Rowe Pottery candle crocks are a customer favorite, our hand crafted crocks are hand poured in small batches with 100% soy wax, they burn for 70+ hours with light clean scents, a perfect cozy addition to your home. We get asked for suggestions of how to use the crock when the candle has burned through…. Here are a few of our ideas, but we’d love to hear how you use these cute crocks in your home.
Pen/Pencil Holder- Perfectly sized to hold your favorite pens, pencils or art supplies. A fun way to add a seasonal pop of color to your desk.
Catch-All/Change Jar- Place your crock in the kitchen, your mudroom or on your bedroom side table to throw your keys, and loose change.
Planter- it’s easy to add your own drainage to your small crock by adding a layer of pebbles and sand to the bottom, then add your soil and top off with your favorite easy care plant, succulents are perfectly sized for this crock as well.
Mug- We’ve had many customers say they love to use the crock as a handle-less mug, warm up your favorite beverage or sized nicely for soup.
Bathroom Holder- Use for toothbrushes and toothpaste, try storing Q-tips or cotton balls, or give to your teenage daughter for bobby pins and hair ties.
Mug Cake- Mix together your favorite mug cake ingredients and bake in the microwave or whisk your morning eggs and cook. All Rowe Pottery is microwave, oven and dishwasher safe.
Winter weather calls for a cozy home…. Our Christmas decorations are coming down and the sparkle in the home has faded away but we are still spending a lot of time inside our homes in the days ahead. Here are a few tips to bring a cozy winter feeling to your home…
Keep some of your winter greens out and add them to a pretty stoneware bowl, a pretty accent for a mantle or coffee table. Sneak in some sprigs of real pine to keep the fresh scent in your home.
Add candles for a warm glow in the evenings…. the sun still sets early (or we don’t see it at all), candles add soft lighting for relaxing evenings.
Crocks continue to be staples in the winter months, fill with pine branches, berries or simply firewood for extra warmth.
Of course your cozy space needs chunky blankets and pillows in soft neutrals, making any space inviting and soothing.
A book and a favorite mug are sure to keep you wanting for more chilly nights to relax and unwind. Might I recommend a favorite read…. One of my favorite girlfriends just published her first suspense novel, A Corpse Pose; Author Lesa Knollenberg, check it out for a fun winter ready.
The Thanksgiving table is more than just a place to serve your turkey, it’s the heart of the holiday celebration, it’s where family and friends gather to share gratitude and make cherished memories. My favorite Holiday has become Thanksgiving as I grow older, I love that the core of the Holiday is thankfulness, not the pressure of gift giving. We hope these ideas make your celebration come together a bit easier and you can share in the gratitude of the day. Blessing to you and your family.
Choose your Color Palette- Selecting a color palette sets the tone for your table. Traditional autumn colors of deep orange, warm reds and browns are popular choices, however mixing whites and teals, blues and golds can be a bolder more modern look.
2. Choose your table linens- Once you have chosen your color palette, you want to decide tablecloth or runner? or no linens at all? A tablecloth will be the most formal, a runner gives a touch of simplicity, but a beautiful wood table can stand alone for your celebration as well.
3. Elegant Glassware- Adding wine and water glasses to each place setting gives a formal feeling to your table setting. It is an added layer for depth.
4. Creative Centerpieces- This is my favorite part…. your centerpiece should be the focal point without obstructing conversation across the table. Consider beautiful floral arrangements in low vases or tiered candle displays, or runners made of greens, gourds and pumpkins.
Autumn is in full swing in our cozy village of Cambridge, Wisconsin. Harvest has begun, kids are back into the school routine, Friday nights are spent under the lights cheering on our Cambridge Blue Jay Football team, and the scenery is beginning to change. While we’ll miss the warm weather of summer, fall lets us continue our favorite family traditions and gives us the chance to create new memories doing all the great things that fall has to offer.
