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 !

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

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 

Already New Arrivals are Available!!!

WE have already been able to get back to some regular stock building and today we listed several new items!

 Our poll showed an overwhleming group of you want to see more forks with no decorations on them, so we are going to aim at doing that for you, and probably a few with inlays that we have been wanting to do.

This is one of the larger sets of Ice Hairtanas that was really taking sometime, but it is SO worth it! These are just stunning every time i see a new one completed i am speechless! I might have to see if i can afford one of these for me...:D

We will be listing more new forks over the weekend, some of them will have decorations as they were already decorated, but we promise to offer more with nothing but the beauty of nature on them!
We appreciate you all so very much, thank you for taking the time to take our poll, so we know what you love and what you are looking for. And thank you, of course for your continued love of our art, we are so blessed to be doing what we love and seeing it in all the action pictures you send, makes our hearts soar!
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!

New year, New look

As we have started a new year, and started with some new sculpted designs for our hairfork line, we wanted to move that new look into our shop as well.  DO what you love, love what you do. Thats what we want you to see!

we have gotten our new banner up in the  shop and would love to have you come see our new clean fresh look! we LOVE it and hope you do too! we wanted a fresh new direction and less words..which our wonderful designer accomplished in a heartbeat after we described our vision. Please stop by and let us know what you think too!  we would love your comments here, on etsy or our facebook fan page too!

Rejuvenated and infused with creativity!

WE were finally able to take some time off this week, after no vacation for over a year, to rest our hands and brains after working through the holidays! WE went to see my Aunt and used her home in Nevada as a base camp to play and see a few local tourist spots...The Hoover Dam...

Oatman Arizona, an old mining town with a cool touristy twist! The Burrows are now allowed to wander the town wherever they please, and they are fed by the tourists! it was great fun for me, as i love animals. The shops are all quiant with lots of antiques, wild west themes, biker themes and Route 66 fame. 

Some of the wild life at the Hoover Dam was Terrifying :D

THe landscape down south is amazingly beautiful, i am always amazed at the rocks, the colors and the shapes of the rocky peaks....i love the desert. Its sunsets are stunning, and it inspires me to my soul!

The Virgin River Gorge is between Arizona and Nevada, and quite a 13 mile drive! the pictures cannot capture the vastness , i tried to get some other cars in there for perspective...it makes it hard to drive too, you want to look everywhere!! this is actually the very west end of the grand canyon gorge...

SO we got to visit with family, relax a bit, and see soem wonderful sights! we also had some brainstorming time as we drove and listened to a book on CD...

We hope you will take our poll, its one of the questions we came up with for new designs this year!!

Hope you enjoyed our little tour, and more pictures are availble if you visit our Facebook page !!

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

My first Curated Front Page Treasury~~

I love to do treasuries! i joined a treasury group, and we make lots of treasuries, our goal, of course to be on the Front Page of Etsy! but also to have fun and promote other artists!
well, this treasury was not one i did under my team guidlines, it was a random pounce on shops with no sales and i wanted to pick the most unrelated items i could! well, it was on the FP on saturday and i didn't even know it!! and , i am so glad , several of the items have sold! WHOOHOOO!!
it is a real thrill to have an item on the FP as well as to have a treasury I made on the FP, WOW!
Congrats to all the great artists in this group, including:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SquidBox
http://www.etsy.com/shop/castawayshall
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SimpleShapes
http://www.etsy.com/shop/itsastitch
http://www.etsy.com/shop/littlebrownpen
http://www.etsy.com/shop/HeartfeltEmbroidery
http://www.etsy.com/shop/muddywheelstudio
http://www.etsy.com/shop/andrewsreclaimed
http://www.etsy.com/shop/uncommoncreatures
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BlackBaroque
http://www.etsy.com/shop/StravaMax
http://www.etsy.com/shop/bluebirdheaven
http://www.etsy.com/shop/DannyRoberts
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BugUnderGlass
http://www.etsy.com/shop/velvetmechanism
http://www.etsy.com/shop/angelydia
Hope you will check out these fellow etsians and thier really cool art!
Love to you all
Kimi

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!

The art show that will never be...

It all began On Friday...welll, this part of the story did anyway. WE have been needing a new tire on the car for sometime, only one, the other 3 were replaced within the last year and you know how tires go, one dies here or there and so we needed one, and since we were off to  the art show on Saturday with the car loaded we figured, it was time.  No problem, i took the car over and got a new tire and they rotated them for me as well. Great, go fill the tank, go home to pack the car! YIPEEEEEEEEEE we are going to do so great at this show! hot weather, long hair ladies, and our hair forks and sticks would rescue them from the heat!!! I was so excited and feeling really good about it all. We had been over producing products for a couple weeks, and had lots of new beauties to show and sell. I had picked up several packing tips over the last few years from various places, and we had gotten everything prepared the night before. Ou tent canopy and its weights were ready. The tables are in the car, all we have to do is put our boxes in in the morning.

