Taking care of business..everyday...come on and sing along!

You get up every morning
From your alarm clock's warning
Take the 8:15 into the city
There's a whistle up above
And people pushin', people shovin'
And the girls who try to look pretty
And if your train's on time
You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
If you ever get annoyed
Look at me I'm self-employed
I love to work at nothing all day
And I'll be...
Taking care of business every day
Taking care of business every way
I've been taking care of business, it's all mine
Taking care of business and working overtime

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

Are you in a F.O.G. ?

WEll, i hope you are not in a real fog, but that you will join in with us in the F.O. G. that we are starting!

This is something new for us and we are excited to bring this program to you!

F.O.G. stands for Friends of Grah-Toe Studio.....it is a referral program where you can earn reward credit in our studio by sending friends to shop with us! here is how it will work:

1.You refer a freind to us to buy a hair fork.

2.Friend shops with us, spends $50 or more on in stock items (custom orders are not included ), and leaves YOUR name in the notes with the order.
3.They will get a 10% off refund of that first order and you will get a $5 credit to shop with!!

How fun is that!

We already have a few of you who have done this recently written in "the book", but we look forward to filling our book up with referral names!

AS tomorrow is April 1, and we will be accepting custom orders again, we also have a few changes we want to share with you to the way custom orders will be taken:

1. Each person can have only 2 items on custom order at a time. this helps us get them to you  in a timely fashion as well as allowing others to place custom orders as well.

2.Ice Hairtanas. We will be making 3 a month for the shop, and one pair a month for custom orders. The price will be $185 each. You will have the chance to request colors for your handles on the shop ice hairtanas and on custom ones as well. We do have limitede material for these, and they take over a week(40 hours) to make ONE. WHen the material is gone, that will be the last of the ice hairtanas!

3.If your custom order is under $70, and you are not a first time shopper, we will make it and you can pay when it is listed. If it is very unusual, expensive or personalized you will need to deposit at least 50% for us to begin the project. The second half with shipping will be due when we complete the order.

We appreciate you all so very much, and we cannot ever express our grattitude to you for loving our work . WE wake every morning anxious to start our day, dreaming of new designs and looking forward to talking to you and getting to know your hair!

We hope the F.O.G. program shows you how much we appreciate you in a tangible way and that you are happy enough with your work from us to refer your friends with long hair to our studio!

Love to you all

Kimi & Stacy 

Notice about custom orders...

Boy are we ever grateful for all of the creative ideas our customers have and ask us to create! It is a real blessing to be able to make your dreams come to life, and we put so much love in to them!

Right now, we are on overload with custom orders and our shop stock is depleted...so,....we have made a decision to suspend custom orders for the month of March at least, possibly April too. We want to be able to offer cool stuff in the store and have my trusty box of forks waiting to be listed filled back up again!

We have a lot of forks that are in the waiting box that we want to create, and lots of hairtanas that are half made and so sad , all in thier parts waiting...

SO this means you will see a better selection of new creations and more options in the shop!

 The Ice hairtanas are so much work you can't even believe what goes in to making the parts for them, and the clear material requires 5 times the sanding as the wood, and it has to be done by hand or the plastic will melt! so we are going to keep making them for stock but when the material runs out that will be the end of those! so if you had your heart set on one watch and see what come through! I will be keeping a list of things people are looking for , so please do keep sending your wishes to us and we will keep them in the dream book!

WE are doing what we love, and love what we are doing BECAUSE OF YOU!!! THank you so much!!

Continuing education on Woods..today is about spalting..

Hey everyone!
Hope you had a Fabulous Valentines day with loved ones yesterday!!

Sorry its been so long since we have done a post on woods, we are going to talk about spalting today!
The deifinition of spalting by Wikipedia says

"Spalting is any form of wood coloration caused by fungi. Although primarily found in dead trees, spalting can also occur under stressed tree conditions or even in living trees. Although spalting can cause weight loss and strength loss in the wood, the unique coloration and patterns of spalted wood are sought after by woodworkers.<sup>["

Knowing this may sound creepy or gross to some of you, but the beauty of nature, even in rot or fungus cannot be discounted, as we have seen in the rare piece of spalted holly that was used for some of our hairforks. HOlly is specifically a wood that must be harvested and dried in an exact manner to get its traditional white pure coloring. The spalting occurring is considered a defect and as far as we can tell when it happens they use this wood to burn...we have been inquiring for it all over and noone has any becuase it would not be bought or sold since it is considered ruined...
SPalting can occur in any wood and is especially beautiful in some cases. it can cause lines, streaks, and colors ranging from light brown to greenand blue or black. it can be spotted, lines, swirled or blotched.


