Every word we use, explained.

Also: full buyout, studio buyout, exclusive hire

Venue buyout

A venue buyout is when one group books an entire space for a set window, so no other customers are in the room. It is not the same as reserving a private area inside a venue that is still open to the public, a buyout means the whole floor is yours. At Artis House a private event is always a full studio buyout.

Also: spend minimum, venue minimum

Minimum spend

A minimum spend is a total dollar amount a venue requires you to reach before it will hold the space for your group, regardless of how many people actually come. It is a floor on the bill, not a price per head, if the minimum is $5,000 and your group spends $4,000, you still owe $5,000.

Also: food and beverage minimum, F and B minimum

F&B minimum

A food-and-beverage minimum is a minimum spend that only food and drink count towards, room rental, AV hire and service charges usually do not. It is standard at hotels and banquet venues, and it is the reason two quotes with the same headline number can work out very differently once the bar closes.

Also: room rental, room hire, facility fee

Venue fee

A venue fee is a flat charge for the use of the space itself, separate from anything you eat, drink or do in it. Watch for it when comparing quotes: a low per-person price with a large venue fee attached can cost more than an all-inclusive package that looks dearer at first glance.

Also: per head, per guest

Per-person pricing

Per-person pricing charges a fixed amount for each guest who attends, so the bill scales with the headcount rather than sitting at a fixed floor. It is the easiest model to budget from because you can multiply it out before you commit. Artis House event packages are quoted per guest.

Also: all-in package, inclusive pricing

All-inclusive package

An all-inclusive package rolls the activity, the materials, the staffing and the space into a single per-guest price, so the quote you approve is the invoice you pay. Ask what sits outside it, catering, bar, gratuity and taxes are the usual exclusions, and they are where surprise costs hide.

Also: team build, team bonding, corporate team builder

Corporate team building

Corporate team building is any organised activity a workplace runs to get colleagues collaborating outside their normal roles. A making-based team build gives everyone the same unfamiliar task, which flattens seniority quickly, the director and the new hire are equally bad at tufting for the first ten minutes.

Also: team offsite, company offsite, corporate retreat

Offsite

An offsite is a work session held somewhere other than the office, usually to mix planning with something the team could not do at their desks. A retreat is simply a longer offsite, often overnight. The point of both is the change of room, people talk differently when they are not in their usual seats.

Also: ice breaker, warm-up activity

Icebreaker

An icebreaker is a short activity used at the start of a gathering to get people talking before the main event. It is a warm-up, not the program itself. A hands-on session does the same job structurally, the work gives people something to talk about, so no one has to manufacture conversation.

Also: host, instructor, artisan

Facilitator

A facilitator is the person who runs the room, setting the pace, teaching the technique and making sure quieter guests are not left behind. At Artis House the facilitators are the artisans who work the craft themselves, and they stay with your group for the whole session rather than starting you off and leaving.

Also: breakout group, breakout session

Breakout

A breakout splits a large group into smaller ones that work separately before coming back together. It matters for events because small groups talk and large ones listen, splitting a team of thirty across different craft benches gets far more people speaking than keeping them in one circle.

Also: run sheet, event timeline, agenda

Run of show

A run of show is the minute-by-minute timeline for an event: arrivals, speeches, the activity, food, and the close. Agreeing one in advance is what stops an event drifting, it tells the venue when to open the bar and tells you when to get everyone's attention.

Also: group size, maximum guests

Capacity

Capacity is the number of guests a space can genuinely host for a given format, seated, standing and hands-on capacities are all different numbers for the same room. Artis House runs public sessions for 1–10 guests and private events for roughly 10–40+, because every guest needs a working bench, not just a chair.

Also: private booking, private party, group booking

Private event

A private event is a booking where the guest list is yours alone, rather than a public session you join alongside strangers. It usually comes with a custom quote instead of a per-seat checkout price, because the timing, catering and format are all negotiable.

Also: drinks package, hosted bar

Bar package

A bar package is a pre-agreed set of drinks available to your guests, priced as a block rather than drink by drink. Packages are normally tiered by what is poured, beer and wine at the base, well spirits in the middle, top-shelf at the top, and priced by the hour or per guest.

Also: billed on consumption, open bar on consumption

Consumption bar

A consumption bar means the host pays for what guests actually drink, tallied during the event and billed afterwards. It is the fairest model for groups whose drinking is hard to predict, but the final figure is not known until the end, unlike a per-hour package, which is fixed before you start.

Also: no-host bar

Cash bar

At a cash bar, guests buy their own drinks. It is the opposite of a hosted bar, where the organiser covers them. Many events run a hybrid, a hosted first hour so nobody arrives to a queue and a card machine, then a cash bar after.

