Color Me Mine North Center opened on April 4 and is the first city location for the California-based company, which has six other locations in the Chicago suburbs.
The shop, located at 3849 N Lincoln Ave., offers customers at least one hundred pottery pieces to paint. These ceramics include practical items like vases and dining ware as well as fun and whimsical figurines. After choosing a piece, or several, customers are invited to customize their pottery with paints of all colors. When they are done, the Color Me Mine team will glaze and fire the items in an electric kiln, and customers can return to the shop a week later to pick up their finished pieces.
Owner Niinuu Gupttaa got the idea of owning a craft business after she attended a paint-and-sip class at Bottles and Bottega and realized how peaceful it was to do an activity without any interruptions for two hours. “I saw that [art therapy] magic happen to me,” she said. “It’s good to see everybody leaving happy and the art therapy it gives you.”
She opened her own franchise of Bottles and Bottega in Park Ridge in 2017. When Painting with a Twist acquired Color Me Mine in 2020, Gupttaa decided to make Color Me Mine her next project. Since there were no Chicago locations, she decided to open one in the city.
Gupttaa hopes her customers experience the kind of peace she found at her first Bottles and Bottega class. “This is what we are all about– making people happy, having them forget about life’s problems,” she said. “It’s a blessing that we have that, and [that] we can do that.”
The shop has been warmly received by the local business community.
“We’re very happy to be together,” said Maili Powell, the owner of Soutache, a craft store that’s been in the area for seven years. “That’s the key to good retail, and any group that brings more traffic to the area is terrific.”
Robert Rud, the owner of Hawthorne, an antique furniture store that’s been in North Center for eight years, said “the more, the merrier.”
Gupttaa plans to offer the community programs and events, including BOGO days, ladies’ nights and pajama nights, as well as student discount days. The intent is to welcome painters of all ages and levels of experience.
“There is no beginning and no end to the age [of] who can have fun,” Gupttaa said.
