Halloween 2019 - Spiderwebs and Laser Engraved Pumpkins

October 31, 2019 by Thea Starr in Videos, Custom Work, About Us

It appears that I haven’t blogged in about a year. We’ve decided to make some changes in our business. I feel like in the maker community, we’re not alone on changing stuff up this year. More on that in a future post. But there’s been a lot of action behind the scenes. If you’ve been following us a long our ride, you know we love Halloween and laser engrave pumpkins every year.

Laser cut spiderweb wreath - 6 by 6 Arts

This year we did a couple extra projects like this laser cut spiderweb wreath. It is on the delicate side so, it wasn't available as a seasonal product. Just something fun to do for ourselves.

The decorated wreath. Hand painted vintage silk flowers and toy snakes.

I also had a couple other small Halloween themed projects that I will share over on my other site. So now on to the pumpkins. It’s incredibly easy to find something you’d want to engrave. The tricky part is transforming an image into something that not only the laser understands but also translates well visually. Knowing how the negative spots will look on a pumpkin. Thankfully, John is super good at that so I toss images his way and he makes things work. This year, I chose two characters that I love and actually look and act like John and I - Gomez & Morticia Addams.

Morticia & Gomez Addams - 6 by 6 Arts 2019

Time to get my costume (Morticia) on and turn on the fog machine for the trick or treaters! Happy Halloween!

Lasers & love - Thea

Custom Wedding Pie Toppers

December 05, 2017 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

Mmmmm...pie! Wedding pie at that. We recently were commissioned to whip up some Art Deco styled pie toppers for a wedding in New York.

Engraved maple wood treated with food grade oil at the stems and painted with gold acrylic at the top. Beautiful, reusable and much better than plastic. We had a short turnaround time but we worked our magic! A fun little custom project for a late fall wedding.

I mean, c'mon... look at the flavors of the pies. How decadent! Each pie clearly deserved a beautiful topper.

Have an upcoming wedding and need some cake - cupcake - or pie toppers that aren't made from gross plastic? Shoot us a message and let's see if we can work something out!

Lasers and love - Thea

Custom Roller Derby Team Necklaces

May 02, 2017 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

If you've been following along for a bit, you know I'm a retired rollergirl. My very good friend and I founded the Jet City Rollergirls league in 2006.

It was one of my best life choices. We created a community of camaraderie and inclusion. Especially within our own "home" teams. My team is the Camaro Harem. The "Harem" celebrated a championship victory this season.

The captains wanted to give a season end gift to the team and asked me to help by creating team necklaces.

My former teammate saw the necklace I had on at a bout and thought it would be a good season end gift.

We're not huge fans of using acrylic because of the smell that it creates when it's cut. But it is a must for certain projects. I personally added chain to each necklace so the total length was approximately 20" inches. Not too long, not too short.

John designed the stacked layout with a Harem star, because it was just too long to put on one line. Plus the font was much smaller. This stacked version is easy to read and looks really great and similar to the team's current logo.

I absolutely loved this project, I love how they turned out. Of course it was close to my heart and very special.

Lasers and love - Thea

Custom Just For You

March 07, 2017 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

Well, we've made to March. High fives all around!

Behind the scenes, we've been busy cranking our custom work of all sorts. Unfortunately, nothing sharable now, but I promise we're making some awesome stuff.

Now is the time to get in those custom project requests! Have a nursery or kid's room that needs a custom name chalkboard or sign? A need to display your family's motto or last name in your family room? Need a sarcastic and/or hilarious saying engraved onto wall art for someone special or just for you? S hoot us a message and let's see if we can bring your ideas to life!

We get pretty busy during the holidays and summer months because of shows. We feel bad that we have to turn awesome projects away during those times, so I thought I'd throw that idea out at you all.

Lasers and love - Thea

Custom Company Sign - Pics for Promises

October 31, 2016 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

We recently had the great pleasure of creating a custom two layered wood sign for Pics for Promises.

