We are getting faster !

we have been making hair forks for almost  2 years now! in November it will be our 2 year anniversary on Etsy! and we have learned alot, changed alot, and gotten much faster at a lot of what we make..so...for YOU..we have changed our pricing on some items that may please you and your wallet and your hair! The items we can now do alot faster have better , more affordable prices! There are still some things that just take time, no matter what, like sword handles, and 5 tine forks,...but our biggest sellers, the 3 tine lillis are going to be more affordable in the exotic woods! also the 2 prong mermaids tails forks! WHOOHOO!!
SO, a big thank you to all of our customers who have given us so much practice :D and we hope you will continue to support that practice while enjoying the new prices!! we love you all dearly, for real, and love that you can have a useful, sturdy, hair fork or stick to keep your hair safe and growing long!!

WE are also listing some forks on Artfire through the holidays, so be sure to check both of our shops, they will have different hair toys in them!

My Favorite item in our shop!

I absolutely LOVE this hair fork! We ordered the cameo from Rainforest designs, and once we receieved it we designed a special fork to allow the light to shine through the cameo , and enhanced the shape of the fork with the echo of the leaf that the little gecko is sitting on in the cameo! This cameo is exquisitely made, and signed by the artisan that made it! that is another reason we wanted to leave the back open, so the signature was not covered. THis hairfork will come with the papers of authenticity from the Wounaan Indian Tribe of Panama. THe wood we used is Lignum Vitae. It is a green wood, that we thought was perfect for the leaf!
We hope you enjoy it as well and look forward to the special hair that it gets to have a home in!http://www.handmadespark.com/myspark/GrahToeStudio
Thanks everyone!

SALE SALE SALE

We are having an End of Summer sale at our studio! EVERYTHING is 20% off today and tomorrow(Saturday and Sundaay)....and if you will follow us on twitter and/or facebook and mention it with your order, we'll make your discount 25%! WE need to make room for our new fall /winter inventory and new designs!!!
Come on over and grab what your heart has been looking for!

AHHhh , Laquer and scotch tape, the smells of the holidays...

Well, let me explain that title. FOr years we have been making snowflakes for the Holidays. For so many years, that i now equate the smell of the laquer we use on the snowflakes with the coming of the holiday season! and scotch tape, well, that has always made me think of the holidays , becuase of gift wrapping! we are working on our new batch of snowflake/ stars and i wanted to share a little about them with you.

Stacy makes thes out of six pieces of wood each. They are cut to a specific angle on each side, and then cuts are made on all four sides of the diamond shaped piece. Some are made on the table saw, some on the router. Then after all the cuts are made, we glue the 6 pieces together to form a sort of log. Its very tense and tough thing to do, but we have come up with a system over the years! we end up with "logs" of snowflakes! once those are cured, we slice them off into the snowflakes you see. They then have to be sanded on each side and BOY is that fun...yes, skinned fingertips galore! after they are all sanded, we put the finish on them.

That also involves alot of time and tedious efforts, to which we have come up with a plan, but it still just has to be done...a labor of love , these are!, for the effort, we are rewarded with these!

SO, thats the tale of the snowflakes from our end of it! ...but heres the real tale:

Wooden Snowflakes

In the spring, about the time that Scrying Lake dissolves into shimmering mirrors, the trees on planet Gratoe come into bloom. Most beautiful of all the flowering trees, however, is the SnowStar whose feathery-white blooms have six petals that shimmer like  daybreak on new snow. As the air warms soft breezes carry the heady scent of these flowers far and wide, signaling that warmer times have come again.


Beauty in nature is transient, and as spring gives way to summer and the trees ready themselves to bear fruit the SnowStars fall. The flowers coat the ground and for a time it seems that it has snowed in summer. Soon enough the SnowStars grow ridged and lose their centers, but retain their delicate six-pointed shape, taking on an uncanny similarity to a snowflake.

These the children gather and hang as winter solstice decorations, both a celebration of winter and a portent of spring when the SnowStars will bloom again.
(This is a tale that was written for us by Nightblooming on Etsy.)
Hope you enjoyed another  little peek into the Grah-Toe Studio workings!

The Hummingbirds are here..it worked!

THEY ARE HERE!!!I finally cought one on film in flight! and they are buzzing allaround our back yard! i am pretty sure that they are back on thier way south for the fall. But while they are here i am going to totally enjoy them! they are most active here in morning and evening and this was one of 3 that were flying around our porch yesterday!

Aren't they just beautiful! YEA!!!

The hummingbirds never came to our house...

We usually get lots of hummingbirds through the summer and it is one of my great joys.. ilove the special chittering noise they make, and how the "sentinel" ones defend "their" territory...i love thier colors and sounds...but this year, they didn't come...we put the feeders out, changed the food when it got hot....i think an incident i had at the very beginning of summer cursed the blessing of the hummers away.....

I had just gotten a new tye-dye shirt with a large purple mushroom-ish shape in the center of it, i was standing on the porch looking and one zipped right up to me! i was so shocked and taken aback i swatted at it thinking it was a wasp becuase of the noise....i instantly realized it was not a wasp and cried out my apology, and my wish for them to grace our porch again...nothing. i even put that shirt on sometimes and stand out there with my coffee...but alas....now, about a week ago, a few showed up! the Rufus' and the ruby throats and the black and white ones, i am not sure which kind they are or maybe they are the females..but i am not a pro photographer, and believe it or not, there is a hummer in the above picture! he is hovering in front of a trumpet, but hes green....look really close....

the best shot i could get so far is below...

 

*sigh* so i put out an apology to the great wide world that i am sorry for swatting and would you PLEEEZE come back to my porch little hummer, i love watching you SO much...pleeeeze?!?!?

A picture of our message...

Add caption

A friend of ours was on vacation and wrote this in the sand! I wanted to show the world, and hope youwill go see the rest of thier pictures and read about the trip this was written during...Thank you for spreading our message , even in the sand!

Fairy wog-dog and Queen drip-slobber...

The word "love" has many meanings. In describing the enjoyment of ice cream some would say, "I love butter pecan." And in describing their deepest and most intimate feelings some would say, "I love my fiancée." Love is a little word with lots of implications


Love is too large, too deep ever to be truly understood or measured or limited within the framework of words. M. Scott Peck

Love talked about can easily be turned aside, but love demonstrated is irresistible. W. Stanley Mooneyhan
Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new. Ursula K. Le Guin

Acting in kind and loving ways causes us to experience kind and loving feelings. Stephen Covey

"And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love". I Corinthians 13:13

Let love and kindness take WING in your heart today!

P/S i just read Watership Down-Richard Adams , again and am now reading the tales from Watership Down, the title is inpsired from this book ....its fabulously entertaining!