Also: bar ticket, drink token

Drink ticket

A drink ticket entitles one guest to one drink at the host's expense. Tickets cap the bar bill precisely while still making guests feel hosted, which is why they suit budget-bound corporate events better than either an open bar or a cash bar.

Also: retainer, holding deposit

Deposit

A deposit is a part-payment that secures your date, with the balance due later. It converts a pencilled-in booking into a confirmed one. Always check whether a deposit is refundable and by when, that date, not the event date, is the one that governs your risk.

Also: booking notice, advance notice

Lead time

Lead time is how far ahead of the date you need to book. For private events it is driven by staffing and materials rather than by the room being free, so the honest answer is usually earlier than people expect, and much earlier for December, when holiday parties compete for the same weekends.

Also: Christmas party, work Christmas party, festive party

Holiday party

A holiday party is a workplace's end-of-year social event. It is the single most contested booking window in the calendar: most Calgary organisers decide in September and October for dates in late November and December, so the good weekend slots are gone long before the season feels close.

Also: audio visual, A/V

AV

AV is the audio-visual kit an event needs, projector, screen, speakers, microphone. Most corporate bookings need less than they ask for, but the one thing worth confirming is whether you can show slides and be heard over a room of people who are busy with their hands.

Also: dietary requirements, dietary restrictions

Dietary accommodation

Dietary accommodation is how a venue handles allergies and food preferences across a group. Collect requirements with the RSVP rather than on the day, and separate genuine allergies from preferences when you pass them on, kitchens treat those two things very differently, and they should.

Also: service charge, auto-gratuity

Gratuity

Gratuity on a group booking is often added automatically at a set percentage, rather than left to each guest. A service charge is not always the same thing and does not always reach staff, so it is worth asking which one a quote includes and whether tax applies on top.

Also: tufting, gun tufting

Rug tufting

Rug tufting is making a rug by punching yarn through a tightly stretched backing cloth, so loops of yarn stand proud on the front. A handheld tufting gun drives a hollow needle that either leaves each loop intact or cuts it. The back is then sealed with adhesive so nothing can pull out, and a secondary backing is added.

Also: tufting machine, AK-I

Tufting gun

A handheld motorised tool that feeds yarn through a hollow needle and punches it repeatedly through backing cloth. It has no yarn feed of its own, so the yarn must unwind freely from a cone. Held flat against the cloth and moved slowly, it lays a continuous row of tufts in the direction the nose points.

Cut pile

A finish where the gun's blade slices each loop as it is formed, leaving two cut yarn ends standing upright. The result is soft, plush and velvety, and it hides small irregularities, which is why it is the usual recommendation for a first rug. Cut pile is also the only finish you can carve.

Loop pile

A finish where the loops are left intact, giving a firmer, more graphic and harder wearing surface, the Berber carpet look. It is less forgiving than cut pile: uneven spacing and wobbly lines show immediately, and it is fussier about yarn thickness.

Also: tufting cloth, primary tufting cloth, backing cloth

Monk's cloth

Monk's cloth is, strictly, a loosely woven cotton or linen basketweave fabric with coarse yarns, the traditional ground for punch needle. In tufting shops the name is also used loosely for any gridded backing sold for rug making, including polyester ones. That double meaning is the source of most of the confusion.

Primary tufting cloth

The purpose-made backing fabric for gun tufting: a polyester or poly-blend weave, usually printed with a guide grid. It is engineered to take frame tension without tearing and to let the needle pass through cleanly while still gripping the yarn.

Also: tufting loom

Tufting frame

A rigid frame edged with carpet tack strips, onto which the backing cloth is stretched. It is not optional: the cloth has to be drum-tight for the needle to pierce it rather than drag it. Slack tension is behind most beginner problems, yarn pulling out, skipped stitches, and torn cloth.

Pile height

The distance from the base of the rug to the top of the fibres once they settle. On a tufting gun it is set by needle depth, in millimetres. Note that the low/medium/high pile categories used by furniture retailers are a different convention entirely and do not map onto gun settings.

Shearing

Levelling the pile to an even height across a finished piece and removing the loose and stray fibres left over from tufting. Usually done with electric shears against a guide. It is what takes a piece from shaggy and approximate to crisp and finished, and it sharpens the definition between colours.

Also: rug carving, sculpting, sculpted pile

Carving

Carving is deliberately cutting the pile to different heights so the rug gains relief and texture, rounding edges, stepping levels, cutting channels between colour blocks. It is done with carving clippers and shaping scissors, and it only works on cut pile, because loop pile has no cut ends to sculpt.

Also: latex backing, rug glue, secondary backing

Rug backing adhesive

The adhesive brushed into the yarn roots on the back of a tufted piece while it is still under tension, locking every tuft so it cannot be pulled out. It stays flexible as it sets, hard-drying glues go brittle and crack. A secondary backing of felt or canvas then goes over the top.