"While pigmentation fungi do not degrade the wood cell wall, this type of decay can lead to a reduction in toughness (amount of energy absorbed before breaking), and increased permeability [8]. Pigmentation can occur on both hardwood and softwood, unlike other types of spalting which are more host specific."
Wikipedia</sup> 


In other words, some spalting is caused by fungi that only change the color of the wood, and some actually degrade the wood, making it soft, flaky or even dust. In these instances those types of spalted wood really are not good for any type of wood working, so the fungi that cause the beautiful splating and do not degrade the wood are creatures with a specific purpose!

While we continue to hunt for the spalted holly, and we look at other types of spalted woods for our hairforks, we cannot order or make these types of natural beauties occur..so please be patient as we hunt for beautiful spalted woods and enjoy our other woods in the mean time!!

Thanks so much for your continues support of our hair art, we create out of love of hair and creating, and are so blessed that others enjoy and can use our hair art well!!!

I did a video for you, my first one ever!

This is a video on how to do the bun/ updo that i use in most of our action shots in the shop . I know it is very close to a Nautilus bun, but i can never make it look like that, and several customers have asked me to do this so i ventured out past my comfort zone and did it!
I hope it helps inspire you to try a new updo, or even invent your own!!
Feel free to share this link with anyone you like, or visit our youtube page for lots of other great channels that have our favorite  updo videos on them!

Today we talk about walnut wood..

I have done my research on walnut wood completely on line, and here is what i have discovered!

"The common walnut and the black walnut and its allies, are important for their attractive timber, which is hard, dense, tight-grained and polishes to a very smooth finish. The colour ranges from creamy white in the sapwood to a dark chocolate colour in the heartwood. When kiln-dried, walnut wood tends toward a dull brown colour, but when air-dried can become a rich purplish-brown. Because of its colour, hardness and grain it is a prized furniture and carving wood.

Walnut wood has been the timber of choice for gun makers for centuries, including the Gewehr 98 and Lee Enfield rifles of the First World War. It remains one the most popular choices for rifle and shotgun stocks, and is generally considered to be the premium – as well as the most traditional – wood for gun stocks, due to its resilience to compression along the grain. Walnut is also used in lutherie, i.e. making stringed musical instruments.

In North America, forestry research has been undertaken mostly on J. nigra aiming to improve the quality of planting stock and markets. In some areas of the US black walnut is the most valuable commercial timber species.[13] The Walnut Council is the key body linking growers with scientists. In Europe, various EU-led scientific programs have studied walnut growing for timber.[14]

Walnuts,the fruit from the walnut tree, are considered to be a herb in Traditional Chinese medicine. They are said to tonify kidneys, strengthen the back and knees, warm and hold qi in lungs and help kidneys to grasp the qi, moisten the intestines and move stool. It is believed to stop asthma and is prescribed to be taken between bouts of asthma, but not for acute asthma. It is also used by the elderly to relieve constipation.


The two most commercially important species are J. regia for timber and nuts, and J. nigra for timber. Both species have similar cultivation requirements and are widely grown in temperate zones.

The 21 species in the genus range across the north temperate Old World from southeast Europe east to Japan, and more widely in the New World from southeast Canada west to California and south to Argentina." 

 THank you Wikipedia for that wonderful information!

I also discovered that Claro walnut is a completely different type of tree and wood, and it is an endangered tree, whereas the previous types of walnut are grown commercially for lumber and thier fruits.

Below is a picture of a fork made of Claro Walnut wood. Its graining is beautifully crazy!

Walnut wood is strong and beautiful, and we love to work with it. It is also very widely available and  grown sustainably for the lumber industry. While we have used some claro walnut on request, it was hard to find and due to its highly figured nature did not lend itself perfectly to making strong hairforks. It tends to stay flexible and alittle softer that we like for our forks. We do have a piece of it left and a few made forks with it that are available. It is very beautiful, much more expensive than regualr walnut, and hard to acquire.

