New woods are peeking out!

WE hope you all are having a lovely start to spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, and enjoying the onset of fall in the southern!

WE have begun to cut on our new woods and are adding the new forks to the shop daily! here are a few pictures of a few of the woods...bubinga above and below...

Our new Nefertari shape is a total showcase for fabulous grained woods! we love the curved fit and are getting great feedback on it! thank you all so much for sharing your experience with this new design, and for the lovely appreciation photos!! we cherish every one of them...sometimes i think if i walked up behind you in a public place i would know it was you from the back of your heads :D

THis is a picture of our newest black and white ebony board, its graining is more stark than the last specimen we had and it is so striking!

 And the Macadamia Nut, what a story! We went on a search for it, and hit wall after wall, everyone telling us it is not sold commercially. Then, I happened to ask one of our wood suppliers, out of desperation, and he had just acquired a few rare pieces and was shocked that we asked for them by name! He said he had never been able to get any before and may never again, so we bought all the pieces he had, which were few...but we are going to use it as judiciously as we can, making inlays with  the amazing knots and areas that we cannot use in forks. The wood varies alot in color, the first board we cut, pictured below, is actually quite dark in color. THe other pieces tend more toward a peachy pink color, this one is more mauve to rust, but we may not be able to get more than one more fork from this piece.

 Here is another picture of the Macadamia nut wood from another angle and you can see the spectacular graining pattern, the chatoyance in these areas is striking, much like the silk oak wood was, but smaller patterns.

WE love wood, and sharing that love of wood with you! if you have any questions for us we are convo and email friendly and love to hear from you! we are still taking custom orders and want to thank all of you for your inspiring requests!

Our need to provide for ourselves pushes us to strive for the best we can do and offer you all the highest quality work we can do....starting a micro business is no easy feat, and we are blessed to be in our 3rd year and plan on continuing to grow! THere is a song that talks about working for yourself at doing nothing all day..every time i hear that i think " this guy never worked for himself! It is a long hard day of working for us, every day. We don't get to punch the clock, get paid vacations, we rarely even take a day off, becuase we like to eat and not be homeless!  we thank all of you that appreciate our work, and we continue to be as fair to you in cost and quality as we can be, and we love to show you how much we appreciate you by making your packages special and giving you a discount whenever we can.
We are getting together another wood lesson post, and a "Day in the life of a Self Sustaining Artist"  is in the making...
Love to you all, may your hair grow to your toes!
Kimi

Our story.....will you dare share yours?!

As most artists out here in the handmade world are trying to get thier name spread around, so are we. One of the things we did recently was apply to be featured on a few blogs and one of them accepted us and did this fabulous interview!

We are pleased at the joy she shares in her blog through the month, with posts about self-compassion and other inspiring, uplifiting helpful things for each of us to incorporate into our lived daily.

Sometimes, it can be discouraging to work for yourself...but we must persevere! i would encourage you to apply on her blog for an interview and see what comes of it...everyone of us has a story , and your customers want to get to know you!

we hope that you enjoyed getting to know us a little more and are still liking us :D

we appreciate your comments here and on JoyCreations blog!
Love and Blessings for a great weekend to you all!

This is a picture of the geological formation of dust we had acquired near our shop tools! we took the picture before we cleaned the shop and added our dust collector system! What a needed upgrade to the shop THAT has been! But,.... it was pretty, huh?

WE found some amazing wood ....and its on the way!!!

In our quest for unusual  and gorgeous woods we have come across one that we have been hunting for, and we have scored!
we have some macadamia nut wood on the way to us! WOOT! i am so excited to see if it all looks as beautiful as the small piece we had the priveledge to work with recently!
so, just a little teaser...its on the way !

Unborn Hairforks...

Our wood hunting expedition went well, although not perfectly...there were a few things we needed that were not available where we buy our hardwoods, so now we are hunting for them online! i really prefer seeing the wood we buy, but sometimes you just can't do that!

