Creative children have been getting their hands messy during the summer holidays and learning some new craft skills.

Youngsters who have been goingto Create Café, in the Victorian Arcade on Ilkley’s South Hawks-worth Street, have had little chance to get bored in their weeks off school.

The café, pottery painting and wool shop has been offering special summer holiday courses to keep children interested, occupied, and enjoying learning new craft skills.

Create offers customers a chance to do some pottery painting, but children who took part in some of July and August’s workshops also got to grips with clay, and to try their hand behind the potters wheel.

Pottery was not the only activity on offer in the past few weeks. Children have also been able to learn about and try out some other traditional crafts.

The café held two open sessions inviting children ages four and above and their parents to have a go at enamelling. They got to see the pieces they had created go into the kiln for firing, and take the finished work home at the end of the day.

Pin felting, learning to knit and learning to sew were the theme of other events at Create in recent week, along with quilling, blackboard painting, felt jewellery make, and a handy session making a felted case for a mobile phone or iPod.