The show was in Salt Lake City. We happen to live about 160 miles east of SLC. The show set up was to begin at 6 A.M....yes, i see your brains calculating..we had to get up at 2;30 A.M. to pack the car, have enough coffee and get on the road. No problem. Alarm is set, but Stacy has always had the uncanny ability to wake himself a few minutes before the alarm goes off, so we were awake without the buzzer, which was nice. the coffee pot had been prepped the night before as well, we had coffee. We were worried about driving this time of day because of animals in the road, but allowed extra time to be slow and cautious.
We got packed, into the car and prayed over our trip as is our custom. WE asked the Lord to protect us and to allow for a great day. Some how that was answered, i think because we are alive. We are OFFF!!!!
We are listening to a book on CD, its a great book by the way, Watership Down, by Richard Adams. Its about rabbits, but is about life too and its very entertaining. Its a long book and we were looking forward to the drive for this, we were on disc 7 of 14, right at the exciting part where Hazel-Rah gets shot...you'll have to go find out the rest of that tale for yourself.
We were more than halfway there, everything going good, when we spot a deer in the road.

WE both saw it and we slowed as well as swerved a little, she was facing the opposite side of the road so we were hoping she would bolt that way as we slowed. ( let me tell you a quick thing, when we moved here everyone told us animals on the road are a big problem, and out here they are big, deer, elk, moose. They can kill you, come through the windshield kicking, squish you to death, or more frequently people swerve to miss them, overcorrect, roll the car and get hurt that way. The advice was BRAKE don't swerve, a little hit is better than a roll-over) SO actually it was more of an evasive move than a swerve, thinking surely she would stay there, run away or saunter off....well, turn and bolt is what she did,  she suicided into our NEW TIRE! No kidding, she turned and rammed us. we pulled off the road shaken but not harmed,the deer was gone. It was about 5:30 A.M., in a dark deep canyon in the mountains between towns in rural UT. there is no cell phone service to be had. Did you hear that?!?!  Cell phones do not help when you are in a canyon and crashed!

we start to put our flashers on, and being a glorious summer saturday morning there are lots of people on this road heading to the hills lake for fishing......OH no, a truck pulling a trailer,...we need help, we are standing out side the car hoping to flag someone down to drive to the top of the canyon and call highway patrol for us...people don't stop to help, even if you are waving your arms. This guy didn't even look at us, or the road evidently, because he hit the poor deer again...his truck cleared it but his little trailer did not. ThumpThumpThumpthimpthimmmm....now HE is on the other side of the road, distressed and the deer is still laying in the road.
(is there a limit on how long a blog post can be i wonder...)
Stacy walks over to make sure they are ok, while i am making sure other drivers slow before they get there by blinking our lights, evidently people don't look at emergency flashers on crashed cars by the side of the road either...The other folks are fine , they did not see us or the deer. Thier phone has a cell phone booster and it can't get a signal either. 

Stacy and the other  man drag the deer off the road. His trailer axle is totaled, but the truck cleared the deer and they are fine, they move thier camping stuff into the truck. A few other drivers have now stopped , and someone has agreed to call the police at the top of the canyon. What a boon that we had both our cell phones charged! what a great idea to get a new tire for a deer to aim at! WHOO HOO ! we are having fun now......

Its almost light out, the traffic is amazingly heavy. One officer arrives and goes to the other guy first, not to us. I have neglected to tell you, our car is undriveable and bleeding profusely. the transmission is busted open, the drivers side door will barely open, the headlight is smashed, the whole front corner is severely smashed. WE are the ones who had the accident, please come and talk to us!!!!! both officers that arrived went to the truck first....
SOOOooooo, we wait. finally they get to us, we do our report, licesnse,registration,insurance please over and over over, tow truck driver arrives.....so sorry, we do this all day long, all year long, you are lucky to be alive and not hurt. OK Lord, Thank you....

The town we are going to tow you to is Heber...its the only town here, and its saturday morning. Oh, and by the way, Heber doesn't have a car rental place, neither do they have taxis or buses. SO sorry. No ,we don't know anyone going back to your town.  They tow us to the yard and lock up the car, and we call the insurance company (and the art show to let them know our booth will be empty and we must forfeight our fee for the day..GAH.) Yes, she at the insurance company tells me, there is no available help for you there, so sorry.

OK, so Stacy and i begin to walk through town from the autobody shop lot, in our-not-meant-for- walking-shoes-and-clothes-for-art-shows wondering what we are going to do. Surely there is something...
WE go over to the last rumored place that a bus may stop occasionally....perhaps we can get a bus home to get the other car and come get our stuff. Our stuff, that we make a living off of, packed into and left in the crushed car.....its about 7 A.M now...Long day so far...

