Kids' Birthday Parties at Gasper Arts Center, Near Fort Lauderdale

Your child and their friends spend the afternoon with clay or paint on their hands, and every one of them goes home with something they made. We’d love to help make your child’s day special. Gasper Arts Center is a working pottery studio and gallery at 250 S. Federal Highway in Dania Beach — two miles from Fort Lauderdale airport, and an easy drive from Hollywood, Hallandale Beach and Davie. We have been running children's parties here for years.

What the children actually make

Plan on two to two and a half hours in the studio. Depending on the age of the group we set the tables for hand building in clay, a mosaic project, or a painting party. Every child works on their own piece from the first lump of clay to the last, and an instructor stays in the room the whole way through rather than demonstrating once and leaving them to it.

One thing worth knowing before you plan the day: clay has to be fired. Pieces go into our kilns after the party and are ready to collect about 30 days later, so there is a second trip to the studio — many families make that its own small outing. Mosaics and paintings need no kiln, so those go home in the children's hands the same afternoon.

Picking a project that fits their age

Most children under 12 do not yet have the hand strength or the fine control a pottery wheel demands, and a birthday party is the wrong moment to find that out. For that age we steer parents toward hand building or painting instead. Both are genuinely absorbing at six, eight or ten, and no child finishes the party frustrated or empty-handed.

Teenagers are a different matter. Our adult classes take students from 13 up, and a group of teens — or teens with their parents — can work at the wheels.

If the birthday child specifically wants to throw on a wheel, the better answer is usually our Kids Wheel Class: a single $65 session for roughly ages 8 to 16, taught step by step, with no party to organize around it.

Group size, and who is looking after them

The studio and the gallery beside it seat up to 20 people, with chairs and tables, so there is room for the children, the parents who stay, and the cake. We put one qualified instructor on every ten guests. That hands-on teaching is a big reason Gasper Arts Center has won the Best of Florida Award three years running, in 2024, 2025 and 2026. With a room full of eight-year-olds that ratio is the whole difference between a party and a crowd — it means somebody is always within reach of the child whose bowl has just collapsed.

Small parties are just as welcome. Eight children works here as well as thirty.

Cake, pizza and decorations

Bring what you like — cake, drinks, balloons, a playlist, party bags. You can arrive early to decorate and stay for an hour after the art is finished, which is usually when the candles come out. Pronto Pizza is next door, and plenty of parents simply order pizza, wings and platters from them rather than carrying food across town.

Choosing your day

We are open to the public Tuesday to Saturday, so Sunday and Monday are the two days a children's party can have the studio to itself — no public class running alongside it, nobody else at the next table. With a group of children that is worth having, and those are also the easiest dates to get.

A Friday evening or a Saturday afternoon is possible, but those slots mean closing a class that is open to the public, so they take a deposit and as much notice as you can give; our birthday parties page sets out how the deposit works. Weekend dates go early, so reserve as far ahead as you can.

What a kids' party costs

Painting parties start at $45 a child and ceramics parties start at $69. What you pay depends on how many children come, which project you choose and which day you book. Call 954-656-3560 and we will quote your date and headcount, or send the event request form.

How to book

Call 954-656-3560, email StudioInfo@GasperArts.com, or fill in the event request form with the date, the ages of the children and roughly how many are coming. Gasper Arts Center is at 250 S. Federal Highway, Dania Beach, FL 33004. Planning a grown-up's birthday instead? See our birthday parties page.