A little bit about Pics for Promises (an excerpt from their site):

Pics for promises is a whimsical love-themed photography project built around the idea of giving back. We are a husband and wife team fortunate enough to have a healthy family with a safe place to live, food to eat, clean water to drink, and access to doctors. We realize this is not the case for everyone, so we are using our creativity to provide a small bit of help to those less fortunate.

Opening this website allows us to expand our reach, giving people the opportunity to purchase heart pics, and in turn give back to the community. Not only are we donating 25% of all profits from online sales to charity, we are using additional profits to fund the Street Hearts portion of our project, from which 100% of proceeds go directly to a charity of the donor's choice. Pics For Promises will also be working with local charities to sponsor events and help raise much needed funds.

Custom layered sign for Pics for Promises.

We thought it was an absolutely adorable project they've undertaken and were more than happy to create this custom sign for them.

This sign is two layers and a total of three colors. It measures 18" in diameter and 0.5" thick. Being two layers, it was one of the more uncommon sign requests we've had. Most love the minimal simplistic look of natural engraved wood. Which is absolutely lovely. But this style of layered sign gives a look of depth and splash of color that we love and find aesthetically pleasing.

We carefully placed each inner cutout piece within the wording by hand (with assistance of tweezers) and securely glued it down.

It turned out absolutely lovely and Pics for Promises posted a super cute photo of the sign being held on their Instagram account.

Fun and lovely project for a fun and whimsical company-project. Be sure to check them out!

www.picsforpromises.com

Lasers and love - Thea

Small Batch Manufacturing - Pinoy Stitch

August 16, 2016 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

While we do have our own retail line, we also do a lot of small batch manufacturing for other companies. Small batch manufacturing is a cost effective way for companies to test their product out on the market. Especially handmade makers, where many of us have other employment commitments, makers that are just starting up or like us, makers that take pride in American made products.

A great example of that is Pinoy Stitch's DIY Slide Tin Trinket Box and DIY Circle Pendants.

Pinoy Stitch - DIY Slide Tin Trinket Box

Pinoy Stitch provided us with their vision and artwork and through a small testing process we created components for their products. Personally I am a needlework fan (junkie) so I've been excited about their product development and the end result of course!

We're proud to produce components for such a great idea!

To grab a DIY Slide Tin Trinket Box or DIY Circle Pendant for yourself please visit Pinoy Stitch!

Lasers and love - Thea

(Photos by Pinoy Stitch - used with permission.)

Japanese Mon

June 14, 2016 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

We recently had a request to make some family reunion keepsakes. They really wanted to have something simple and nice that their family members would actually use and display. Rather than just another t-shirt. The asked us to engrave their family mon onto ornaments with a little commemorative message on the reverse side.

Japanese mon are the equivalent of European's family coat of arms. An emblem to represent the family. Japanese mon have great clean lines and shapes. The designs translate so well when it's engraved.

They turned out beautifully. What a great family reunion gift to give to an entire family! It was also a unique project for us. We do a lot of private label and manufacturing work as well as our retail line. It was fun to work with a family who wanted to present a thoughtful gift to their family.

Lasers and love - Thea

The Marine Mammal Center - Sausalito, California

May 11, 2016 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

Last summer we vended at a show in San Francisco. We had the opportunity to not only vend to Californians in person (which was amazing!) but happen to meet a few buyers down there too. We had the great pleasure of being contacted by The Marine Mammal Center!

I love the ocean - reclaimed wood keychain for The Marine Mammal Center

They expressed interest in our reclaimed wood keychains and hoped we could make company branded products for them. We happily accepted!!! I (Thea) grew up on an island in Puget Sound surrounded by sea life, including sea mammals so I had a personal vested interest in this project.

They had simple requests and were fantastic people to work with! Laser cut and engraved reclaimed wood keychains and magnets. Great souvenirs for a place that is now on my list of things to do next time we are in California.

If you happen to be making a trip through Sausalito be sure to stop in for a visit!

Lasers and love -Thea

A Little Party Never Killed Nobody - Custom Art Deco Cake Topper

April 15, 2016 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

First, I hate that I just quoted a Fergie song BUT it was a big song in the recent connotation of The Great Gatsby movie. It's hard to shake it.

