Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

Thanks to a 50% off $50 coupon on Groupon I became aware of this cute little place downtown called Color me Mine, where you go to paint pottery. First, you pick your white, unbaked clay piece from a shelf with a large selection. Then, you choose your glazes and colors, and begin painting. When you’re done, your piece is sent to the kiln to be dipped in a clear protective coat and fired. About a week later, you can pick it up!

The reviews on Yelp are overwhelming fantastic–yuppies love this place:

Places that give me options allow me to customize, and they allow me to personalize the product to my tailored desire. When you walk in here, you’re not buying an ‘Off-the-Rack’ ceramic piece; you’re ‘Making it your way.’ This is a great place to create a gift for someone special.

Now, I want you to disregard all the reviews talking about how this is a great place to catch up with your girlfriends. Because painting pottery is manly all the way. So next time you’re going out to a sports bar with your buddies, step up. Be a MAN. Say: “Guys. Screw the game. Let’s go paint ceramic teapots.”

When you first come in, there’s a few tables for painting, and a wall of pottery to choose from on the left. I decided to paint a box and a 1L water jug.

Here’s the jug and my paints, fresh and ready to start. I wrapped some parts of the jug with tape so will be highlights in white!

Halfway through painting the jug. Green handle and bottom. White strips along the sides. Red on top / bottom, blue in the middle. Should come out like some kind of gradient!

Evil box. Black top. Red bottom inside, and the walls are dripping blood!

Update: Less than a week later I got the final results back. Here they are!

I think the jug turned out nicely!

And here’s the box…

What: Waterfall of Dreams, Solo Show
Where: Copro Nason Gallery, Santa Monica, USA
Host: Copro Nason Gallery
When: 2008-07-12

Let your imagination go into freefall, as your emotions are caressed, teased, and astounded by this collection of 20 original and breathtaking pieces. Camilla d’Errico presents her first Solo Show, taking place at Copro Nason Gallery, Santa Monica. Opening Reception July 12th from 8:00 pm to 11:30 pm.

If you’ve ever thought about getting a Pink iPhone for yourself, look no further than Colorware PC, who will let you pick out a custom paint job for your iPhone in the colors you want. For example, a classic AdSense like blue/green/white job looks like this:

The cost? Just $200 and 2-3 weeks of processing time, plus additional time to ship it there and back. Looking at their gallery of samples, the painting appears extremely high quality, precise, and on-color. They even off pantone matching for those colors you absolutely need to have. Behind the scenes, they use a custom UV resistant plastic coating they call “X2″ and (probably) paint robots to precisely paint your device.

They also can paint notebooks, macbooks, iPods, PC computers, the Sony PSP, your blackberry, an xBox or PS3, and a host of other commercial products.