Personalized

Personalized pieces are painted to order. You choose the form, tell us the name, date or handful of words that should go on it, and the piece is made from scratch afterwards — which is why these take longer than anything else in the shop and why they cannot be returned once painting has begun.

What can be personalised

Mugs, plates, ornaments and note pieces. The most common requests are a first name on a mug, a date on an ornament, and a short line — a few words rather than a paragraph — on a plate. Names, initials, dates, short quotes and simple phrases all work well.

If you are looking for a personalised handmade ceramic mug, a custom name pottery gift or a made-to-order ceramic ornament with a date on it, this is the collection.

How the process works

Add your wording in the personalisation field on the product page before adding the piece to your cart. Check the spelling carefully — what you type is what gets painted, and underglaze on raw clay cannot be corrected once it is down.

We may write to you to confirm layout or ask a question before painting starts, and production pauses while we wait for a reply. Personalised orders can be cancelled by email within four hours of being placed; after that, clay and kiln space have been committed.

Allow up to 45 days for production on made-to-order pieces, plus shipping time. Most are finished sooner, but firing schedules are not something that can be rushed — a kiln takes as long as it takes to cool.

What to expect from hand-painted lettering

Letters are painted freehand, not printed or engraved. They sit slightly differently on every piece, and a long name will be scaled to fit rather than shrunk to a size nobody can read. Shorter wording almost always looks better than longer.

Accented and non-Latin characters are usually fine — Turkish letters certainly are — but it is worth mentioning them when you order so we can check the lettering will sit well at the size required.

Where gold is used it is real 24K lustre, applied after the main firing and set in a third, cooler one.

Materials and firing

Stoneware, fired hotter and denser than earthenware, made for daily use rather than display. Each piece is bisque fired, glazed and fired again to 1200°C, where glaze and clay fuse into a single hard surface.

The glazes are food safe. Plain pieces are microwave safe; anything with gold lettering or detailing should stay out of the microwave, as metallic lustre reacts there on any ceramics.

Care

Warm water and a soft sponge. Avoid abrasive scourers and scouring powders — lettering sits under the glaze so it will not rub off, but a scratched glaze dulls the whole surface.

Let a cold piece warm up before pouring boiling water into it, and never move one between fridge and oven. Thermal shock is what breaks handmade ceramics; ordinary use is not.

Sizes

Capacity and dimensions are listed on each product page in millilitres and centimetres, converted to fluid ounces and inches for US visitors. As every piece is thrown by hand these are close approximations — personalised mugs generally hold 300 to 450 ml.

Ordering as a gift

Personalised pieces are the most-given items in the shop, and the ones most often left too late. Work backwards from the date you need it: production time plus international shipping, with a margin for customs. Parcels from Türkiye reach most destinations in one to two weeks once they leave the atelier.

Every order arrives gift-wrapped, and you can add a separate note at checkout that will not be painted onto the piece. If a piece is for a wedding, a birth or an anniversary and the date is fixed, tell us when you order and we will say honestly whether it can be done in time.

Where it is made

Every piece is shaped, painted and fired by hand in a small atelier in Kütahya, western Türkiye, a town with around six hundred years of ceramic history behind it. Orders are packed by hand and shipped worldwide.