Gatsby represents the roaring 20's with art deco architecture and design splashed everywhere. It is a long time personal favorite era of mine. Gimme that, art deco design and patterns, loud music, gold on black accents, flapper dresses and lots of liquor. Sounds like the perfect theme for a wedding! We recently had the pleasure of creating a custom cake topper for such a themed wedding.

Custom design by our customer - engraved and painted by 6 by 6

The groom had readymade custom artwork of their own so this project was a breeze. Clean angles with their initials engraved in the center. We painted it a soft gold tone and coated it with food grade wood oil.

A beautiful heirloom keepsake of their very special day.

Ah...love.

With that, I'll leave for now wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Lasers and love -Thea

Laser Cut Ferns

February 29, 2016 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

When we first started our company, we went out into our actual backyard and picked branches and leaves up for inspiration. We love where we live and are greatly inspired by the natural beauty that surrounds us. We even had a series of native Pacific Northwest plants greeting cards.

We have an abundance of various types of ferns in our yard and thought it would be fun to laser cut fern leaves. Nature really knows how to make some beautiful things!

We typically don't do much with paper products and we had the opportunity to do a little paper cutting for a special project. They are delicate but beautiful just like the real ones.

I just wanted to share that little fun project with you all since we were so impressed by how nice they turned out.

Lasers and love - Thea

Snoqualmie Falls & The Salish Lodge - Photo by Thea Starr

Family Time and Left Coast Revivals

February 09, 2016 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

For the past two years, John's sister Laura and her husband Jesse have spent Superbowl weekend with us up in Washington. It makes for an easy drive back down to Oregon on Sunday. This year we had some work to do but made time for a quick trip to the nearest water falls. They just happen to be the iconic Snoqualmie Falls. We live about 5 miles away from the Snoqualmie River and love taking out of town guests to see the power of the falls. Plus it gives us a chance to stretch our legs and get out and about before finishing up some work.

6 by 6 Arts & Left Coast Revivals Photo by John Bronleewe

Laura and Jesse recently opened up Left Coast Revivals - a well curated vintage online shop. Drool worthy photos featuring amazing finds. My sister in law has an amazing eye and great taste. Our eldest girl Jina the college student, currently aspires to have a home styled (check out their website and you can see why) like Aunt Laura's. You know, Laura is that one Aunt with impeccable style that everyone wants to be like.

In addition to their online presence they have a spot in the Curiosities Vintage Mall in Beaverton opening soon. They were in need of booth sign and a few business cards before opening.

Photo by Laura Caldwell/Left Coast Revivals

We LOVE the unique shape they chose for for their logo. Their sign is laser engraved unstained natural maple wood. Detailed with a fine outline along the entire piece to add a bit of definition and visual pop. Their cards are on a whitewashed American made cardstock paper. Beautiful to look at and fun to touch.

Xiao Long Bao at Dough Zone in Redmond, WA - Photo by John Bronleewe.

We ended our visit with an outing to consume as many xiao long bao as humanly possible. If anyone knows of a place in the Portland area that serves good xiao long bao our Oregon family needs to know!

Back to work despite the beautiful weather today!

Lasers and love -Thea

A custom two piece D20 (icosahedron) emblem we did for a DM screen our customer had. Photo courtesy from our customer.

Critical Hit

December 01, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

About a year ago when we first opened our internet doors to the world, I took the lead on ideas for products. I'm one of those people that has rushes of ideas. I am randomly spouting off "You know what would be cool..." to John while I'm totally incoherently yelling from the shower. While I enjoy that kind of thing (I used to be a full time accountant), I have a partner that is quite good with refining my ideas, but I want to make sure that he exercises his creative ideas too. He came up with Critical Hit and D&D dice ornaments.

Critical Hit - 6 by 6 ArtsWhat does Critical Hit mean? (Wikipedia Link) — Critical Hit - 6 by 6 Arts
What does Critical Hit mean? (Wikipedia Link)

John, his sister Erin, Erin's husband and a close family friend "The DM", often played together before I stole him and he moved north to Washington. When you play D&D, you commit to a certain group of people. It's a like a tight gang. Unlike Magic or my beloved FF rpg games that I am personally more familiar with, where you build your decks or skills on your own. There's a shared bond between MTG players but D&D folks take it to the next level.