WE hope that this information was interesting and helpful to those of you interested in the woods we use.

As a side note, working it is lovely, it has a bit of a peppery smell to me. It does finish beautifully and the boards we get that have some sap wood in them have a lighter color mixed with the dark brown to purple, and we truly enjoy working with it and making hairforks in this wood.

WE appreciate all of you so much, and look forward to showing our new creations and innovations in hair art for the coming year!

Happy New year to all!!

Some new wood and new designs!

WE have finally acquired some apple wood, and a nice colorful few pieces too! they were from some ones back yard when the tree had to come down, and they are just beautiful! We are so happy to let you  know some more apple wood forks are on the way!

we also have some new designs coming out in the new year! the Lyria, as pictured here, is a new design for the end of this year and we are offering it in all sizes..the one pictured is a mini lilli, and we will be making it in all woods as well!! This is a very fluidly carved top on the hair fork and it holds and sits on the head very comfortabley and beautifully! we are proud to offer this new fork at the end of 2010~

the new fork designs coming out for the new year are equally stunning, i think :D and we hope you will like them too!

Merry CHristmas, happy holidays to all! we will have that walnut wood post coming right up!!

Stacy has a gift for YOU on this special day!!

Hey Grah-Toe Friends!! Today is Stacy's birthday, and he wants to GIFT to you a 24% discount on your order!! That was what he asked me for, so I am doing it for him, and for you too! There is still time to get gifts to people, or to yourself and this is a great oppotunity and a huge discount for today only!!! take advantage by using the coupon code  24hour  at check out and it will take the discount off your order before you check out! ! Happy Birthday my love, and Merry Christmas to everyone!!
We appreciate and love you all !!
Stacy and Kimi
ps the walnut post is in the works :D

Lignum VItae wood is our study subject today

Lignum Vitae wood is a beautiful, aromatic,green and gold colored wood. It grows in the Florida  Keys and is a very dense hard wood. It has been used in the making of bowling balls, false teeth , ships propeller shafts and it was used in the Erie canals locks as hinges.

We of course, use the wood to make beautiful hairforks. I am often asked about the woods we use and this following information was acquired from Wikipedia:

"Lignum vitae is a trade wood, also called guayacan or in Europe known as pockenholz, from trees of the genus Guaiacum. This wood was once very important for applications requiring a material with its extraordinary combination of strength, toughness and density. It is also the Jamacian national flower

The wood is obtained chiefly from Guaiacum officinale and Guaiacum sanctum, both small, slow growing trees. All species of the genus Gayandcum are now listed in Appendix II of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) as potentially endangered species. Demand for the wood has been reduced by modern materials science, which has led to polymer, alloys and composite materials which can take lignum vitae's place (IT IS NOT ENDANGERED YET)

"Lignum vitae" is Latin for "wood of life", and derives from its medicinal uses; lignum vitae resin has been used to treat a variety of medical conditions from coughs to arthritis, and chips of the wood can also be used to brew a tea. Other names for lignum vitae include palo santo (Spanish for "holy wood") and greenheart; lignum vitae is also one of the numerous hard, dense woods referred to as ironwood.

Lignum vitae is hard and durable, and is also the densest wood traded; it will easily sink in water.

Various other hardwoods  may also be called lignum vitae and should not be confused. The best-known is from Bulnesia arborea and Bulnesia sarmientoi (in the same subfamily as Guaiacum) and is known as Verawood or Argentine lignum vitae; it is somewhat similar in appearance and working qualities as genuine lignum vitae."

Many woods have been called the "tree of life" over history and usually it is due to thier medicinal properties. 

I hope that you have found this information about this beautiful wood informative and helpful in your search about the woods we use for hairforks. We re having this post in tandem with Hair, There , and Everywhere today! come see her blog too please!
http://hairthereandeverywhere-jessica.blogspot.com/2010/12/lignum-vitae.html

Next, we are doing Walnut wood!

Glass Evil Eyes and hair forks and stick, Oh MY!

