Sweet Lavender Bake Shoppe: A Wood Brain Interview

I was really excited (still excited even now) that Christina from Sweet Lavender Bake Shoppe wanted to interview me. You know those blogs you cannot wait to show the world? The ones you kind of almost want to just hit "publish" as soon as they are done writing it. Check out her blog Sweet Lavender Bake Shoppe to read all about it.

The New Wood Brain Workshop

My New Wood Brain Workshop

I decided that it was finally time to expand my Wood Brian empire and so I started looking into what it would take to build a new workshop. After lots of research I found a great deal at Lowes on a Heartland Stratford Wood Shed For about $1000 bucks.

I talked to the guys that work at Lowes and they told me that this wood shed is pretty basic and doesn't come with roofing, paint and some other stuff. I figured that it was a good start and that I could easily customize it.

Here's a picture from last year 2011

But before I could start building the new Wood Brain Workshop the brick foundation needed to be bigger. My awesome boy friend and my wonderful dad working together were able to expand the brick foundation in just two days! I'm so lucky to have such an amazing boy friend and dad!

We got a call from Lowes the next morning and before I knew it the shed had arrived on a big pallet.

We unpacked the shed and found the directions which were not that easy to figure out, but we put out heads together and got started.

We did as much multi-tasking as possible and painted most of the panels so they could dry while we worked on getting the floor finished.

We assembled the wall panels and double checked the instructions before we installed them.

I'm so happy with how things worked out. I still can't believe that we got all four walls up on the first day. I could've have done it with the help from my dad, my wonderful boy friend and his sister.

The next morning we did some more painting and it was really starting to look good. I love it!

I built a roofing jig and made all the rafters and my wonderful boy friend installed them and worked on the roof while I was at work. I love that man!

The next thing I knew the roof was just about done and my dad and my boy friend surprised me again when they added two new skylights!

I just needed to do some minor touch ups like paint the floor and the doors and then I think it's time to move in!

I still can't believe that we got all this done so quickly. Luckily we got it all done before any rain. It did finally rain the other day and my dad and I did a detailed check for any leaks and it was completely dry - no leaks!

I really can't thank my boy friend enough for all his hard work. Did I mention that he's an awesome surfer - no really I have proof... Check out his surfing blog at http://nobadtides.blogspot.com/. 

I'm so glad that my dad and my boy friend and his sister took the time to help me out on this project, I couldn't have done it without their help.

What I've be up to since CRAFTED opened

After the final installation at crafted the booth finally took shape with paint on the walls, a cash wrap, with glass display case, and a wood cash register to top it off. Then filling the space with product really made the space take to life.

It was a huge step from where we started just a few weeks earlier...

Our booth even got a little feature in the San Pedro Today. Terry Harbuck, Meredith's mom, was running the shop durning the photos.

A few months after Crafted had opened there was a "make and take" event was planned with Etsy.  I choose to offer a wood post card make and take. The Etsy party's theme was "Wish you were here" and I figured that was a fitting product. I hand cut and lined out each postcard.

There was also some decorating involved for the party. We made paper chains and globes which we hung from the large open beamed ceilings of the old warehouse we call home.

Etsy holds 2 annual nation wide craft parties. Anyone can throw one and if your response back form the RSVP for the even is high enough Etsy will even donate crafts items to be used at the "make and take" event. The event was a huge success and our Esty Craft party at Crafted was the second largest turn out next to the Etsy headquarters in Brooklyn new york.



The booth across from us was vacant at the time so we asked to use for our make and take area for the evening. I really wanted to do something fun in the space so I built a table to work at decorated it with old post cards and maps and hung globes from the celiings. I also built a oversized wood postcard to be used as a photo booth in the space. I cut a hole for the face where the stamp was located.

We had a lot of fun people stop by our make and take booth to create one of a kind leather luggage tag identifiers and wood post cards & book marks. Here are a few of our fun make and takers.

After the Etsy party the staff at crafted ask to keep the large over sized post card so reinstalled it in a empty booth down the way from mine.

Later that month I had a lot of specials order requests like these drift wood planter with custom size card holder.

.. And these two wood be right back signs for Clay Magyk at Crafted.

..And these ten wood letter keychain to attach to jump drives for Maragrita mix studios. The attached jump drives will hold menus of local restaurants so that they're clients are be able to order from on they're own personal computer.

I even did an artist collaboration with Sire's crown eyewear.

I was always hard at work at Crafted in San Pedro.

Here are some custom wood cutouts for specialty fabric pieces for De La Luna designs at Crafted

I made a wood pie cut out & hand painted for Cutie Pie that! at Crafted

I also put a book together of the building process of our booth for Crafted to keep displayed at our shop.