Formerly Atelier 6000, the Bend Art Center is a great local art gallery and workshop located in the…read moreBox Factory complex. Features a good printmaking studio.

This is a wine and paint night venue. They serve wine & beer. They have great teachers that help…read moreyou paint incredible pictures on a canvas. Step by step instruction that allows a novice to create paintings that you can hang on a wall in your home! They provide you everything you need! Great music, fun instruction! Come here with a group of friends! $10 off coupon in the Smart Shopper! I had a fabulous time! Thinking this would be a great place for a work function or with a group of friends! They have pictures of bridal parties and bachelorette parties. Kids are welcome too if you want to make it a parent child event! Incredibly kind and fun owner! I am sure I will be back!

My review is based on their "business" practices and interactions with Janet Llerandi Gonzalez, the…read morebusiness manager. I've rented space all over town and I've never felt so immediately bullied by anyone I've dealt with. Back in the fall I inquired about possibly renting event space -- turns out the inquiry form IS THE RENTAL AGREEMENT -- something I've never experienced. No offer to show me the space, to attempt to speak to me, just interest in gathering information = you've committed to pay for the space. Janet contacted me today, fewer then 10 days before dates I was interested in, to say that the balance is due + 50% fee for late cancellation. This isn't any way to conduct "business" and I in no way recommend renting their space.

These folks do good work providing education and programs on local environmental and sustainability…read moreissues such as energy efficiency and waste recycling. December pottery sale is great.

The SOQS has been on my bucket list for years, and I was thrilled to finally be able to make it…read morethis year. Bonus that it happened to be the 50th anniversary of this iconic show! I arrived in town the evening before, and some seasoned attendees warned me to make sure to arrive very early to the show the following morning. So at 6am I pulled into town and found a nice, shady spot to park right next to the center of the action at Village Green City Park. I was yearning for some coffee, so headed a couple blocks away to the Sisters Coffee Company and started chatting with other quilt show vets. This is where I learned that the local firefighters would start hanging quilts on the side of the local quilt shop at around 7am, marking the unofficial start of the show! The show itself started at 9 or 10 am (I can't remember!), but there was plenty to keep me busy (and plenty of quilts to see) after I watched the firefighter quilt hanging for about 45 minutes. Pretty much every shop in town has quilts on display, as well as all the parks and green spaces. The show seems very organized, with some shops displaying holiday-themed quilts, others displaying animal-themed quilts, etc. There were a few food and drink vendors (including three adorable brothers enthusiastically selling bottled water out of the back of their wagon), and of course every restaurant in town was open for the event, too. The quilts themselves were beautiful, each with a description of technique and often a little story behind the quilt. It was all quite dazzling! By about noon, the weather had gotten too hot (over 100 degrees!) for me to wander much more. I grabbed some lunch and a cold beer, then headed back to the coolness of my car and the drive back to our nearby campsite. Was the show worth the 2-day journey to get there from home? Absolutely! Will I be one of those veterans who attends every year for 50 years? Probably not! But I would definitely like to go again - if nothing else, for the inspo to dust off my quilting rulers and start creating again!

They shut the town down. And open the town up…read more Sisters (pop. 1,700) swells to over 20,000 for one day in July every year when they host the world's largest outdoor quilt show. What does this mean? It means, if you don't like quilts, don't attempt to drive through town. Traffic is brutal. If you don't like slow moving people, you might want to give it a pass. I attended with my mom this year and after a few instances of me complaining, "Too many people. It's too hot. OMG, can't they walk any faster?" My mom retorted, "Perhaps you shouldn't go back to Japan any time soon." And I said, "It is different there. It is crowded, but they walk with purpose." Complaining aside, this was still a fun event. The entire town gets into the spirit and more than 1,300 quilts are hung outside every building in town. They even tagged a minivan! There are hundreds of styles of quilts, from traditional to contemporary, and many are whimsical or with a cowboy or nature motif. Many are for sale, with prices from hundreds to thousands of dollars. They close Highway 126-20 (Cascade Avenue), so it feels like an enormous block party. Since I'm a regular visitor to Sisters, I got my coffee and food at more obscure spots since lines were ridiculous at Sisters Coffee Co. and most places on the main avenues. So I wouldn't plan on getting a lot of productive shopping done that day. Just go to enjoy the festival, the live music and the happy vibe. Bring your mother. It was fun to see local stores thriving and, for the most part, the businesses and city were set up to handle the crowds. I'll be back next year. Now that I know what I'm getting into, I'll have a better attitude.

This bluegrass festival occurs over a three-day weekend in mid-August - it's been going for four…read moreyears now . Admission to the festival is $10 (for the day or for the weekend) and camping is $10 total for Friday and Saturday nights. It's my favourite BG festival - good groups (Lee Highway has headlined there each time I've been there. This year (2010) they also featured Misty Mamas, Quincy Street, Bluestone County, LeRoy Newport, Bitterbrush, and a number of other groups. The event is well-run - they keep on schedule and when the bands on the main stage are setting up and breaking down, local groups play short sets on the side stage. Some of these localmusicians are very good too; overall there's very little music I wouldn't want to listen to - not true of many festivals... There's food vendors here - four or five of them, good food, but if one doesn't want to eat here, it's not far to drive into Bend which has a plethora of restaurants. Camping is in a field and there's plenty of room for RV's (no hookups); for tent campers there's an nice area among the junipers. Lots of jamming goes on after the last set is done on stage - it's nice to drift off to sleep with the sound of distant banjos and mandolins in one's ears.

Healthy Beginnings is an amazing community asset to the children and families throughout Central…read moreOregon. They screen children 0-5 years of age for health and development concerns and will assist parents on acquiring resources to best fit the needs of their children in order to ensure a more successful learning future. They do all this and at NO COST to the family. Healthy Beginnings has been serving the Central Oregon communities for over 20 years...and are still going strong.

Definitely worth the visit! Lots of a beautiful pottery to choose from. I love my mug that…read morereminds me of Sisters and feels perfect in my hand. I can't prove it, but I believe this mug makes coffee taste better, too!

Get a mug! You won't regret it. High quality, handmade, local. Can't wait to go back for a coaster.read more

So much fun with the grands! They enjoyed the rides very much. They have rides for the really…read morelittle ones to the big kids. Everything is organized well!

If the Huckleberry Smoothie booth ever stops coming, we'll stop coming too. Those smoothies aren't…read morejust a treat--they're the highlight of our visit. We look forward to them more than the rides, more than anything else. They have become a tradition for our family, and they're simply the best!