Two 12 Pottery and Gift Gallery

A neat store in the NE Arts District of Minneapolis, filled with all kinds of delightful items to gift to yourself or a friend. They have soy candles, incense, handmade and specialty soaps, scrubs, and creams. Greeting cards, cookbooks, purses, mobiles, jewellery. And quite a lot of pottery — mainly bowls and mugs — and kitchen towels and kitchen accessories. It seemed like the pottery was mainly one style or from the same potter; some more variety would have been nice.
You can spend a lot of time browsing and feeling undecided about what to get. I purchased a couple of items as a gift and the cashier boxed it up with a pretty ribbon! I know I’ll be going back again to find locally made handcrafted unique items.

Shops like this don’t exist to provide for your needs. The question is how effectively do they piqué your interest, hold your attention, feed your imagination and cater to your wants and whims. Right from the warmly sincere welcome upon entering I felt a positive vibe as I wandered the aisles focusing on one cool, hand crafted item after another. Toss in an eclectic mix of books, cards, semi-​precious stones, clothing accessories and a wide assortment of out of the ordinary, quirky gifts and you’ll likely find more than a few things to catch your eye and tease open your wallet. I’ll add that prices are on the whole very reasonable.
There are numerous other, very similar shops in the metro. But Two 12 seems less corporate, more funky, utterly free of snark and authentically local. In short, it appears to be a true labor of love. I’m told it’s owned by two people with other careers (reportedly a welder (who also throws pottery) and an oncology nurse). They’ve founded a retail outlet that allows them to share their considerable talents and multifarious interests with the public. I wish them well. I know I’ll be back when searching for high quality, unique and expressive gifts.

Adorable shop on an adorable street in Northeast Minneapolis.
I like how approachable the shop is, that the prices aren’t astronomical, and that the pottery is unique and functional. Every time I’ve been here the person behind the counter has said a friendly hello as I walked in. I went shopping here for Christmas gifts and found an awesome pair of fleece-​lined mittens made from wool sweaters. There were lots of recipe books and coffee cups that I could easily have been talked into as well.

One of the few shops where they make the pottery right on site and you can watch them make it too. They also have a eclectic shop of cool gifts. Cook books, jewelry, cool children gifts, tiles, scarves, and other finds. The coolest thing they do is on First Thursdays and Art A Whirl in the Arts District they set up a Crêpe stand and make them while you wait! Bob the owner and crêpe maker is a real purist when it comes to his crepes he told me he went to France just to get the right crêpe frying cook top. Try the Nutella you can’t go wrong.