The advertised price of a pottery or jewelry class is rarely the price. Clay
might be included and firing might not. A metalsmithing class fee might cover
an annual membership but not the $70 of silver you hand the instructor in
cash on the first evening. A $650 wedding band workshop doesn't include the
gold. So every entry below separates the fee from what it actually buys.
Two things to know before you start looking
These classes sell out, and registration dates matter more than
prices. The Boulder Potters' Guild opens registration about 30 days
before each session and says plainly that classes fill quickly. Mudslingers
says it often has a long waitlist. Silver Peak's stacking rings class was
sold out when we checked. Groundworks opens each catalog at a fixed
announced time. Diary the opening date rather than browsing when you
happen to feel like it.
Bench access isn't a beginner option. Every jewelry studio
here requires you to complete a class before you can rent bench time, and
Boulder Metalsmithing Association additionally requires membership and an
onboarding meeting. Pottery is more forgiving: several studios include open
lab with the class.
Three Boulder locations: Main at 3750 Canfield Street, Hill at 1010 Aurora Avenue, East at 3063 E. Sterling Circle
Classes
Five week wheel sampler for beginners, eight week Level I wheel, eight week Level I hand-building, eight week Level III wheel, four week sculptural hand-building, plus adaptive and sensory-friendly clay classes.
Price
Eight week Level I wheel runs $255 to $290 depending on location. Level III is $275 to $310. Several sections, including the beginner sampler and the adaptive and sensory-friendly classes, are Pay What You Can.
What's included
Most of the eight week wheel and hand-building classes include open lab time. The four week sculptural class and the crossover clay and glass classes ($450) don't.
One-off option
Clay Date Night, $60 a person, Saturdays at the Hill studio, 18 and over. Clay, tools and the glazing and firing of your favorite piece are included, with extra glazed pieces at $5 each. Ready in about four weeks.
This is the old City of Boulder Pottery Lab, in a city-owned building that has run pottery since 1963, now operating as the Hill location under Groundworks. Studio Arts Boulder redirects here too, so all three names are one operator. Independent studio membership is $200 a month for 20 hours a week, a cubby and a shelf, 24 hour access and cone 6 electric firing with fees on top. Scholarships give 50% off, twice a year, and close a week before registration opens.
Beginning to intermediate and intermediate to advanced adult wheel throwing and hand building, three times a year: eight week sessions in January and June, a six week session in August. Instructors are Guild members and rotate.
Price
NOT PUBLISHED. We couldn't find a tuition figure anywhere on their site; it appears only inside the registration flow.
What's included
Open lab access is included with class registration.
One-off option
None offered.
Registration opens about 30 days before each session starts, and their own site says classes fill quickly, so the date matters more than the price here. Waitlists cap at four people per class. Refunds: full minus $25 if you cancel five or more days out, 50% minus $25 inside five days, nothing after the second class.
Longmont. No street address published on the pages we could reach.
Classes
Six week classes, two and a half hours each, running continuously. 18 and over.
Price
$285
What's included
The most generous inclusion list we found: open studio access, wheels, slab roller, glazes, communal tools, a 25 pound bag of clay, a dedicated shelf, and glazes and firings with no separate firing fee. Reduction fired to cone 10. An optional basic toolkit is $30. No outside clay or glaze allowed.
One-off option
Date nights are advertised, though we didn't reach a page with the price.
If you want one number that covers everything, this is the clearest on the page. Registration opens two to three weeks before each session and is announced by newsletter and Instagram.
Play with Clay hand-building drop-in on Wednesday evenings, plus one-on-one wheel throwing courses over three sessions.
Price
Play with Clay is $20. Note that a widely repeated figure of $15 is out of date; their own page says $20.
What's included
This studio runs on annual membership rather than per-class firing fees. Beginner or certified without glazes is $100 a year, with glazes $250 a year. Advanced and production artists pay $100 a month on a six month commitment, or $550 up front, and there are only five of those places.
One-off option
Play with Clay is a genuine weekly drop-in.
Firing is billed per firing regardless of how full the kiln is, in their own words whether you've one pot or a full load. Bisque fires Mondays and glaze fires Thursdays, roughly a two week turnaround. Certified membership needs a wheel certification, six months of experience, or one of their wheel classes.
414 E Simpson Street, Lafayette. Not Louisville, whatever the directories say.
Classes
Adult and children's classes, beginner friendly. Established 1997.
Price
NOT PUBLISHED. Booking runs through an embedded widget we couldn't read.
What's included
All tools and materials are provided; you don't need to bring anything.
One-off option
Not confirmed.
Their own FAQ says they often have a long waitlist and limited space, which is the most direct confirmation of oversubscription we found anywhere. Cancellations: full refund at 72 hours or more, 25% fee inside 72 hours, nothing within 24 hours, and no make-up classes for missed sessions.
Adult and youth wheel throwing and hand building, in a room with 14 student wheels, two large work tables and a demo wheel with an overhead camera.
