the ceramic is really hot to the touch. Then all it needs is a quick wash before the first use.
How well have the mugs lasted?
This was the part I was most intrigued about. How would it feel? There’s a lovely gloss finish to the mugs, despite us not using a varnish paint; the firing in the oven does give it a much better quality look than at-home painting I’ve done before. So far we’ve used the mugs each day for five days, and they’ve washed really well – using hot, soapy water, there’s not a scratch or strip of paint on either.
To me, the homemade texture adds to the character of our creations, and this is certainly something you can see when they’re stacked next to shop-bought mugs in the cupboard. Overall, the Pott’d kit was a success, even with my fiancé, who’s not one to usually stray to arts and crafts.
The £39 Paint-A-Mug set is really well thought out, and it gives everything needed to create a sentimental date night at home.
