Game On

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:

Custom Phoenix Shield

Black and White Knights. 

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 

The Handmade Showroom at Pacific Place in Seattle

One of my old 9-5 corporate job workday haunts is Pacific Place in Downtown Seattle. I often had lunches with clients and coworkers there. I might have ditched work early to see a movie once or twice too... It's an upscale shopping center that also has an assortment of restaurants and a cinema on the third floor. Starting this weekend Pacific Place will host the inaugural opening of The Handmade Showroom!

The fine folks from Pacific Place and Seattle Handmade have joined forces to create this awesome bi-monthly pop-up shop. The Handmade Showroom at Pacific Place Pop-up Shops will be held every 1st and 3rd weekend (Friday - Sunday) of the month June through October 2015. We are so fortunate to have been one of the first artists to vend at The Handmade Showroom. We will be offering, small versions of our laser cut wood signs, Washington State mini chalkboards and a selection of our wood magnets. 

It's so incredibly exciting to have a handmade shop among the ranks of upscale stores in downtown Seattle. We're absolutely thrilled to be apart of this great event! If you happen to be out and about in downtown Seattle this weekend please be sure to stop by The Handmade Showroom. Drag your dad along! (Our Beer Me signs will be available at the pop-up shop, grab him one and then go grab a beer with him!) If you can't make it this weekend be sure to mark your calendar for the future days the pop-up shop will be open. 

Lasers and love - Thea

Update From 6 by 6 Headquarters

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 Gucci -Laser Cut Wood Cake Topper

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

Lasers and love -Thea

Pacific Northwest Lifer - Keychains Update

When we opened our business doors about a year ago this month, we had a plethora of ideas that we wanted to bring to fruition. Aside from my ninjas, my Pacific Northwest Lifer logo was first on my list. I wanted to put Pacific Northwest Lifer onto everything. While the rest of our country is pretty great and beautiful too, I was raised at sea level among towering evergreen trees with rugged mountain ranges in the distance. This is home for me.  We happened upon some reclaimed wood and created our original designed PNWLifer keychains. 

Since it's been a year, we decided to update the look of our very popular PNWLifer keychains and added two more designs!

All of the new and improved designs are available in our shop. We hope you like the new look and the new added designs. There are more in development too! 

Thanks so much for all the PNW love we've received this past year!

Lasers and love - Thea

8 bit love

We shared these sweet hearts a few weeks back on our Instagram. We had them at the Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Spring Sale too which many found homes in Portland. (We love you Portland!) So we had make more! 

Although they are styled in the 8 bit aesthetic, they actually take a bit of engraving time. As you can see that they are engraved all over with exception of the the "shine bubble". 

The gamer geeks in John and I couldn't resist continuing down the path of our nod to fun games we've played in our lives. There will definitely be more coming soon too!

Until then, be sure to pick up your own 8 bit hearts! 

Lasers and love, Thea 

Mom and Pop workshop

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

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

Weekly Family Menu

I just want to thank everyone you gave us input on our weekly family menus! We weren't able to accommodate all of the suggestions. (We're developing a shopping list companion for the Weekly Menu chalkboards.) 

Pictured above is a full sample board with the super strong magnets attached. We decided to keep things simple with this board. Our personal one is much like this. We decided to leave plenty of space for writing. That decision was made because we often write down multiple meals for the day. Most people don't cook multiple meals daily but just in case you do, you have room to write. 

We selected six colors (check out that goldenrod!) and four unique fonts. You won't be able to find fonts like that in a craft store! 

I just want to say a little bit about the magnets we chose. THEY ARE RIDICULOUSLY STRONG. They might look tiny but these suckers really stick. 

We do offer customization for these too! You can add whatever title or name you'd like (within 24 characters) for an additional fee. Otherwise, our stock ones simply say "Family Menu" on top. 

We hope these find their way into homes that need help keeping organized or homes with kids who ask that day in and day out question to their parental unit "What's for dinner?".

Lasers and love - Thea 

Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Spring Sale Pick Up Purchase

Whew, that's a mouthful! Next week we will be vending at Crafty Wonderland's Super Colossal Spring Sale event at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. It's a one day only sale! Just in time for Mother's Day or gift buying for a friend's upcoming birthday/graduation/wedding/insert awesome life event here/or just because. 

We'd like to offer to those who are planning on attending the show preordered pickups at the show. That way you can secure the items you'd like (we did sell out of quite a few things at the last Crafty Wonderland) and have them reserved for you and ready for pick up at the show! AND if you preorder you'll get one of our awesome and super popular Pacific Northwest Lifer magnets for FREE as thank you for preordering and stopping by the show! 

How it works: 

Add the items you'd like to purchase to your cart. 

