2026 Pottery Contest at The Clay Hole 🌼

Make an Epic Planter — And Win Big!

It’s time to craft a planter with your own personal spin on it! For our 2026 Spring & Summer Pottery Contest, we’re inviting all members to get creative to hand-build or throw whatever ceramic planter they like. Make it unique, make it awesome, make it shine — the only rule is to make it your own.

For the first time ever, we'll have a separate prize for beginners!

Have you been doing pottery for less than three months? We still want you to go for it in this contest because joining contests is a great way to build community and build your skillset! Plus you make something awesome in the process. 

 

This is the first Clay Hole contest where we'll have a separate category and prize just for members who have been doing pottery less than three months! For everything below it will apply separately to both an "everyone" category and a "beginners" category. 

FREE CONTEST FIRINGS:

Everyone who participates will get one contest piece fired 100% free just for participating! Max length on any side is 16".

🏆 What You Could Win:

  • One free month of pottery at The Clay Hole (if we reach at least 15 entries total)
  • Get featured on our social media, with nearly 3 million followers tuned in
  • Eternal glory (or at least studio bragging rights)

🤨 How It Works:

  • Make a Ceramic Planter - any ceramic planter 
  • Form, decorate, and finish it however you’d like — Add embellishments, get fancy with glaze, apply sgraffito, carve it, make it artistic, throw it on the wheel, hand-build it, combine methods, use molds, it's all good.
  • Plant your plants or flowers in it before submitting it to the contest.
  • Deadline to enter your finished piece is July 31st, 2026
  • We need at least 15 entries total to award the grand prize — so encourage your friends at The Clay Hole to join in the holiday fun!

PLANTER IDEAS

The possibilities for this contest are endless, but here are a few ideas I had AI help me build to get your creative juices flowing... These are simple ideas. Get as complex as you like!

⚠️ Important Notes:

  • Only finished, fired pieces with the plants planted inside the pottery will be eligible
  • Must be submitted to studio staff by July 31st, 2026
  • You may enter one planter into the contest
  • No entry fee. No firing fee for pieces 16" or less on their longest side. Just pure pottery fun.
  • Beginners may win both categories (beginner and regular). All other rules apply to beginners as if they are in separate contest (such as minimum number of participants, max-size, etc.)

🌵 Ready to Craft Some PLANTER Magic?

Get creative. Get detailed. Get whimsical. Whether you're hand-building, throwing, molding, sculpting, or combining multiple styles of pottery, this is going to be a really fun project for everyone who takes a leap of faith and gets involved with it. Let your imagination run wild — and who knows? You might just win a free month of pottery and a whole lot of Clay Hole glory.