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!!

Wood Properties Series Continues..Today is Bocote

Today we are going to continue our series about woods. I chose to do Bocote today! WE have just recently listed a hairstick made of bocote wood in our shop and it had a glass evil eye in the end of it with a red iris...it is such a cool piece of wood it made me want to share more about it with you!

Bocote wood

Ziricote^[5] and Bocote^[6] are sometimes used as a wood for making acoustic guitar backs and sides as well as drums because of thier resonant properties. It grows in Central and South America as well as Mexico. It is a fairly dense and oily wood and highly prized to woodowrkers for its spectacular colors and graining patterns that often times will form concentric circles. THe color ranges from bright gold and black to deep ochre, browns and sometimes even deep purples. It is sometimes called Mexican Rosewood, and can look much like Cocobolo in apprearance.

Bocote wood is very resistant to decay and insect manifestations. In all the reading i did i could not find anything about it being an endagered wood, it always appears in the context of being sustainably  harvested for the wood industry. Much of the previous in formation was acquired through wikipedia and several books we have on wood.

As far as other properties of this wood, there are a few websites that give information on healing, medicinal and magical qualities of woods. One site says that bocote has "strong fire energy, related to passionate love.It is also inspirationsla to the artistic and creative mind, focusing on beauty and the earth."
It certainly inspires us!
WE hope that you have learned some good stuff about this beautiful wood today and feel free to inquire with us about certain wood properties if there is something specific you are wanting to have on your hair art!

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 !!

Good response so far!

WEll, the people who have gotten the new packages so far have given us a good response! we still want to keep track as everyone gets thier new boxes and make sure that we are still adoring and spoiling you while being environmentally friendlier :D Please be sure to take our poll!!

Savings alert!

WEll, we have been doing our new packaging on several packages, mostly trying to send it to repeat customers to get thier take on it, and there may be another benefit to this...less shipping weight= less shipping costs!! THe Postal rates are going up this year, so we are trying to keep our costs and yours as low as possible!!
WE are going to start modifying our shipping fees as we figure out what everything comes to with the new packing ..so keep your eyes open, and we are anxious to hear from those of you who are getting the new packaging , how do you feel about it?!?
We appreciate you all so much!!
Love to you
Kimi & Stacy

Trying to be better and still pamper you...

We are changing the way we do our packaging this year in an effort to be more responsible with paper and carboard useage. WE still want to pamper you as you open your box :D but we are going to stop the tissue paper and try to use a box that is better sized to what you are buying.  You are still going to get a sleeping bag for your fork, but it is going to be handmade local (Our local) so we are supporting another handmade business, and if you wanted it could be reused as a gift or snack bag as well!   If you have any comments about this, good or bad, please let us know! We want to be more responsible and still leave you feeling blessed and pampered when you get your box!!
We appreciate you all so very much!!

We have a name for the new fork!

It has been so much fun hearing all the names for the newly designed fork, based on our Lily Pad hairstick. This was not an easy task to narrow it down to one name! all of the names were inspiring and beautiful, some with fabulous german folklore tales attatched to them. As we are highly influenced in our design style by the art nouveau period and love that style, we have chosen "Jugendstil" as the name for the new fork! 

 THank you all!!

 I do need to reach Zuendhuetchen now, so if you could please email us or send us a convo on etsy so we can get your information, that would be great!! 
We will be sending a special coupon to our German customers that they can use when purchasing this hairfork style in  any wood or size!
Happy New year to all!!

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!!

A contest for our German Long Haired Friends

We hope that you are enjoying your holidays so far!

We are having a beautiful holiday so far, and are busily planning our new designs to be debuted in the new year...but this new fork is special....

This hairfork has been designed specifically in dedication to our German Long hair network Friends! 

And, a special fork needs a special name, so we thought a contest would be fun! For this week, we are going to have the German LHN girls submit thier suggestions for the name of this fork , and we will choose a name on the first of the year and the winner is going to get this very first fork as a prize and gift! a $120 value!!