When prompted to during check out enter the coupon code: cwspringsale 

You won't be charged for shipping but if you're a state of Washington resident we do need to charge you sales tax for the preorder purchase.

That's it! We'll have your items prepackaged and ready to go when you stop by our booth (#165) at Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Spring Sale 11am to 6pm. 

The coupon is good today through May 5th at 11:00pm PDT. 

We're super excited for the show. We'll be debuting a few new laser cut goodness and will have sales on a select few items. Hope to see you there!

Lasers and love - Thea

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

Process: Crowdsourcing input for our new Family Menu chalkboard

When developing products it's so easy to default to your own likes and needs for something. Our rule for us, we only make it if we like it. Sounds easy enough right? Liking things is easy when it comes to something in your taste and style. But how about functionality? Personally, I tend to gravitate to things that serve a specific function(s). One of the most functional and necessary things we have in our home is our family menu chalkboard. Years ago I bought a blank piece of 12" x 12" chalkboard, some super strong magnets and a chalkboard pen from my favorite local craft store and created my own weekly menu board. My children are like robots when they come home after school and they automatically ask "What's for dinner?". Which would be fine to respond to if I only had one child or if I didn't work out of my home where my kids just burst into my workspaces (no matter what I am doing - usually on the phone or in the middle of a reply for custom work. I've actually typed in the word "chicken fried rice" to a custom order reply because my train of though got derailed. 

I remedied that problem with my homemade menu board. My kids know to just go look at the board and see what's for dinner that night and the nights to follow for that matter. You know, in case they want to invite 20 of their friends over for dinner. There are a few flaws about my homemade menu board. First off, the days of the week are never evenly spaced because I'm not a robot. I often have to squish things in with tiny handwriting. This is not good for my OCD. Secondly, this is a petty one, I have to rewrite the days of the week. I would like to just clean off the board and have a blank template for the next week. Rather than recreating the whole thing over and over again. It's bad enough that I have to create weekly meal ideas, give me less tedious things to deal with! So we did. With the magic of a laser! 

Family Menu Chalkboards - 6 by 6 Arts

Look at that beautiful ready to go template!!! These are just work in progress samples. We're testing colors and font styles. One sample not pictured we did in a "gothic" font that says "Addams Family Menu".  A very good friend of mine actually requested one too and we made one for them with their family name across the top. We will be adding that customization as an option once we list this item for sale. 

Close up view of the engraving on the family menu chalkboard.

So here's where we need your input dear friends. For something like this would you want to hang it up in your kitchen up on a wall or cabinet? Or would you want to have magnets on the back so you can attach it to your refrigerator? The trouble with magnets is that many people have stainless steel refrigerators that magnets won't stick to. Also many of us already reserve the front of the fridge for other reminders and pizza coupons. So let us know what your preference is!

Lasers and love - Thea

Really late in the day weekend recap

John & I headed north to my old hood to do a supply run and other business stuff this past weekend. Whenever we head north we make a pit stop at Skagit Building Salvage. It's a great resource for the random building supply. Everything from cast iron bathtubs, stained glass windows, doors and so much more. 

John checking stuff out.

We often find great pieces of reclaimed wood for our work. It's truly a treasure hunt.  Sparks often start to fly and we end up walking away with a load of awesome random goodness.

Random find - old RC Cola cans with baseball players on them.

Skagit Salvage is also a little sentimental for me. Many moons ago my dad had a shared auto & engine repair shop directly across the street. I used to roam that area like every good tomboy would. That part of Mount Vernon, Washington has always had a industrial flavor to it. But in high contrast only a few miles away is the local famed Tulip Festival. Which we had a to make a pit stop at.

Skagit Valley Tulip Festival - 2015 (Roozengaarde)

We ended our day by leaving Whidbey Island (my home island). "Oddly" inspiration for new works seem to happen when I have a few moments on the rock. Expect more Pacific Northwest Lifer themed items in the very new future. 

Whidbey Island 

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

CreativeLive SEO for Etsy rebroadcast today and tomorrow!

Not too long ago John and I were apart of the studio audience for a CreativeLive class that our friend Marlo taught. The topic was on SEO for Etsy. AND IT'S BEING REBROADCAST TODAY AND TOMORROW!!! (April 3 -4, 2015) Also it's on sale if you miss the rebroadcast. SO MUCH CAN BE LEARNED!!!

Here are a few screen shots of John, our friend Cathy of Catshy Crafts and myself from the show. 

Screenshot from Marlo's class. We all had a really great time and learned a lot about back links, keywords and alternative selling sites. 

Screenshot from Marlo's class. Unfortunately, THERE ISN'T a screen shot of Marlo (she's super cute and totally adorable!) But we were trying to screen cap silly photos of ourselves. This one isn't silly. Cathy is super cute here and John and I look studious and official with our binders. 