One of my favorite fall traditions as a kid was going to an adventure farm and doing all the fun things there like feeding the animals, playing in the corn pit, going in the corn maize and my favorite thing; picking our own pumpkin to carve. There are so many great farms around Cambridge to go on the weekend with friends or to take the kids to. Some of our favorites are:
-Busy Barn Adventure Farm, Fort Atkinson
-Schuster’s Family Farm, Deerfield
-Warm Belly Farm & Garden Center, Cottage Grove
-Jelli’s Market, Hellenville
A trip to the corn maze at Jelli’s Market
It’s always so interesting to learn about other peoples’ fall traditions. Some enjoy the spooky side of fall and choose to go to a haunted forest or haunted house. Others like to host football parties with a potluck to cheer on their team and swap recipes. The more adventurous types like to go camping or hiking around the state. My Grandma and Mom’s tradition is every September they go to Sunrise Orchards in Gays Mills and bring home a whole trunk load of honey crisp apples and share them with the whole family.
If you’re wanting to start new traditions with your family, you could consider decorating your home and porch for autumn together. Get creative! You can make a day of picking pumpkins of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. You can carve them or just paint the pumpkins if you have little kids helping. If you want pumpkins in your home without the risk of rotting, Rowe Pottery pumpkin sets are a great way to bring in fall colors. Grab some corn stalks to tie up to your porch railings. Add in some colorful mums and place them in a Rowe 2-gallon crock. Or build a friendly scarecrow using straw and old clothes. And finally layer your decorations with straw bales or crates.
One of the better fall traditions that we can all agree upon is the food. The weather is finally cool enough to start using the oven more which means baking season is on! Hot apple crisp, pumpkin pie, cranberry upside-down coffee cake, and so much more. Rowe Pottery has pie plates in every collection and they’re a fan favorite for a reason. They make baking so easier. Their use goes beyond just pies, they’re ideal for making quiches, dips, and pasta dishes. Passing on and teaching family recipes is the perfect way to spend a cool fall day especially with the holidays just around the corner.
We love to hear how our collectors use our pottery and the traditions that are connected to them. Every piece, whether it’s for just for decoration or functional, has a story behind its creation and it continues to grow and hold more memories as you continue your traditions and make new ones. For more fall inspiration, follow us on Facebook and Instagram or explore our entire collection at www.rowepottery.com
Every art form has a history and a unique story for how it began, barn quilts are no exception. Barn quilts have been around almost 300 years and began in the U.S.. They are believed to have originated in Pennsylvania and created by European immigrants from Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria. Quilts were painted on a piece of wood or directly onto the building itself and were an inexpensive way for people to decorate their barns and buildings. As their popularity grew so did the variety of designs and colors of the quilts. A barn quilt could have many meanings. At their start most signified a certain family or land and made it easier to give visitors directions, just look for the specific quilt design, serving like a road marker.
When advertising on barns began to grow in popularity around the 20th century, barn quilts faded into the background, but not for long. Today, there are roughly 16,000 barn quilts in the US and well over 300 organized and published “Barn Quilt Trails” that fans of the art form can follow throughout the countryside.
Today, barn quilts are not just limited to just farms and barns. Anyone can create a barn quilt and they can be found hanging on public buildings, inside and outside homes, on fences, etc! It is a fast growing art form created to be enjoyed by all.
When we read about the fascinating history behind barn quilts, we related to it so much because of its sense of tradition and individuality. It reminded us of Rowe Pottery. Bringing the two art forms together just made sense! Rowe Pottery has been handcrafting unique pottery for nearly 50 years and adding the Barn Quilt pattern to our collection this fall was the perfect way to celebrate that tradition.
We are excited to share this new addition with you, along with highlighting another local artist as well. Anna Evenson, a Cambridge native, works in our retail store and is the owner of ACE Farms & Barn Quilts. Anna has created a collection of small interior barn quilts to compliment our barn quilt Collection. Quilts are available in store only but if you’re looking for a custom barn quilt, Anna is happy to design and create an original piece for you. Come check out our barn quilt collection either in our retail store in Cambridge, WI or by visiting our website at rowepottery.com.
Transitioning the store for the holidays is a special time for our owner, Bev. She painstakingly designs each display item by item with customers in mind with each handcrafted pottery choice, coordinating linen accessory, floral accent and sparkling ornament.
Company’s coming—not just at home, but also as we enjoy our Thanksgiving, Small Business weekend and local Cambridge Christmas with shoppers and visitors from all over the country. It takes long hours but is a labor of love. Bev’s mom even pitches in to expertly assemble all the Christmas trees for the store displays. It’s a tradition and we love that here at Rowe Pottery.
