Stem

Recently we had a great opportunity to do some custom work for Stem a company based in Millbrae, California. Stem creates solutions that are changing the way energy is used and distributed. More about the amazing things they do are available to read here. Pretty fantastic.

We were asked to create a large company sign for their corporate headquarter's office. They chose bamboo as their material of choice for the sign. The results were fantastic. 

Photo by Stem, Inc. 

Photo by Stem, Inc.

We're tickled to see our work out in the wild. But this one is a little bit more special due to the company it was for. 

Lasers and love - Thea

The Starr Flower

Okay, it's no secret that I (Thea) have another company that has indulged my borderline crazy love for vintage kimono fabrics. I love that I can bring old fabrics back to life.  When John and I discussed purchasing a laser to go into business together, the little hamster wheel in my head immediately started churning up ideas for products for my other company. Because, you know, it's always about my fabrics...first....always.

The Starr Flower is the first project to come to fruition from the long list of my ideas. 

The Starr Flower - An Original By Thea Starr & 6 by 6 Arts

The aptly named Starr Flower is based on the Chinese Bellflower. When your last name is Starr I think it's just assumed you love everything with stars on them. This is no exception. 

The Starr Flower - An Original By Thea Starr & 6 by 6 Arts

It's a combination two things that I love, vintage kimono fabrics and walnut wood. Maple is available too but I love dark walnut woods. I did a little doodle that John translated into laser language and we laser cut out American maple and walnut woods.

We tend to do a lot of larger pieced works so we loved trying our hands at smaller personal items. Which we have a few more of up our sleeves. Stay tuned for those. 

Lasers & love - Thea

Customer: Ugly Baby Shower Art on CreativeLive's blog

When we started our business almost a year ago, we had no idea the exciting and unique projects that were ahead of us. 

Some of the most fun projects have come from Ugly Baby Shower Art. As you can see a perfect example of said fun in the above photo. 

Rosalie - the potato loving genius did a little Q & A on CreativeLive's blog today. She called us the coolest laser cutters on the planet. *dusts off shoulders* 

Ugly Baby is half of the awesomeness of a fine Pike Place Market Shop establishment called UglyBaby and LaRu. We highly recommend stopping by. Do it, you won't regret it. 

Lasers and love - Thea

Chihuly Garden and Glass

Can I be honest? I almost crapped my pants when Chilhuly Garden and Glass placed an order with us. We've been in business under a year still and we're still doing research for the best suppliers. We did have some trials and errors with this order. Mainly finding quality hardware in large quantities and a dependable supplier. 

For this order, we used reclaimed wood that we found at Skagit Building Salvage in my "second" hometown of Mount Vernon, WA. Beautiful oak wood that laser engraves like butter as you can see in great detail of Dale Chihuly's work. His artwork that we received (from his excellent staff) was meant to be laser engraved. These turned out so great. The detail is amazing.

This was our first large batch order. Each keychain received hands on attention. Painting, cleaning and hardware attachment. 

As any business starting out we definitely learned a few lessons and know how we can handle orders like this more efficiently and have since applied those to subsequent and current orders. Custom colors were an initial concern, but through this order we discovered we are capable of offering limitless color options. We also learned that John is the master of creating a well made jig for large batch lasering. 

It's an honor to contribute products to an amazing local establishment. It also means a lot that they sourced local manufacturers. Keeping it really Northwest. 

Look for these at the Chilhuly Garden and Glass gift shop!

Lasers and Love - Thea

Will you be my Palentine?

2015 opened with a stream of custom work requests for us.  We recently created a custom "Happy Palentine's Day" sign for a customer.

Our customer throws an annual "Palentine's Day" party for her friends. Which is a totally awesome idea!

There's still a bit of time left to have a custom love sign made for your sweetie or for your friends for Valentine's Day. Just shoot us a request if you're interested. 

Lasers & Love - Thea

Custom Trade Show Display Pieces - Melanie Casey

Since our inception last May, we had a specific business plan about what products we wanted to provide. What we didn't plan on was the great opportunities we've had to manufacture customized items for fellow makers. 