Also: twill tape, edging

Binding

Finishing the raw cut edge of the backing cloth by folding the margin under and covering it with twill tape, so the rug has a clean sealed perimeter that will not fray. It is the last step, and it is the difference between a finished rug and a piece that unravels at the border.

Also: punch needle embroidery, Oxford punch

Punch needle

A punch needle is a hand tool, a hollow needle on a handle, held like a pen, that pushes yarn through stretched fabric one stitch at a time. It makes the same kind of surface a tufting gun does, but manually: silent, portable, cheap, and far slower.

Also: coned yarn, rug yarn

Tufting yarn

Yarn fed from cones so it unwinds with no resistance, the gun has no feed mechanism, so any drag causes skipped stitches and breaks. Acrylic is the usual starting point: cheap, vivid and easy to shear and carve. Wool is springier, resists crushing and lasts longer underfoot, at a higher price.

Also: Angelus paint, leather paint

Acrylic leather paint

A water-based acrylic made with a flexible binder, so the dried film bends with the material instead of cracking. It is designed for leather and also used on canvas, vinyl and synthetics. The flexibility is the entire point, a shoe flexes hard at the toe with every single step.

Also: craft acrylic on shoes, normal acrylic paint

Regular acrylic paint on shoes

You can, and it will stick, but ordinary craft acrylic dries to a rigid film, and a shoe bends sharply at the toe with every step. A rigid film cannot follow that movement, so it crazes and flakes along the crease. Leather acrylics use a flexible binder precisely to survive it.

Also: leather preparer, prep and deglaze

Deglazer

A solvent wipe that strips the factory topcoat, grease and grime from finished leather. That topcoat is a slick sealant: paint applied over it bonds to the coating rather than the leather, and later peels off in sheets. Failing to deglaze is the single most common cause of peeling.

Also: heat set, setting with a heat gun

Heat setting

Heat setting means passing a heat gun or hairdryer over painted fabric to drive off water and set the film. Whether you need it depends entirely on what you painted: it is genuinely required for paint mixed with a fabric medium on canvas or mesh, and it is not required for plain leather paint on leather.

Also: sealer, top coat, clear coat

Acrylic finisher

A clear coat applied over cured paint to set the sheen, matte, satin or gloss, and protect against scuffs and light scrapes. Worth applying to anything you intend to wear. Note that it protects the surface; it does not prevent cracking, which is a function of prep and coat thickness.

Thin coats

The governing rule of shoe painting: build colour in several thin layers with drying time between them, rather than one or two thick ones. Thick films are less flexible and are the most-cited cause of cracking. Some retail listings advise thick layers; this contradicts the manufacturers' own guidance.

Also: flex point, toe box crease

Crease point

The crease is the fold across the toe box where a shoe bends most with every step. It is where paint failure almost always appears first, not because the crease damages the paint, but because it is where the film is asked to stretch furthest, so any weakness in prep or thickness shows up there before anywhere else.

Also: jar candle, poured candle

Container candle

A container candle is poured into a vessel that holds it for its whole burn life. Because the jar provides the structure, container waxes can be soft and low-melting, which helps the melt pool form quickly and release scent. Most hand-poured scented candles are container candles.

Soy wax

A vegetable wax made from hydrogenated soybean oil, melting at a relatively low temperature. It is the default for hand-poured container candles: easy to work with, easy to clean up, and forgiving. It is naturally polymorphic, which means frosting and wet spots are normal rather than faults.

Fragrance load

The percentage of fragrance oil by weight in a finished candle. The familiar "one ounce per pound of wax" is a convenience figure, not a technical ceiling, check the wax's own rated maximum. Going past it does not make a stronger candle: the oil is no longer held in suspension and weeps out.

Also: fragrance flash point

Flash point

Flash point is the lowest temperature at which a liquid gives off enough vapour to ignite near a flame. Suppliers publish it because it governs how a fragrance is classified for shipping, not because it tells you anything about how the candle will perform.

Cure time

The resting period between pouring and first burning, during which the fragrance and wax bind and the wax finishes hardening. Setting solid is not the same as curing, a soy candle is firm within a day or two and still some way from its best scent throw. Published figures vary widely by wax.

Also: scent throw, cold throw

Hot throw

Hot throw is how strongly a candle scents a room while burning; cold throw is how it smells unlit. They are not the same measurement and one does not predict the other, plenty of candles smell wonderful in the jar and disappear once you light them.

Melt pool

The layer of liquid wax that forms around the wick while a candle burns. It is the real test of whether a candle is correctly wicked: unmelted wax left standing at the rim means the wick is too small, while a deep pool with a large guttering flame means it is too big.

Wick sizing

Choosing a wick that makes enough heat to melt out to the container wall without over-burning. It depends on the vessel's inside diameter, the specific wax and the fragrance load together. Wick numbers are not comparable across series, the numbering in one family means nothing in another.

