Our bulbs are peeping up and we've have a lot of sunny days, but we woke to a fresh layer of snow this morning. Sucker's Spring strikes again! At least some folks around here don't mind a few reruns of winter before the new season starts.
I think the rest of us are ready for the real deal, but the flip-flops of March are our lot up here in the temperamental north. Fortunately, the woodburner is keeping the shop plenty warm because Dad's been spending a lot of time out there lately. Here's a behind-the-scenes look at some of the custom projects we've completed in recent weeks!
This set of table-top pencil trays was our first official custom order in the new shop, and it was so satisfying to wrap it up for delivery! Dad created the design based off a photograph of a similar product and had them ready to hand off in just a few days. The new owner sent a darling picture of her little homeschoolers gathered around a table and using their newly organized colored pencils :)
We'll be adding a version of these to the store soon. It checks all my main boxes for new products: Useful, beautiful, sturdy, and timeless.
This next project is near and dear to my heart: a business logo sign for our friend's candle-making store!
Check out Lee's Bees Candle Company for some gorgeous hand-poured 100% beeswax candles--her unique Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary designs are just lovely.
In between orders, Dad keeps busy with pet projects like these engraved maps of Tolkien's Middle Earth. The hand painted color version was a gift to my husband for his last birthday, but he's working on a few other options to offer in the Woodshop soon!
We're reading The Two Towers with the big kids right now (even the 4 year old listens in!) and I love being able to plot out the journey of our Hobbit friends
This monochrome option allows us to offer it at a lower price and presents a cleaner, more modern aesthetic.
I'm enjoying the Lord of the Rings stories immensely this time around: Zach's reading them aloud, so I just sit back and relax with the children (while moderating arguments about whose turn it is to sit where, of course).
Tolkien creates such a rich, enchanting world with such admirable, endearing characters. We just finished the part where Pippin gives into the temptation to peer into the palantir stone: the way Gandalf confronts and forgives him, recognizing the halfling's weakness and his own failure to sufficiently anticipate it is so instructive. Talk about timeless!
Our first in-person sales event is coming up in April , and Dad surprised me with a table-top logo sign for the occasion: isn't it handsome?
3 comments
Thank you so much, Anya! I’m really happy about the opportunity to do a project like this together, too! It’s been so good for me to live close to my folks again: I can appreciate them and the wisdom they’ve gleaned a lot more now than when I was younger. Mom, the first in-person sales “Event” is going to be a table at a parish Saturday morning breakfast.
When and where is your first in-person sales event? Is it open to the public?
I don’t know if I mentioned this on your initial post on FB where you introduced the shop, but I thought it anyway: this enterprise of yours (and your dad’s) makes me happy in so many ways. I love that he’s discovered, nurtured, and grown to maturity an artistic passion of his after retiring. I love that you and him are working together on the shop. I definitely love the slowly worked and finely crafted creations. Wood is such a generous medium. I have an idea for a commission that I am dreaming up, and when it solidifies a little bit I will definitely be in touch. Many hugs <3.