A birthday where every guest takes home their own ceramic piece

Children's birthdays almost always go the same way: somewhere with bouncy castles, an hour of running around and a bag of sweets on the way out. It works, and ten minutes later nobody remembers what happened. What changes at a studio is that at the end of the day there's something that wasn't there at the start, and the child made it by hand.

The two and a half hours aren't about sitting still. There's kneading, slamming clay on the table and painting, and everyone gets messy. What there is, though, is something a typical party doesn't usually have: a long stretch of concentration. When a group of eight children gets to work on the clay, the noise drops all by itself.

And there's a practical side parents appreciate: the group is seated, in an enclosed space, with a teacher in front of them and all the materials set out. There's nothing to organise except the cake.

First comes the date. It's usually at the weekend, and weekday mornings are possible if the studio has a slot. Since the whole studio is given over to your group, that slot is no longer available for classes, so the date is held with a 30% deposit and the rest is paid on the day.

Then it's a matter of telling us how many you'll be. The minimum is 6 children and the maximum 10, which is how many fit comfortably. If there are more than ten of you, write to us anyway and we'll talk it over: sometimes it can be arranged another way.

On the day, you arrive with the snacks and the cake and you don't need anything else. Aprons, clay, tools, colours and workspaces are all set out. At the end we keep the pieces to fire and glaze them, and we'll let you know when they're ready to collect, about twenty days later.

The studio is in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, right next to Barcelona with the metro close by, so getting there with a group of children isn't an expedition. You'll find the address and map further down this page.

It's a real studio, with wheels, shelves full of pieces waiting for the kiln and two kilns at the back. For a child, walking in is already half the party: it isn't a classroom set up for the occasion, it's the place where clay is worked every day.