Of course, as the lights go up and the glow of the season takes form inside our Company Store, it’s a time to reflect with gratitude for our loyal collectors, customers and the artisans who make our pottery possible. We’re grateful for the shoppers who choose to intentionally purchase handcrafted local products because the people that live next door create them. We celebrate the gift givers who work with us to create that one-of-a-kind custom or personalized piece for family members, newlyweds or to commemorate family milestones.
You are part of our gratitude story.
Watch your email and our Facebook and Instagram pages for extra specials this Thanksgiving weekend and for inspiration with our holiday patterns.
As a small, local business, we’re in this together. With our deepest gratitude, have a bountiful Thanksgiving. From our hands, to your home.
August in Wisconsin brings the promise of the coming harvest with lush fields, rows of tall corn, farm markets popping up on the corner and the beginning of sweet corn festivals. Highway 12 is the east-west road that brings many people to quaint Cambridge, WI. It slows, winding into our Main Street, toward our home here at Rowe Pottery on the east edge of downtown.
Our roadsides are lush with colorful native flowers this time of year with a natural mix of orange Daylilies with purple Dame’s Rocket giving us cues that the growing season is in full maturity and that it’s time to shop for school supplies. These freespirited roadside floral displays are the inspiration behind our very popular Wildflower pattern.
Each wildflower piece is especially unique since no two Wildflower designs are the same, just like nature intended. Our decorator, Lore, has a special affinity for the Wildflower pattern and affectionately calls it “weeds.” We think its mesmerizing to watch her work as each bloom takes shape at a natural pace in her hands.
Our wildflower pattern dances across mugs, utensil jars, pie plates, candles, spoon rests and our versatile berry bowl. We find Rowe Pottery fans from coast to coast enjoy this pattern all year long as part of their functional stoneware collection. It is the perfect accent pattern with our Farmhouse Ridges Denim or Drift White. We hope you stop this season to enjoy all the wonders of nature and the bounty all around.
For more inspiration, follow us on Facebook and Instagram or explore our entire collection at www.rowepottery.com.
There’s lots of buzz in our finished goods area this week as we prepare for our annual Maxwell Street blowout sale. We’re getting ready to roll out our production carts loaded with treasures for our collectors to enjoy at our best prices of the year. Owner Bev personally spends hours evaluating each item and design line to determine what will be included on the loaded carts. It’s an all-hands-on-deck type of effort.
Prepping Maxwell Street Carts
While Chicago’s Maxwell Street originated in the late 1800’s as a Sunday-only flea market, Cambridge’s Maxwell Street Days is a collaboration with other Main Street businesses in our small town. Visitors enjoy food, specials and sidewalk sales during the two-day event with the most activities of Friday, August 5. It’s lots of community fun!
You’ll find loads (literally) of intriguing items at our sale. Since we produce hand thrown, handcrafted pottery each day, there’s natural variation in the throwing, decorating and kiln processes. Of course, we have standard variation as a part of our line, which makes each piece one-of-a-kind. Throwing variations and kiln character are a delightful part of the artistic process that makes each of our pieces unique. Sometimes items vary a little beyond what we consider first quality, so we offer them at our Maxwell Street event as “seconds.” We find some of our collectors enjoy this “imperfectly perfect” variation as much as we do, and like to hunt for their preferences. In fact, we love hearing from those of you who make an annual trip or multi-state voyage to join the adventure.
Our creative development process also often leaves us with potter or decorator prototypes, which you’ll also find on our Maxwell Street shelves. While these are first quality pieces, they did not end up in our production lineup, so they are truly one-of-a-kind and you won’t find these in our store any other time of the year. This year, we’re offering some stylishly retro prototypes of our Vintage Camper Van, among other things, so come and pick your favorite while they last! Also in the first quality lineup are some of our discontinued patterns which is a great chance to grab the final run of your Rowe Pottery favorites.
We can’t wait to fling the garage doors open and be part of your pottery adventure. Plan to join us on August 5 and 6 at our Company Store, 110 East Main St. in Cambridge beginning at 9am. Maxwell Street specials are available in-person only (no online or call in orders, please). If you have questions about the event, feel free to give our Customer Service line a call at 608-423-3363. For more seasonal inspiration ahead, follow us on Instagram and Facebook or explore our entire seasonal line at http://www.rowepottery.com.