WE love glass eyes! And this is the time of year for creepy things too! but we think they are fun all year long..hey, who doesn't need an extra eye in the back of thier head, i mean really??
THis is one we did on request , a dark brown eye in silk oak wood on antler....we also had a request for a yellow cats eye in zircote wood on antler and here it is...

WE love making these!!!
When we asked what you would like to see more of some people wanted to see more inlaid forks, but the reason we don't keep alot of those in the shop is that they are expensive to make, and usually someone will say they want one like that one, but with changes..so we try to have one or 2 made and ready to buy but they really work better as a custom order, then you get what you want, in the color and wood you love!

Now, i would love to start putting live treasuries up on here, and i am learning how! i hope to start featruing the treasuries i make and that we are included in as well as honor the makers of the treasuries that include our work, because we really, REALLY appreciate you all so much!!

SO, thats it for today, hope you enjoyed the pictures and remember to read our previous post about the holiday custom deadlines!
Love to you all
Kimi

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!

Today...

Today we decided to drive to Nine Mile Canyon. It is on the national scenic byways and it is a cool place, but getting there is quite a drive. It is 48 miles of almost completely dirt,washboard pot holed oil field roads. But the rocks, the towering spires, then the desstination with the petroglyphs is worth the dusty drive. We listened to a book on cd and enjoyed the animals and flowers along the way. Yes, the desert blooms!

It was a sunny beautiful day, and the walk was lovely. We saw lizards and antelope, prairie dogs, chipmunks and something that looked like a lemur, but i am pretty sure it wasn't...we did not drive THAT far! HEEHEE

As i have told you before, we like to take a picture of our feet when we go places, just for fun, and here is us! in the desert, you can see the bottom of my trusty walking staff too.

Lastly, we had to get a picture of my hair in this beautiful place. No hair fork today, silly me, but i felt like having it down since it was a day for my husband and he loves to look at my hiar, but i did not want it all knotted up..so if anyone is interested, i did an english braid with the top half of myhair. then i put the bottom half up in a ponytail under the braid, and wrapped that braid around the pony, pinned with decorated amish pins. then i rope braided the ponytail. It looks pretty cool, if i do say so! Having layered hair makes most braids something i cannot pull off, but when i take the top half and the bottom half seperately, i can do some fun stuff! And Husband loved it.

So we had a good day, came home to eat and rest then went back to forkin'!

Hope you enjoyed our adventure pics!

Love to you all,Kimi

The circle of life...

Always remember that problems contain values that have improvement potential.


Move away from past failures and mistakes and go forward without letting them be a weight upon you. Every night when you lie down to sleep practice dropping the day into the past. Look confidently to the future with God.

Choosing not to answer the phone, on selected occasions, can be an empowering decision and can greatly reduce the stress in your home life.

Once again, valuable and timely words from PTD newsletter! I try to do these things to help life in our home be smoother and stress free, but it is a daily thing, we must live each day, IN that day and do our best!
Love to you all
Kimi

Unborn Hair forks...

Part 2 of the behind the scenes of Grah-Toe Studio..these are unborn hair forks! When choosing the woods, we have to make sure the grain is strong in the tines, and beautiful in the top....we have to be sure the arch of the tines has strenght...there is a lot to consider, along with the aesthetics of it all!

and then there are these kinds of final outcomes..

This custom inlay was made with slabs of turquoise, instead of powder. Each petal was shaped and cut by Stacy, and fit until they looked as we needed together, then he had to cut them into the wood! after they were secured in, we had to refinish the fork but the result is just stunning! Over 6 hours of work..what do you think?

Hope you have a blessed Sunday,restful and rejuvenating and see you again soon!
remember to share some love!!!

Love to you all, Kimi

Treasury love...we are so blessed!