Recently we had a request for a more elaborate display piece. Melanie Casey is fine jeweler  based in Boston Massachusetts. She is participating in the NYNow trade show later this month and needed some display signage for her booth display. 

Her logo is simple and quite elegant.  The feathered tail required fine laser work. 

Gorgeous detailing that suits her line. It was a fun project for us. As well as great discovery into a fellow maker's fine work. 

Lasers & Love - Thea

Custom stuffs and 1980's note folding!

Hi there! We've been doing all sorts of fun things behind the scenes here.  For example some really awesome custom pieces.

I've also decided to get weird with packing invoices in packages. I hope someone gets a giggle out of my rad 1980's style. 

Sadly, I only amused myself. John was homeschooled and my kids are far too young to even understand the strategic art of note passing. 

Speaking of kids, our eldest boy turned 18th on December 5th. We now have two "adult" children. So surreal. Yet a step closer to empty nest status. AKA eating non kid friendly foods status. One can only eat so much pasta.  Well, you know... :D

Lasers & love - Thea

Motobunny

A few months ago we had the pleasure with working with Christa Collins - lead singer of the new band Motobunny. She and I share a mutual friend that was kind of enough to spread the word of my new business adventure.  Christa wanted some large belt buckles with the band's name on it.  As well as ring name bars. John arranged some mirrored acrylic for the belts.

Screen cap from Motobunny's Instagram.

Motobunny

You can see them in action through out the their first music video: Click to watch.

For those of you who know me from my roller derby days, you can guess I love their outfits in the video. 

Lasers & Love - Thea

Metal?

We get a lot of questions about what we can actually do with our laser in regards to materials.  A basic list of things we can cut and engrave are listed on our custom services page. One thing that is asked about often is metal. Can we cut metal? Unfortunately no, not with the type of laser we have. Can we engrave it? Absolutely!

For example, John has been engraving guitar petals for Retro Mechanical Labs for a couple of years now. 

Retro Mechanical Labs Electron Fuzz Custom Guitar Pedal

We picked up these anodized aluminum travel cups at Costco yesterday to show what we can do with our laser on metal. (And to have on hand and fill up with tons of coffee in the upcoming holiday show season!) John tested out our header logo on it and they turned out great. 

Oh we're fancy.

Another small project customized pet ID tags. Our fur babies needed new ID tags so we whipped these up.

Customized pet ID tags.

Our fur babies have fancy ID tags.

Basically, the possibilities are endless for projects in regards to metal engraving. Cups, tags, plaques, labels... the list goes on. If you have more question about metal engraving shoot us a note and we'll back to you.

 - Thea

Laser engraved QR code prototype

Since our inception we've had a plethora of queries about things we can do with our laser. We've made a handful of prototypes since we opened up shop using various materials. 

Today John whipped up a prototype for a QR code label for a customer. With one pass of the laser over the label a clear tester QR code was achieved. Wanna guess where the QR code takes you. :)

-Thea

handmade. la conner

One of the biggest surprises we've had after buying our Epilog Laser, was being approached by a handful of our fellow artists to do packaging and business related items for their businesses.  Oddly, that wasn't a consideration with our original business plan. It's definitely been a really fun learning experience and something we really enjoy.

handmade. la conner is one of those companies. Now to start I will admit that I am a wee bit biased for the following reasons. Number 1: Robyn makes THE best lotion balls. Period. I love them they work really well. I'm like an unsolicited walking advertisement for them. She makes other really great items that I can praise too. But the lotion balls are my personal favorite.  Number 2: I had the great pleasure of being next to Robyn at her very first Urban Craft Uprising show with my other company. She was fresh and new on the scene. I was really impressed with her effort and attitude. It was no surprise to me to witness the great growth she's had. Number 3: Her brick and mortar store is in La Conner, Washington. I was born and raised on Northeast Whidbey Island. La Conner is just a hop skip and a jump away from there and it's absolutely beautiful. Robyn's shop compliments the beauty of the town. 

We recently created her new laser engraved business cards on 140 weight cardstock that is made in the USA. 

handmade. la conner

We hope that she will give out many as she's getting a bit of attention from Martha Stewart's American Made contest. We've been voting for her and you can too by following this link. 

Lasers & love - Thea