Noone in the corner "HUB" ever heard of a greyhound going through there, no we don't know anything. Do you have a phone book we can borrow? at least now our phones work. I call every car rental place, all of which are in the NEXT town over, about 30 more miles, noone delivers, picks up or has anything available, So sorry. Remember those commercials " ENterprise, We come to you..*small print* unless you are in a small town in Utah and desperate, then we don't. SO sorry."  WE have money with us, we have a card we can use to get the car, we have the means, the cash, jewelry to give you , we can pay! SO sorry...

SO, we are now on high gear creative tryng to think of what to do. We know noone we can call. There is a car dealer in Heber who also has a place in Roosevelt, maybe they need to take something back and we can ride...they are not open on saturday until later, maybe, if they come in. .....We have to hitch a ride home. WHAT?!?! We have to hitch a ride home......floods of old movies, things Dad told you never to do, horror stories of the CSI hitchikers found dead, stranded, mutilated.......But we really had no other option, than walking 100 miles so we prayed again, got a piece of cardboard, which should have been easy, but they had JUST gotten everything into the dumpsters and the truck JUST came and emptied it and there is not a scrap of cardboard in the store, but lets see if we can empty a box for you...thank you so much.

 We make a Roosevelt sign and start walking, begging every car that goes by for help. Nope. we walked about 2 miles, settling into a pattern of hearing the cars, turning with our sign to plead.....and a driver pulls over. HALLELUJAH! by now, i don't care about those CSI episodes, they can drop me off wherever they want i just couldn't believe i was going to have to walk 100 miles and was SO happy. THe blessed angel who stopped was a young man named Abe, and  he said," You guys are clean and had the look of expectancy that someone should help you, i knew you weren't used to living like this , you really needed help!"  he was only going half way, but it would help. YES, very much thank you!

SO we ride with Abe, Stacy in the front me in the back seat crying,...out of relief? gratefuleness to Abe? exhaustion? sore feet? joy over A/C? Desperation? i don't know, probably all of it....But we are safe and not harmed and God is good, He sent Abe. Thank you so much, you helped us more than you will ever know.
WHen we get to his destination we profusely thank him, get his card and give him ours, take our sign and trekk out again. Now we are half way home, and dropped off at the bottom of the hill.....its 9:30 am and we thank the Lord for good cloud cover, because it is hot and we have only a little water left in the bottle we got at the place where they have nothing else available....
we start the same turning and pleading again, and we talk and walk, we found 2 quarters, lots of bones by the road, look at that cloud shape......we are almost to the ONLY rest area on this road for a hundred miles, literally, and i said to Stacy, if noone stops by the time we are near there i need to get to that vending machine. I had no breakfast but a few bites of an apple muffin and coffee since 2 ;30 am......any kind of fuel will be welcome.
all of a sudden a large blue car turns around....with a very elderly couple and thier dog.....they stop and step out and say,   now pay attention this is a turning point in my life,
 " us 2 old goats couldn't let another 2 old goats keep walking in this heat, where you headin'?"
Well, my joy at the ride was covered by being called an old goat for the first time in my life, and then quickly covered again by the fact that i FEEL like a VERY old goat, probably DO look like one and will be anything, if they will let us sit in thier old floaty lincoln and have a ride...Thank you Lord, for Old goats....it was a huge favor they did us, as they were on thier way to water thier property in the other direction and town was 50 miles back, they said "we never had no money so this is our way of helping in the world"...again, Thank you Lord, for the angels you have sent to our aid.  ANd why is our dog behaving, they said?  she never behaves around strangers and always barks her head off....not one bark, and lots of kisses from the pup later, we are home safe. We give them a box of snowflakes as thanks as they would not take gas money, and they were off to do thier watering...

We are home. Sunburned, walked over 4 miles with a cardboard sign, in pretty shoes meant for sitting and selling hair forks in, Stacy in shoes also not meant for walking.....we go in the house and our pups are very glad to see us 10 hours early.
We need to change and get back to our car...do we go now or rest a bit? lets sit for just a minute, no lets go, no lets sit......an hour later we both wake up, change and get back in the car to go get our stuff....
Well, the good news is that we know now that we are NOT supposed to be doing art shows, that was our 3rd try and they were consecutively worse outcomes (at least at Parma, Jen and Jerry, NOTHING happened. never thought i would be happier for NOTHING to happen) and we are not sure if we are keeping the brand new canopy and weights to go with it or selling it...perhaps we will use it when we are camping as shade....

The day after Monday....

The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.

There is a time to let things happen and there is a time to make things happen. Hugh Prather
Love to you all,Kimi