My husband surprised me with this lovely bouquet for our 42nd wedding anniversary! He went in…read morerather impromptu and saw a bouquet he liked that was already sold. They made this one right up for him on the spot and he said it looked even better than the one he had tried to buy! Love the English roses, zinnias, hydrangeas in the lovely color palette!

Bramble & Stem is the cutest local flower shop found in the Waldo neighborhood of Kansas City. If…read moreyou are looking for floral arrangements for celebrations or parties, Bramble & Stem should be the first place you check out! I went to this shop for the first time during the Annual Waldo Sip & Stroll and I now know exactly where to go when I need some flowers for an event or to simply spruce up my home. Did you know this spot offers hands-on floral workshops designed to help inspire and educate? This is a great idea for a family outing or celebration. Make sure to check out Bramble & Stem asap!

If you are looking for a spot to get friends or family a gift in the Kansas City area, then you…read moreneed to check out Ampersand in the Waldo neighborhood! Ampersand has home goods and decorations, pillows and rugs, hats, keychains, stickers, art, coasters, candles, shirts and hoodies and more. They have some of the cutest Chiefs gear and wall art in the Kansas City area! Make sure to check out their monthly Ampersand Art Club! Add Ampersand to your Kansas City shopping bucket list asap!

From the owner: Together, Carrie & Morgan, create with paint, pen and ink, cut paper and anything else they can get…read moretheir hands on! Ampersand is known for combining graphic and handmade marks to create bold patterns in refreshing color palettes. Ampersand Design Studio's art can be found on textiles, stationery, home décor, fashion and children's products.

Went to a RAKU Firing event in October. What a cool experience! The street was closed off, 2 food…read moretrucks, an awesome live musician and multiple kilns set up. We chose our piece, labeled it, glazed it and hung out while they fired it. Looks like the guild offers classes and studio space for artists. You can even buy pieces from a little shop in the lobby! A very interesting hidden gem! Can't wait to take a class.

We joined KC Clay Guild as adults wanting to start a new hobby, and I couldn't imagine a more…read morewelcoming place than KCCG. Staff is kind, helpful, and always available to teach you something new. The other potters are probably some of the coolest people you'll meet in the city. We bought yearly memberships at $60, and the hourly rate for studio use is $4. They're our one-stop shop for everything ceramics!

The fabric selection at KC Maker Studio is fantastic! I appreciate their selection of up-to-date…read morefabrics and useful notions. They also have a terrific selection of patterns for bags, quilts, and some clothing. They've recently expanded their classroom space and it is huge! Great class selection as well. Overall, I highly recommend this shop and all of the highly knowledgeable staffers. Best fabric shop in the area.

I'm not going to be very happy here. I signed up for a class and could not make it due to an…read moreunexpected illness. Instead of trying to make it right I was told I was out of luck due to policy on a refund. With the economic downturn and my being on a limited budget I was disappointed to hear that I was not able to get my money back. Couldn't they have offered me an alternative to the situation like rescheduling my class or SOMETHING? This is really disappointing because I truly wanted to do this class. They were nice but without any empathy at all for those like me on a limited income. This is very very disappointing and I'm not happy about it. So if you are thinking about taking their certification class be wary

Impressive exhibits! Well worth the time to meander through. Wide variety of works on display.read more

I attended KCAI between 1965 and 1966 and was planning to major in Industrial Design. Having taken…read more4 year of art classes in high school in Shreveport Louisiana I had been lucky enough to have gotten a good foundation in art early with dedicated teachers. While in Louisiana I had some newspaper articles written about my art while there. When I first arrived at the Art Institute in 1965, I move into the then new dormitory with a excellent cafeteria and dinning area that impressed me. However, dorm life was a disappointment since I had to share the room with a roommate that had no intentions of finishing the semester and I had one these guys for my first two semesters. Both boys (they never grew up) were always having friends over (who also were quitting) so they were drinking and partying in the room at all hours of the night. I was forced to go downstairs and study in the dinning area to get my work done. I was disappointed in the Art Institute, first in my Foundation Training in that from what art work I saw that my instructors had done reminded me of my first year in high school art. However, I had never liked English or History in high School but I love attending both of these classes taught by Roy Culver (English) and John Burke (History) . My second year I started my major Industrial Design thinking about being a car designer or at least product designer. Again, I was disappointed in the teaching and had a strong feeling that my teacher who was also the Dean John Lotus really had no experience teaching Industrial Design. I also noticed that there were many manufacturing companies in Kansas City at the time that were probably using Industrial Designers but we were never exposed to these companies and those companies more than likely never knew there was a Industrial Design department at the Art Institute. The final straw and the reason I dropped out of the Art Institute was a story told to our Industrial Design class mid term of my second semester. I was already wondering what I was doing at the Art Institute when one morning Dean Lotus came into the classroom with a big smile on his face and told us that he had received a phone call from one of his best students that had graduated the year before and that the student had gotten a great job. After a long story about how great the student had been while a student at the Art Institute our Dean told us that this student had gotten a job in Minnesota with a big manufacture called Church they manufactured toilet seats. I said nothing and finished the class then walked to the Resistor Office and resigned. I was drafted into the Army 90 days later and later sent to Vietnam. I did get the job as an Technical Illustrator and stationed in Saigon where I not only helped put out a magazine there (GRUNT Magazine) that turned out to be quit popular and even today issues are for sale on the internet and even some colleges have it in their archives. I was assigned to a photo unit and we sometimes made ID photos for American construction contractors and after talking to them I decided to change employment directions. When I left Vietnam I when back to LSU in Louisiana and got a degree in Engineering and 4 months after graduation I got a job with a oil company working in New Guinea, I never stopped from that point working in Thailand, Sumatra, Vietnam, Bahrain, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Nigeria. Frist I will say that my early art education taught me to think outside the box that had been an asset in my professional life enabling to solve engineering problems that were though impossible before. I went on to being a Project Manager on my last $6billion project in Nigeria before retiring in Thailand where I am writing this review at 76.