Custom Critically Missed sign we did for a D&D group who had a member suddenly pass away. This will hang in their game room to remember him.

We recently did the sign "Critically Missed" for someone who had a member of his D&D group pass away suddenly. I thought it was a sweet way to remember one of their own.

We are in full holiday season mode but I just wanted to share how incredibly awesome the handful of players who have contacted us are. Whether it's been custom or readymade pieces the appreciation and love we've received has been so great. Thank you!

Lasers and love - Thea and John

Custom commemorative for Comedy Spot's 10th Anniversary 2015.

Custom Ornament - Comedy Spot (Sacramento, CA)

November 23, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

I have a friend named Tina. She's a friend of a friend actually. We met at a maker's convention a while back in Seattle. We're both retired roller girls and that convention happened to be the WFTDA's championship weekend. Tina busted out her iPad and streamed the bouts during breaks at the convention for us to watch. Hard to not like a girl who has her priorities in order. :D

Tina wanted a simple commemorative ornament for her Comedy Spot groups' 10th Anniversary. Something simple that highlighted the company's logo and anniversary.

We selected USA sourced 1/8" alder wood. It engraves beautifully and emits that nice light wood burned aroma. You'd be surprised how many people stop to smell our products at shows.

This was a welcome custom project amongst the wild ride of holiday orders. We're suckers for side projects.

Lasers and love - Thea

Heavy Metal - Retro Mechanical Labs

November 02, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

Retro Mechanical Labs (RML) from Portland, Oregon, is a long time client of John's. John has been laser engraving RML's distortion boxes for years now. They met through a series of events that are rooted with both being fans of Nine Inch Nails. RML was 6 by 6's first official client and is definitely one of our favorites. We've mentioned them before here on the blog and a few of their distortion box photos live in our gallery.

We laser engrave blank powder coated distortion boxes and panels in various depths and widths. We remove any residue from the engraving process by hand. It can be a bit tedious but completely worth the delicate effort to show off the amazing retro industrial artwork of RML's designs. Powder coating has a distinctive look that I personally developed a love for growing up with a working auto body garage in my backyard.

An overhead view of freshly engraved distortion boxes and panels for RML.

Each distortion box is built by hand. They share a lot of their process on Instagram. Building boxes to drilling holes manually. We wish we could do some custom metal cutting for them. That requires a p lasma cutter, which is on our company wish list.

We've visited the RML shop in Portland, Oregon a few times. They're always busy and have the most interesting vintage gages that find new lives in custom pieces that they create. An amazing process for amazing products.

You can see the final products and demo clips on their site.

Laser and love - Thea

Demo Sign - The Lettermate

October 30, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

A few months ago Kimberly from The Lettermate contacted us hoping we'd do a small project for her company. Some simple trade show signage. It was a simple job and the end result looked great!

We actually had the opportunity to meet Kimberly in San Francisco at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason. She was so super nice and her show display looked awesome. (I unfortunately do not have those photos handy at the moment.)

We were totally thrilled that she hit us up again for a large scale version (15" x 12") of her product for teaching purposes in her instructional classes! Oh, in case you're wondering what exactly The Lettermate is, its an awesome hand lettering tool for addressing snail mail envelopes. We will be picking up a couple for our own wedding next year. A few of you fellow Pinterest junkies might have seen The Grommet sharing info about The Lettermate.

Like our work - The Lettermate is made in the USA!

We love projects like this! It doesn't hurt that the lady behind The Lettermate is pretty stellar too!

Lasers and love - Thea

Coming Soon From Our Friends At Bread And Badger!

September 16, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

As I've mentioned before, one of the best side effects of being in the laser cutting business is doing work for friends! We're so excited to share a couple projects that we recently did for our friends at Bread and Badger!!!