So what we would like to see is this:
1. leave a comment here with your suggested name, we would prefer a one to two word name please.
2. it can be in german or english.
3.please also make sure to let us know how to contact you if your suggested name is chosen, and you can do that here, through etsy convo or email if you prefer 
our email is grahtoestudio@hotmail.com

We know alot of you are out of town or on vacation so we are letting the contest run this whole week, hoping that you all tell your friends and others on the LHN about it and we get a fabulous name for this lovely fork !
There are also more photos on our facebook page here
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Grah-Toe-Studio/202833224024
and we will of course, gladly answer any questions anyone has about this fork. WE do plan to make it in any size, and already have a  pair of micros in spalted holly made and ready to go after they get their name!
and, we  have a  special coupon waiting for this fork, anyone form the German LHN will get to use any time they buy this fork design!
Good luck to everyone and Ich hoffe Sie sind zufrieden
Love to you all!
Stacy and Kimi

Merry Christmas!

 

WE figure everyone will be be busy tomorrow with family, friends and travel and so we

wanted to wish everyone a beautiful holiday and blessed travel time with loved ones!

Here are a couple pictures of the fun we had making a snow fork with all of the snow we got this week!

Merry Christmas EVERYONE!!!

Love from Stacy and Kimi

Grah-Toe Studio

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!

a little more of the story...

A little more of the tale of Grah-Toe Studios today...i left off where we were working along and doing our  art for fun..we made snowflakes out of wood every fall and used them as gifts. People would always tell us we should sell them, and we tried in different shops , and it never worked out. The timing  wasn't right :D...so after 15 years in south florida, we realized it was time to move, get away from  the crowds and the heat, no seasons to speak of....and we didn't know where to go! we didn't want to go back to MY home or HIS home, we wanted a place our very own.

SO..we took a trip and drove all over the country to see where we
wanted to go! it was a great fast whirlwhind trip around the country and through national parks, and along the way, our studio got its name! I don't know how many of you have seen the Grand Canyon, but I honestly think it should be something everyone sees in person..its unbelievable..we were in total AWE...and we are greatful that the Lord gave us the opportunity to do that and see so much of the country. We also knew we were heading towards doing our art full time eventually, and the colors and shapes in the west are SO inspiring..the desert, the rocks, the mesas, the trees, everything seemed so BIG out there!! THe rocks in Zion national park have these AWESOME grottos that are big enough to fit a small town into! we loved them.

This is where we got our studio name..we were in love with the rocks and grottos..we were Grateful..Grah To our toes. Toe . Studio Grah-Toe Studio.
SO now, you know how we got our name! it was a fabulous trip, and we ended up in Utah where we live and create today!
We are SO thankful that we found Etsy and had been working toward this for so long..now our work is evolving and growing and we are loving every minute of it! and it YOU that makes it all worth it!!
We hope you all feel the love we have for our creations when you get them!!

And, presenting, Padouk wood!

We are talking about the beautiful reddish-orange wood, Padouk or Padauk. The botanical name of this tree is Pterocarpus, and it grows in Africa, Thailand and the Andaman Islands. It is a pantropical genus of the familyFabaceae and other names it is known by are Mukwa or Narra.

Padouk wood is valued for its toughness, stability in use and of course its decorativeness. THe color is strikingly beautiful deep reddish orange to bright orange, but sunlight and time can fade it to a warn delicious brown color. SOme finishes may slow or stop the color from changing, but most woods will darken over time regardless of the finish.

Some Padouk woods are used as herbal medicines intreating skin parasites and fungal infections. I could not find an information on this wood as far as its magical properties.

Although the wood itsself is not endangered, it does grow in rainforests and some of them are considered in danger. We are still trying to get direct answers from our wood supplier about where their lumbers come from and if they are from sustainable farms, but they are not being very helpful about it and the snwers are vague. The wood industry highly values this wood and it will more than likely continue to be available as the tree itsself is not endangered.

The wood works beautifully, is light weight and has a delightful smell when being worked. It smells very sugary sweet to me, and to Stacy it smells a bit buttery. YUMMM!

It is a very beautiful wood, and is ideal for hairforks due to its light weight and decorative nature.

I hope you enjoyed learning about the beautiful padouk wood today!

Next we are going to do Lignum Vitae wood!!

Thanks so much for your interest, we love to have any comments or suggestions or extra info that you have found on each wood we do!

  

Our next wood is going to be....

Well, We have had so many requests about what wood to do next! We are going to do Padouk wood, and we are still doing a little research on it, but we wanted to get your taste buds ready for it! 

 

This is a fabulously beautiful reddish to orange wood, wonderful to work and smells like cotton candy to me when its being worked!

full details coming!!