Price
Not captured in our check.
What's included
Clay is provided on a use-what-you-need basis. Outside clay and glazes aren't allowed.
One-off option
Not confirmed.
One policy worth planning around: students must finish glazing by the last class of the session. Budget real time for that rather than assuming you can come back.
Boulder. Address not confirmed on their own site, which is JavaScript-rendered.
Classes
Level I Metalsmithing for Jewelry (four Wednesday evenings, max six students, no prerequisites), Lost Wax Carving and Casting (a two day weekend, max eight, 18 and over), plus flush setting, engraving, kinetic jewelry, welded chains and stone inlay.
Price
Class prices aren't visible outside the checkout. What's confirmed: the $45 annual membership is included in the class price, and materials kits are separate and paid to the instructor in class. Level I's kit is $70 (sterling wire, sheet and tube, solder, three cabochons, tools). Lost wax is $40, and you separately buy one to two troy ounces of casting grain yourself.
Bench access
$140 a month for 24/7 bench access, or $30 for a single day.
Read this before planning: open studio access isn't available to beginners. You must be a member, have completed at least one metal fabrication workshop here, and have done an onboarding meeting. Level I first, bench access later. Members bring their own consumables. Waitlists are handled by email.
100 E. Cleveland Street, Lafayette, on the corner of South Public Road
Classes
Metals 1, Intro to Metalsmithing, a full day class and the prerequisite for their advanced work. Plus prong setting, flush setting, master series workshops, private instruction and permanent jewelry.
Price
Metals 1 is $195. Intro to Stacking Rings is $75 for an evening, making three rings in sterling or 14K gold-fill. The Make Your Own Wedding Bands workshop is $650 flat for one or two people.
Bench access
Not confirmed. We didn't reach a page on bench rental outside class times.
The wedding band workshop is the clearest example on this page of why the sticker price isn't the price: the $650 is the workshop fee, and the metal is billed separately depending on whether you choose silver or 10K, 14K or 18K gold, and on ring size and width. They only estimate after a consultation, because precious metal prices move. When we checked, the stacking rings class was sold out with an explicit waitlist instruction, so these do go.
Introduction to Metalsmithing Level 1, then Levels 2 and 3, each six weeks at three hours a week. Also precious metal clay, keum-boo, fold forming and etching.
Price
Level 1 is $335 plus a $60 material fee. Levels 2 and 3 are each $410 plus an $85 material fee. Tools are supplied. At Level 2 and above, copper and brass are in the material fee but silver and stones are bought separately.
Bench access
Open drop-in hours are $13 an hour or $32 for three consecutive hours for current students, $15 or $38 for former students, and require having completed Level 1. When we checked, the page said no hours were available, so confirm before counting on it.
Classes cap at six or seven students, eight for workshops. There's no online registration: you print a form and mail it with payment, or pay by card over the phone, and your place isn't held until payment clears. Their site quotes two different prices for the same Stack Rings workshop, so call before booking that one.
Not open yet, and not to be confused with a real option
Boulder Pottery Studio (boulderpotterystudio.com) says
"opening 2026 in Boulder". There's no address, because by their own account
they're still securing a location. There's a waitlist, generic stock
photography, and a homepage claim of $140 a month for open studio and a
12 student cap. None of that's bookable today. Worth watching, not worth
planning around.
Two studios that show up in Boulder searches and should not
Boulder Mountain Clayworks is a real pottery studio at 471 E.
10th Street in Ketchum, Idaho. It surfaces in Boulder,
Colorado results purely because of its name. It's a thousand miles away.
Color Me Mine in Boulder is real and open, but it's
paint-your-own pottery, meaning you decorate pre-made bisque. If that's what
you want it's a good evening. It's not a wheel or hand-building class, so
it's not on the list above.
One more worth naming: Groundworks Art Lab also advertises "metal classes",
but those are blacksmithing, welding and forging, not bench jewelry. If you
want to solder a ring, the three studios in the jewelry section are your
options.
What we couldn't confirm
The Boulder Potters' Guild, Mudslingers and Tinker Art Studio publish no
class prices we could read. We couldn't confirm street addresses for
Wheelhouse Clay, Tinker or Boulder Metalsmithing Association, nor Firehouse's
per-firing fee. The Louisville Recreation and Senior Center blocked us
outright, and we couldn't confirm whether Lafayette's Bob L. Burger center
or Longmont Recreation run pottery or jewelry programs, so those three may
well be worth a call. Boulder County Arts Alliance has hosted metalsmithing
in the past, but the only listings on their site expired years ago, so we aren't presenting them as current.
Know somewhere we've missed?
This site only lists places we've checked against the operator's own
website, so it's deliberately incomplete rather than padded. If you
know something in Boulder worth adding, tell us and we'll check it.
Trails close, permit rules change, seasonal bans start and end, and the good
free things move around. We'll email you when something here changes enough
to matter, and when there's something genuinely worth your weekend.
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