Bread and Badger's sandblasted mugs, glassware, jewelry and gifts - feature some really fun designs. Probably most notable is their "I like it here" state(s) design. I actually bought John a Washington State "I like it here" travel mug. He drove up from Oregon every weekend for a few months before we got engaged. As a couple, John and I have a shared love for their work. Also, the family behind the company are some pretty cool people.

They've also been a part of the PNW maker scene for quite sometime. I've often vended at the same shows with them with my other business. Their brand is very familiar to me and my friends. I know at least 3 people with the narwhal glass. Because everyone needs a narwhal glass! I considered it a complete honor when Bread and Badger asked us to manufacture a couple new products for them! Pendants, ornaments and magnets! Featuring many of the their most popular designs.

We laser cut and engraved their designs into this beautiful lightweight (fantastic smelling) USA alder wood. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for their launch on their site. Also this is a great opportunity for me to remind everyone that while we can do engraving on glassware, we prefer not to. It's just not our area of expertise. We recommend Bread and Badger for your custom drink ware needs. They are top notch.

Lasers and love - Thea

Game On

July 07, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

Well, I wrote out a great blog post and Comcast crapped out on me and didn't save that amazing post. Ahh, I guess it wasn't meant to be. Alas, I wanted to share what we've been up to lately. While I do wish it was gaming. (I'm personally eagerly awaiting the Final Fantasy 7 remake!!!) But we've been producing new works as well as custom items. Like these large laser cut and engraved chess and game piece wall decor:

They turned out pretty great. They were hand painted and laser cut and engraved. A fairly simple design but really awesome.

Speaking of games...have I mentioned that we have a new Critical Hit design? In addition to our original Script style we now offer our Modern Block style for our Critical Hit signs. Available in ten colors! I'm a little sweet on the red:

Well back to work! We picked up a handful of beautiful reclaimed maple wood sheets that are calling to be laser cut and engraved into something awesome.

Lasers and love (8 bit heart love), Thea

Update From 6 by 6 Headquarters

June 17, 2015 by Thea Starr in About Us, Custom Work

We've been armpit deep in domestic and custom order life the past two weeks. Our fellow parents know it's the last days of school time of the year. Which are often hectic. This year we had a graduate of the Class of 2015 to add to our event list.

Our entire family right after our oldest son's graduation commencement ceremony.

We've had many custom requests for cake toppers which we haven't offered any readymade. So many other companies offer standard whimsical - feminine fonts and designs that we've been creating our own unique take on them. Even for our son's graduation cake:

We have a handful of exciting news tidbits coming up over the next few days, so stay tuned!

Lasers and love -Thea

Mom and Pop workshop

May 19, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work

John and I spent our weekend putting together a rush order. Laser engraving and tying hundreds of tags for a PR company that represents a liquor company. They are the tags that are placed around the neck of the bottles.

The logo is amazing and the tags turned out awesome. The tags are engraved on both sides and we hand tied each tag so they are ready for use. For jobs like this John and I are like an assembly line and we crank stuff out.

While we love creating our own original designs but doing corporate branding jobs are quite fun and fuel our OCD tendencies.

Lasers and love, Thea

Ugly Baby Shower Art and the great people behind it

May 06, 2015 by Thea Starr in Custom Work, Stockists

It's no secret that we manufacture items for Ugly Baby Shower Art. Unique floss holders, greeting cards, ornaments and wall art signs. However, the truly unique product that carries the shop's name is shower art.

Ugly Baby Shower Art - Roller skating unicorn embroidery floss organizer.

What is shower art. Read this. And this. You're going to want to put that on your resource list for gift giving ideas for the person that has everything.

Recently, a big tutorial site posted a tutorial for a how to make shower art. When something so unique is invented, it's bound to be copied. The hope is it wouldn't be exactly like the original and a different take on it would be produced. In my opinion that tutorial failed doing that. However, the amazing couple behind Ugly Baby had a brilliant response to the tutorial. Many fellow makers have shared this and we'd like to do the same here.

While She Naps - Abby Glassenberg : WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE MAKES A TUTORIAL FOR YOUR SIGNATURE PRODUCT: A CASE STUDY OF SHOWER ART

Lasers and love - Thea