Over the last 2 years of our creating, we have been pushed and challeneged by your creative requests, and we are so excited for all the new avenues we are able to offer that other hairfork makers do not...we LOVE doing inlays, designing and executing them. THey really make a piece of wood a spectacular piece of art! And for the requests for new woods that we were not using at the beginning also. WE have learned alot about new and different woods, and it has been so rewarding!

ALong with all of these new and exciting innovations, comes more time and expense into each piece as well. We are not sure that some of you realize how much time goes into making a fork with an inlay. STacy handcarves all of the designs we do...we do not have a laser computer that cuts out our wood, we don't have a computer router, we do it by hand! There are hours and hours involved in alot of our pieces. We have also joined forces with other artists and have been incorporating thier work into ours. Mike Hurst of Hursts Handblownglass makes alot of our glass evil eyes, that are SO fun to include in hairsticks! And recently we have been adding Venbeads enameled Skullies to our hairforks. Ven bead is also offering a unique product that is a collaboration of our studios, Dragon hearts! WE make the wooden hearts, and she created the unique and wonderful glass cabachons that go into the heart pendant. Please take a moment to check out her fabulous work! we love supporting and working with fellow artists whos work we believe in.

Utilizing all these time consuming techniques, as well as other artists creations makes our forks cost more than they did 2 years ago. THere is no getting around that. But we offer a product unlike anyone elses, with custom design services, with unique designs and of course heavy duty hairforks! WE also have added wood expenses over the beginning,  as our most frequently requested woods are the most expensive woods available. In the beginning we only used cedar, maple, walnut for the most part. Now we have exotic, hard to find woods and we hunt dilligently for unique graining, as we know they make a piece of hair art even more precious, when the grain pattern is unusual! These things all add to the time and cost involved to create your dream hair toy! 

WE want you all to know, that we appreciate you shopping at our studio, we appreciate your design requests and know that your time and money are precious, and we thank you for investing in pieces of art for your hair at our studio! we stand behind our work, and we will go to great lengths to be sure your hair toy dreams are realized and able to be passed on to your children or family members! 
SO again, we send out our thanks to you for making our dream of creating full time a reality! we love to see your appreciation photos and to hear that you love your hairforks! please, never stop sending us notes, convos and emails for we cherish knowing each of you and your hair needs!
Much love toyou
Stacy & Kimi
PS we have a new product coming out, that we think is going to thrill you....a way to display and store your forks in safely and in style while they are not being worn, that is beautiful, effective and unique!

Our Wood Series Continues with Blood Wood

Bloodwood is called by several names, including
 ■Cardinal Wood ■Conduru ■Muirapiranga■Satine Rouge■Satine Rubane ■Satinjout ■South American Bloodwood
This wood is grown in South America and is NOT endangered. It is a lovely deep red color, and occassionally has some lighter yellow coloring inthe graining, as is typical of the sap wood. THis wood is very dense, and polishes beautifully. It is nice to work with, and has a pleasant smell as you are working it. It is strong,  but has a tendency to splinter easily. This wood is very resistant to decay and insects.

It is a wood that tends to have very even graining, high chatoyance, and a deep blood red color to it making it highly desireable in intarsia, instrument making and decorative woodworking. 
 
We keep this wood in stock for hairforks as it is moderatley priced and easily available.
 
 
 
 

WE hope you enjoyed this short but informative post on wood today! i was only able to find a limited refernce to bloodwood as far as its properties that are magical or historically spiritual, if you have any information to add feel freet o post a comment here!
Also , if you would like to know more about the woods specific gravity and things like that, please let me know. Those numbers mean nothing to me, i know the wood is dense because of the way it feels in my hands!

New Hair Toy Reviews Website

For all of you hair toy addicts out there, there is a new web site launched called hairtoy reviews..and we were the first ones interviewed! we are so honored!!
WE hope you will come and check it out, leave a comment and sign up to get on the mailling list for future posts about other hair accessory makers!
Thak you so much, Birdie! WE wish you much success and fun with this hair adventure and look forward to learning about our fellow artisans as well!
WE appreciate you all so much!
Love to you
Kimi & Stacy