Also: tunneling, candle tunnel

Tunnelling

Tunnelling is when only the wax around the wick melts and burns down, leaving a hard wall of unburnt wax against the container. It is usually blamed on how the candle was burned, but the dominant cause is an undersized wick, one that can never make enough heat to reach the rim.

Also: memory ring

First burn

The first time a candle is lit. It is worth burning long enough to melt right out to the container wall, because a solidified ledge at the rim sits further from the flame and is harder to reclaim later. The popular idea that wax "remembers" is a description of this, not a mechanism.

Frosting

A white crystalline bloom on the surface of a natural-wax candle or against the glass. It is polymorphism, soy's crystals slowly rearranging into a more stable form, and it is purely cosmetic. It does not affect burn, scent or quality, and in pure soy it cannot be eliminated, only reduced.

Wet spots

Patches where wax has pulled away from the glass, showing as translucent marks. Despite the name there is no moisture involved, the wax simply contracted away from the container as it cooled. Warming the jars before pouring and cooling slowly reduces it. Cosmetic only.

Also: casting resin, resin figurine

Cast resin

Cast resin is a solid object made by pouring liquid resin into a mould and letting it cure. It describes how the object was made, not what it is made of, epoxy, polyurethane and polyester can all be cast. That is why "cast resin vs epoxy resin" is a comparison that does not quite make sense.

Also: mold release, release agent

Mould release

A lubricant sprayed into a mould so the casting can be removed. An invisible, slightly greasy film of it remains on every surface of the finished piece and actively repels primer and paint. Washing it off in warm soapy water is the single most skipped step in painting cast resin.

Also: seam line, flash

Mould line

The faint raised ridge marking where the two halves of a mould met, plus any thin webs of escaped resin (flash). Both are nearly invisible on bare resin and glaringly obvious once painted, which is why they are scraped or sanded flat before priming.

Primer

A thin matte undercoat that gives paint something to bite into. Cast resin is dense and very smooth, so acrylic has little mechanical grip on it; primer lays down a fine microtexture that improves adhesion and chip resistance. Surface preparation matters more than which primer you choose.

Also: shade, ink wash

Wash

Heavily thinned darker paint brushed over a base coat. Capillary action pulls it into recesses and creases where it pools and dries dark, while it runs off the raised areas. It creates instant shadow and is the quickest way to make a flat base coat read as three-dimensional.

Dry brushing

Loading a stiff brush with a lighter colour, then wiping almost all of it off until barely any transfers, and dragging the near-dry bristles across the surface. The little paint left catches only raised texture and edges. The usual beginner mistake is not wiping off nearly enough.

Also: sealer, topcoat

Varnish

A clear protective coat over finished paint. It matters more on resin than on plastic, because the dense smooth substrate gives paint less grip and unsealed work chips readily with handling. Matte is the default for figurines; gloss is usually kept for eyes and gems.

Also: all materials included, everything provided

Materials included

Materials included means the price covers everything you make with, the yarn, wax, paint, tools and the piece you take home, so there is no shopping list before you arrive and nothing to return afterwards. It is the difference between booking an experience and enrolling in a course.

Also: take-home piece, finished piece

Keepsake

A keepsake is the finished object you leave with. It is what separates a making session from an outing: a month later there is a rug on the floor or a candle on the shelf, and it keeps reminding whoever made it of the afternoon.

Also: beginner friendly, no experience needed

Skill level

Skill level describes how much prior experience an activity assumes. Beginner-friendly should mean the technique is taught from zero in the session, not that experienced makers will be bored. Every Artis House experience is built for first-timers and stays interesting if you are not one.

Also: drop-in

Walk-in

A walk-in is a guest who arrives without a booking. Studios that run on set session times and per-guest materials can rarely take them, because the bench, the kit and the artisan's attention were all allocated in advance. Booking ahead is not an upsell, it is how the seat exists.

Also: gift certificate, studio credit

Gift card

A gift card holds a balance the recipient can put towards any session, rather than locking them into a date or a craft they may not want. That flexibility is the point, it lets the person receiving it choose both what they make and who they bring.

Also: loyalty points, rewards points

Artis Points

Artis Points is the Artis House loyalty program: you earn points on what you spend in the studio and put them towards a future session. Points are attached to your account rather than to a card, so there is nothing to carry and nothing to lose.

Also: my account, guest profile

Guest account

A guest account keeps your bookings, the photos of what you made, and your points balance in one place. It is free and it exists mostly so you do not have to dig through your email to find out what time you are booked in on Saturday.

Also: liability waiver, release form

Waiver

A waiver is the short form every guest signs before working with studio tools and equipment. Signing it in advance rather than at the door is worth doing for a group, thirty people filling in a form on arrival is the slowest part of any event that has ever started late.