Local Resident Anne Carlin Set To Open The Crafter's Table In St. James

By Dana Klosner

It’s just about time to think about those holiday presents and a unique and hand-crafted gift with a personal touch might just be the answer.

Opening mid-November, The Crafter’s Table, located at 529 Lake Avenue in St. James, is a ceramic and glass fusion studio, where there will be hundreds of pieces of ceramics that have been cleaned and fired and all ready for customers to paint. The owner/manager Anne Carlin, will then glaze and fire it for you to make your own unique piece of pottery. She also offers glass where you can make your own jewelry, plates, cheeseboards or checkerboards among other pieces which she will then fire.

Carlin has been working in ceramics for years. She was the activities director in a nursing home where she did ceramics. She recently attended a seminar in Scottsdale, Arizona where she learned some easy techniques that had a nice outcome, she said. 

In her store you can make anything from a simple plate, coffee mugs and platters, Carlin said. Prices will range for $10-$65 depending how detailed you want to get.

For Carlin it was the right time in her life to open a studio. 

“My youngest is a junior in high school so it’s time to start focusing on my future,” said Carlin who also has a 22 year old son. “I needed something else to do besides be a PTA mom. I have always loved crafts. They are creative and relaxing. I went to a paint your own pottery place and I said, ‘This is for me, I can do this.’”

The name was the result of brainstorming between Carlin and her husband over dinner. 

“I didn’t want it to be just ceramics,” she said. “My husband, Bob, came up with the idea The Crafter’s Table.”

The shop will offer many programs including classes, an after school program, Ladies Night, Drop and Shop where you can drop your kids off and go shopping and Date Night, where again you drop the kids, they will be fed dinner, do a craft and a game, and you pick them up two hours later. Of course there will be open nights as well where you pick a piece of ceramic and paint it. 

Making glass is also something you can enjoy in her store.

“Glass is so new and so cool,” Carlin said. “Glass is like a puzzle. You cut it, fit it together, put it in the kiln and melt it together. It has to be a certain thickness. If it’s too thick or too thin it doesn’t melt right.”

“The beauty of creating pottery and glass is that you are not limited,” she said. “There are so many options. If you choose a mug you can simply paint it pink or you can put a detailed design on it. There’s no limit.”

Running her own store is truly a new endeavor for Carlin.

“I’ve never even run a cash register,” she joked. “Hopefully I will keep hearing ‘caching.’”

Carlin says St. James is the perfect place for her shop.

“It’s a small little hometown,” she said. “Everyone knows everyone, and everyone supports everyone. It’s a very nice quaint town. The Chamber [of Commerce] has been very supportive of my opening my business. Members of the Chamber popped into the studio and welcomed me.”

It takes a lot to run a business, Carlin said. “It takes creativity, determination, passion and persistence.”

Customers to The Crafter’s Table will get a nice relaxing experience, she said. “They will come out of it with a unique piece of art that they created.”

The Crafter’s Table is located at 529 Lake Avenue in St. James. It is set to open the second week in November.