A while back i posted about being in a few tresuries on Etsy and what a thrill it is...well, we have been in a bunch more and i am so excited i can only do a little dance around the living room with Stacy praising the Lord! We are so glad that people love our work, as we love doing and making our hair art!
here are the treasuries lately, hope you will pop in and see them,and click on everyones pictures if you have time, there is so much talent out there!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c12b34f264b8eef8fd78c41/my-link-lovies
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c123c5a0a5a6d917a76772e/love-red-love
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c11725d264b8eef3ed86e41/ebony-skies-today
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c117487264b8eefdb1b6f41/egyptian-waters
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c0a91a068f48eef884ccb21/when-i-come-home-relax
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c0933ebab056d919bcef9ce/let-down-your-hair

Now, if we could just get one to go to the front page...HMmmmmm, we were also blessed to be featured in The Storque, Etsy's blog, yesterday! One of our antler hair sticks! WOOT
http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/etsy-finds-beach-blanket-bingo-8758/
 So we are just so excited to be getting this exposure and the love from those who are chosing our items, thank you so much!! we truly appreciate it and look forward to more traffic meaning more sales!!!
Love to you all!
Kimi

A simple suggestion to help simplify your life!!!

I don't exactly think of myself as a goddess, but i do love the simplicity and advice and love that flows from this blog...http://www.goddessguidebook.com/

"Today, your Zen Your Life project is:

Find a box. Put three things in there from your space that you no longer need.

It’s time to find it a new home, dearheart. Either send it on to a friend you know will love it, sell it on ebay, or donate it to charity.

Let your things find their purpose in their world of making someone completely & gorgeously happy… not just stuck with it.
They have a destiny too you know… and it’s not to make you miserable!"

She often has little tips that really make sense, and she helps women know they are beautiful and loved, and we love LOVE!!! handmade love, personal love, spiritual love, the world just needs more of all kinds of LOVE!

Speaking of love, we have been featured in few more treasuries, that is such a good feeling!, but this one is full of love!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c123c5a0a5a6d917a76772e/love-red-love
Hope you will stop by and check it out!! and check out the website to zen your life tips  today too, you just might find some inspiration in a place you never expected!

A peek at the inner workings of Grah-Toe Studio...

We thought perhaps some of you would be interested in the process we go through to get you your pretties for your hair! This is part of my sanding area , we do  alot alot alot of sanding! I wear a mask and safety glasses and do the major sanding  here, then it goes to hand sanding.

The wood does NOT start out looking like you see it , it looks more like this...

WE cut the wood, then lay out the forks to fit the wood grain, get the best pattern and make sure the grains are not going to weaken the fork. This part takes alot of planning and knowing of wood sometimes to get it right, and we don't always get it right!!!

IF you are interested in more of the process, part 2 is coming up next....

Love to you all, Kimi

GIve some love away, its Wednesday!

""We can't live all bright days, but one thing is true, no cloud is so dark that the sun can't shine through.
TODAY make an effort to enjoy whatever you must do..

It is an absolute, demonstrable fact that the person who really practices love---real love---rises so high above fear that it can no longer touch him. Where love is, fear cannot live. Love withers fear.""

THese are both quotes from my Positive Thoughts for The Day letter and it is what i am aiming for! to be so full of love that fear cannot immobilize me, or make me feel sick. SO full of love that no cloud can rain on my parade!
Today,  I AM making that effort, to enjoy all that i have to do...laundry, cooking, dishes, sanding hair forks, editing photos, all of it! Join in with me!
Remember that the most powerful motivation is spiritual motivation. So expose yourself to the spiritual. FOr me, the Bible, the Word of GOd  is the SPiritual motiviation that i look to for this strength and this love!

Happy WEdnesday Everyone, and be sure to give some love away today! You get more back when you give it away!!!
Stop over to kind over matter and get some inspirations from them too! 
Love to you all
Kimi

Happy Valentines Day, world!

Love is so amazing,isn't it? It gets our heart rate up,it motivates,it makes us smile. Everyday should celebrate love,not just Feb 14! Today lets share love with a neighbor,the person in front of us in line and smile at them. Sometimes love is shown through actions,such as doing the dishes or laundry. It can be expressed through words,such as "you are so beautiful" ,"I really appreciate you taking the trash out ".Gifts are often a way to say i love you,as everyone has seen or heard on commercials! But it could also be a handmade gift!

I have joined several communities of artists that focus on getting back to handmade,getting back to the personal. We are on Etsy.com , Artfire.com , Silkfair.com . They are communities full of talented and kind people who love to create and do a REALLY good job at it! We are also all very aware of being kind to our fellow humans. We would LOVE to see you there!:0)