THE CRAFTY MONKEY STORY

Crafty Monkey was founded in 2010 by Chrissy Bennett, was Brown back then before she met her Prince Charming.

At the time she was working as a buyer for a gift experience company and spent a lot of her working time trying out experiences from Ferrari driving, hot air ballooning, to spa visits and photoshoots and everything in between!  Yes, it was a tough job but somebody had to do it! 

She was always on the hunt for new activities and experiences and after having a fabulous time doing a paint your own pottery experience at her friends hen do she was hooked and thought what a great experience it was for all ages and abilities.  She set about getting it on board as an activity and got chatting (those that know her will know she likes to chat) to her first ceramics cafe owner about what a great buisiness it must be to own and what a great experience pottery painting was, the owner replied 'You should start one up yourself' and that was it, the lightbulb moment and as they say the rest is history! 

Let's just say it was a busy six months between those five words being uttered and the doors to Crafty Monkey in St. Neots being flung open just in time for the school summer holidays of 2010.

Since opening, Crafty Monkey has been truely blessed with some great customers and the support of the community has been heart warming. Crafty Monkey has gone from strength to strength.  It wasn't long after opening that some loyal Crafty Monkey's (team members) swung into the studio, two of which seemed to like it as they are still here and doing the graft while Chrissy does more the behind the scene stuff from home. 

While Crafty Monkey is a business, we've felt more part of the community of St. Neots, building relationships with schools, play groups, nurseries, and we've got involved in community projects such as a tile mural in the library and a mug painting contest with our lovely friends at Black Cat Radio (that's our radio station of choice and all we will play in our studio). Also, a lot of our regular customers have become friends and it's been great seeing babies we've taken handprints from growing into different stages of their life, or even young children who used to come and paint have had their work experience placements with us or even Saturday jobs!