Screenshot from Marlo's class. (This is more like it...) Thea throwing up a gang sign while Cathy and John quietly mock her in their heads. (Kidding!) 

Screenshot from Marlo's class. I do jibber jab for a few minutes though. I'm very passionate about watermarking all of your photos! And Pinterest, I'm a junkie. 

Like I said, we actually learned a boatload of stuff and have implemented what we learned in a quite a few things for our business. It's good to be sponges for knowledge. So if you have a moment today be sure to check out Marlo's class. She's the best. I might be biased... but I have been in the maker's movement for over a decade and I am still learning new things everyday. Marlo is a great instructor, we can't recommend her enough.

Lasers and love -Thea

Now you see me - Now you don't

As the description in the listing notes, growing up in the Pacific Northwest you hear many stories about the legend that is Sasquatch. Most are X Files like, it's a solid folklore story that has been around for generations. 

Admittedly, we've been watching way too many nature shows about the wild west and the Rocky Mountains. I also introduced John to the show Ancient Aliens, only because he didn't get the reference about the guy with the crazy hair. "It's aliens man." (Insert internet meme here). So that all led to inspiration on certain topics like Sasquatch. I like to believe that if Sasquatch is real, he'd be like Harry from Harry and the Hendersons. Just a cool elusive clumsy hairy dude. So elusive that you could see him one minute, blink and he'd be gone. Inspiration for these little light switch plates we did here.

We've been wanting to do some more light switch plates. Mainly to replace the gaudy gold 1980's ones that we have around our house.

I debated on painting the eyes with glow in the dark paint but I thought that would be overboard. These come with cute little screws (yes screws can be cute!) for easy installation. While I've got your attention, tell me do you have fancy or fun light switch plates around your home? I have a handful of designs for ones we'll be making for ourselves. But I'm the lady that draws mustaches on outlets. I'm not necessarily the authority on home decor.

Lasers and 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

Laser in action!

Retro Mechanical Labs "dared" us to stick our iPhone in our laser so they could witness the process. Dare accepted! After a quick design and some custom laser cutting for a iPhone stand that is. Check out the power of our Epilog Laser in fast forward (we used Timelapse) action.

Lasers and love - Thea

Some Advice

* Warning* 

This post contains profanity. If you are sensitive to language consider skipping this post. 

Just this morning on Facebook my best friend of 33 years posted a little meme picture that read "fucks need to be earned."  We see things like this posted all over the internet which are meant to inspire really caring about what matters. It might be in a so-called crude way but you get the point. 

Not long ago I was spinning my wheels hard about something really stupid. We've all been there right? You get worked up over something for various reasons. An hour later you forget why you are actually mad.  Maybe someone said something on the internet that pissed you off.  After awhile you question whether or not you actually like that person who said that dumb thing to begin with. Or maybe you didn't understand where someone was coming from and then later learned more details about the situation and then you get it. Unnecessary fucks spent. 

We've all been there. We've all lost it over really dumb stuff. It's really a shame to invest so much energy into a whole lot of nothing. That includes people. People can be shitty sometimes, but time spent on the ones who actually matter are worth it. 

"Two of the most valuable things we have is time and relationships with other people. - Candy Chang"

I firmly believe that. 

Spend your fucks wisely. Spend them on people who want nothing from you but quality time. Don't waste them on the bitch that sped up and cut you off in the parking lot to get that open space. Don't waste it on that cashier at the grocery store who yelled at you about how you put things on the conveyor belt. Don't waste time on people you've let go of.  Most of all don't be mad at yourself, keep moving forward and learn to spend your fucks wisely. 

Lasers & love - Thea 

Island People Are In Fact Weird

A couple years ago a couple of my childhood friends and I vacationed together on our home island. We visited our old neighborhoods and special places where we once roamed. Which of course led to debauchery. Let's face it, when you hang out with childhood friends no matter what age you are your maturity reverts to a lesser level.  To make a long story short, one of us spotted a flock of pink flamingos in the front of a local establishment and we may or may not have attempted to "borrow" one of them. Let's just say, the plan hilariously failed and will live on in friendship lore.  

*Disclaimer - In no shape or form do I promote unauthorized "borrowing". In our defense, as the title of this entry claims, island people are in fact weird and do weird things. It's always in good fun. We promise.*

Funny where inspiration comes from right? I do like the appeal of the kitschy-ness of the pink flamingos. I thought it would be fun to have them standing proudly in my indoor plants. 

As the listing notes, my first intention was to make some standard plant identification stakes. But my mind deviated and end up with these. 

Thea's original flamingo sketch.

They do absolutely nothing but make you smile. And hey, we own a laser can bring our crazy ideas to life like this. 

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