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In the spirit of spreading love and light, we’re offering a new product: heart shaped tea light holders. The first batch we’ve made a deep, rich mahogany, with an offset holder for a tea light. We also have a slightly lighter mahogany version with a contrasting maple stripe. They are cute, fun, and we love ’em.

The tea light holders are in stock at our Etsy Store. The Hearts ship with a gift bag and a tea light so you are good to go right out of the box. As with all of our products, volume purchases are discounted. read more

Last year, we learned to make wooden things that were straight, flat, and “square.” Square in this case isn’t about having four equal sides with 90 degree corners but, more about perfectly regular polygons in one or more planes. We also achieved some of the other basics like making air tight two part joints.

This year, we are working on something different: curved and irregular shapes, and cylindrical forms. One can create pretty fun forms by changing the axis on which a cylinder is spun — i.e.  spinning it on different centers — while reducing material. The band saws we have helps with the irregular shapes. We also acquired a “vintage” Delta-Rockwell scroll saw that will allow us to do even trickier stuff as well as a midi-lathe. read more

We’ve already mentioned that getting through November was pretty hectic. December was more of the same. While we haven’t really been selling stuff through our Etsy store, we have sold several boards and other stuff through our presence at Forage Homewares and through semi-custom orders. My guess is that over the next few months we will increase our presence with local retailers and make products available through this site rather than focusing on Etsy as a channel.

A part of having products at Forage Homewares on Mississippi is that one has to work a couple of shifts at the store offering direct contact with customers. That’s interesting. Curiously, people wanted the display stands that we we had to use as drying racks. They also wanted a bag. Our boards are now delivered along with a rustic burlap bag (soon to be “branded”), a stand/drying rack, and a little card that has care instructions and our warrantee and return policy. We are not sure about the card as we feel like it would get tossed after the first use. My guess is that we’ll end up printing the care instructions on the stand/drying rack as soon as we figure out how to accomplish that affordably. read more

November was a crazy month and we have just about recovered from it. The month started with equipment fails and repairs, followed by crazy product building, and ended with us having a booth at the Portland Christmas Bazar (the largest of it kind in the US) and getting product into a local store in a hipster neighborhood (Forage Collective on Mississippi Ave). It was a great month, but hectic.

The Christmas bazaar was grueling. We signed up a couple of weeks before it started at the suggestion of a friend of ours. We hadn’t researched the event in depth. It seemed like a good idea. We took the shot. It was after the registration deadline anyway. What was the likelihood of getting in? read more