We love hearing from collectors who value the heritage of our handcrafted pottery, and we know many of you appreciate historical forms and approaches to pottery. For 2022, we’ve got fresh eyes on yellowware as an optimistic accent for the kitchen or home.
Yellowware originated in Germany, Scotland and England in the late 18th century and came to America in the 1800s and early 1900s with those artisans. The yellow hue, ranging from creamy to deep mustard was the product of riverside clay from New York to Ohio. A century ago, yellowware was considered a common kitchen staple for bowls and serving pieces which is why less than 5 percent of yellowware pieces are marked for identification.
In our 2022 Rowe Pottery Yellowware Kitchen collection, we’ve bent the rules a bit, while maintaining a traditional finish. You’ll appreciate the soft lemony finish of our creamy yellowware with its distinctive cobalt striping and decorative accents. You’ll see some kiln character that varies on each piece giving it a subtle lemon poppyseed coloration. We’ve created unique bakeware pieces for this collection including a pie plate and short cake crock, along with a spunky 1.5 pint candle in cinnamon vanilla for home décor. Of course, each piece is uniquely stamped with the Rowe Pottery logo, potter’s mark and decorator’s mark. Our crock also bears the year mark.
Crocks were traditional home staples for storage of meats, pickles and dry goods. Using crocks for baking is a relatively modern take on a traditional form and adding in the yellowware component makes this crock exquisite. We find that stoneware is ideal for baking because of even heat distribution and easy cleanup due to interior glazing and you can let your family recipes guide the way. The size of this crock is perfect for artisan bread, cornbread and dump cakes. Simply cover with a beeswax or fabric cover for baking, serving and storage in one. If you ask Ric Lamore, one of our master potters about the cake crock (you’ll find his potter’s stamp on each piece), he’ll confirm that the cake crock an obvious choice for kitchenware since they are ideas in the oven for breads, stews and baking of all kinds.
If you’re ready for some easy workhorse pieces for your kitchen, or as a special gift, we know you’ll love this fresh line with a nod to the past. For more inspiration, follow us on Facebook and Instagram or explore our entire collection at http://www.rowepottery.com
Few things make us smile more than a dinner table or home hearth set with beautiful Rowe Pottery, or our popular bakeware in our kitchens. But, when it comes to sweet summertime and outdoor entertaining, we’re taking our Rowe Pottery with us outside to make patio, picnic or deck entertaining a breeze. Time to fling the doors open and let the parties begin!
Sturdy glazed stoneware prevents picnic flyaways and is durable for outside use. Choose our utensil jars, or our new camper van to offer silverware at buffet time. Weight paper napkins with a spoon rest or our new Ridges Vanity Dish to secure the stack. Grab any of our two-piece chip and dip sets to be sure your dish stays is anchored on the family reunion table. Take your chilled pie in our Rowe Pottery pie plates to retain the cold or bake your favorite family recipe for the perfect flaky crust. For easy picnic cleanup, have a Rowe Pottery spoon rest at every crockpot for your Fourth of July gathering or family celebration, then just toss them in the dishwasher for easy cleanup. We recommend grounding your holiday table with our Ridges Denim and Drift White for a patriotic touch. Our summertime patterns to add whimsy to your celebration.
Our crocks make beautiful planters and front porch decorations. We’ve had some windy storms blow through Wisconsin lately and we know our pottery can hold its own on your front porch or patio, even if you are lakeside or seaside. Plus, since our cobalt decoration is sealed in 2000 degrees under our glaze, fading and peeling is never an issue. Combine various patterns and finishes in groups of three for artistic displays.
Place a crock next to your fire pit or grill to keep hot tools or s’more sticks handy. What could be simpler than grabbing the hose for cleanup? Rowe Pottery offers the ideal blend of weight, color and function for your outside cooking and entertaining. And here’s a hot tip: Place your Rowe Pottery charcuterie board, chip platter or bakeware in the oven at 225 degrees and add your grilled food to hold it until serving time. It’s beauty, function and simple cleanup in
We wish you a summertime filled with great celebrations! For more inspiration follow us on Facebook and Instagram, or explore our entire collection at http://www.rowepottery.com.
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