This place is so much fun and unique and the owner and staff are so friendly. I enjoyed hanging…read morewith friends and being creative. We brought a bottle of wine and enjoyed our time there. Definitely check it out with the family this summer!

Our instructor Willow was wonderful. The poured fluid art was easy and accessible for even the…read moreleast artistic participants. Lots of fun!

We had my daughter's 6th birthday party here and it was great! Very cute, clean, and spacious with…read morelots of different activities to keep the kids interested. Amy was easy to work with and really great at working with the kids. She was great at transitioning them through arrival, the small worlds craft, cupcakes, and other activities. It seems she has thought through everything to make parties run as smoothly as possible. We almost didn't book our party here because it was a bit of a drive for our guests, but it was absolutely worth it. Highly recommend!

A process-based art education studio is not easy to find. Staff at Wee Create is well educated in…read moreart classes and education for young kids, including the fact the founder, Amy Major, has an MS in art education and taught art in public schools for many years. We are very pleased that our kids have access to this opportunity to facilitate their over all growth and development.

The Nelson-Atkins is synonymous with Kansas City and an absolute must-visit for visitors and locals…read morealike. Where to even start? This encyclopedic museum was built in the 1930s in a traditional beaux arts style. The original 1930s building is just as stunning today as it was 90 years ago. The original courtyard has been modified and transformed into a restaurant, but aside from that it remains largely untouched. In the 2000s the museum expanded with the Bloch building - an architectural marvel all it's own. Drive by at night to see each lens lit up. Currently they are working on another expansion, that will bring the museum into the modern era. I've spent so much time here it's ridiculous. From exploring as a child with my grandmother, to my time as a student, to exploring now as an adult there is really something here for just about anyone. Being an encyclopedic museum it features art from across the world and spanning the timeline of humanity. You can use the Nelson as a launching pad for discussing nearly any moment in time through the lens of art, which is really an impressive feat for a midsize city like KC. Some of my favorite pieces include a relic with the "finger bone" of st. John the Baptist (it's likely a chicken bone), "Woman IV" by Willem de Kooning, "Boulevard des Capucines" by Claude Monet, and "Persephone" by Thomas Hart Benton. This is the place I take all of my guests, and the place I come to when I need to reset or recharge myself. It's always beautiful, always therapeutic, and always FREE. I'm not sure folks really understand the incredible gift we have as a community to have access to this incredible place. My top KC treasure, and I hope every person gets a chance to visit someday.

My wife and I were visiting from New York for a conference in Kansas City, and several people told…read moreus that the The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art was a must-visit. We decided to check it out on a Friday afternoon. We had a wonderful time exploring the various exhibits and galleries. We also stopped at the café for a pastry and coffee, and everyone we interacted with was friendly and welcoming. Because we enjoyed it so much, my wife suggested we return on Saturday to spend more time exploring some of the other exhibitions. While we were there, I was taking a few photos of my wife on the second floor above the café with my iPhone when a staff member approached us in a very rude and abrupt manner. She told us that we were not allowed to take pictures inside the museum--only selfies. She then stood nearby watching us, which made the situation very uncomfortable. Because of this interaction, we decided to leave the museum right away, which was disappointing and left us with an unpleasant feeling about the visit. When we returned to our hotel, I looked up the museum's photography policy online. It states: "The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art allows personal, non-flash photography inside the galleries, but strictly prohibits professional portrait, wedding, or engagement photo shoots inside the building." The photos I was taking were simply personal pictures of my wife and were non-commercial. It seems that this staff member was not properly informed about the museum's photography policy. As a result the low rating of our visit.

First picture was our own painting from 2/17, 2nd picture is what the instructor did as she was…read morewalking us through. 3rd photo is a reference of what we did with them 2yrs ago. Our first experience with them 2 years ago was great, it was done at a good pace, party size was small and intimate. You had time to ask questions the artist could and would stop and give you some Individual attention if needed. Now the experience we had last night was not good. We had a full class there was 6 couples in total. Our canvases were not ready when we arrived, we stood in the lobby and didn't have direction on what we needed to do or goad there wasn't anyone to greet us. So we decided to walk in and stood there until someone gave us a spot to sit in. She apologized for running behind as we had to wait for her to outline 12 canvases, she said the class size blew up at the last minute and they didn't have the time needed to be prepared ahead of time since they had to make an emergency supply run. Not a big deal! 45min later we start the actual instruction she said it would be speed painting techniques. The instruction went so fast that no one in the class could keep up, at one point someone spoke up and said we aren't ready as we were all several steps behind. What should have been 2hrs of painting and instruction turned in to a 1hr and 15min painting class. We all felt rushed and overwhelmed with the pace she was leading us at. My wife asked for support/help at the end once several couples left. She stopped by for a second but really didn't offer much support she left her board with my wife for reference but went back to cleaning up from the class. Overall it was not the same experience we had the first time, as we didn't feel we were given the same level of care or time to walk away with something we would be happy to hang up in our home. Overall we didn't have a good experience lastnight and as a small business I feel that there roadblock of not being ready for our class affected us and the quality of our experience as they rushed our class to finish on time as the previous class ran late so ultimately we suffered from that. And I don't feel they took the proper steps to make the moment right. We are unsure if we will reserve a class with them again.

My family and I visited for the first time and had such a great experience with Tamara! She was…read morekind, friendly and patient! We'll be back!