I know it has taken me longer than usual to post; we have been busy but I haven’t felt as though the project photos were far enough along to be of interest so I’ll catch you up and hope to include “final final” photos next week.

First, we have received some orders for holiday gifts that we are having fun making. I love collaborating with people to make their ideas come to life. This first project is a Christmas sign whether for a door or a wall decoration. It isn’t finished but I’ll show you what we have. I need to keep most of these things anonymous so no surprises are ruined.

I had to keep this flat because the pieces are not glued down so it’s hard to capture the true colors. Here is an attempt to do that.

We are also making some ornaments. These are for my mom.

We also have an order for the notebooks with wooden fronts and backs. This customer is a dedicated student of yoga with like minded friends! She chose this beautiful lotus design, so elegant in its simplicity. It didn’t come to us as a vector file but Cameron converted it. He’s always working his magic. She chose to have the petals cut out and to put card stock behind them for a pop of color. We will assemble the notebooks this weekend; they’ve been sanded, stained, sanded again, and clear coated so they stand the test of time. Best of all, these notebooks can be refilled and re-bound at any Staples or Office Depot that does paper punching and binding. Kinkos does this work too. Here is a preview of the front covers.

Five years ago my aunt died of ALS. It was and still is painful for those who knew and loved her. Wonderful, long time friends (Debbie and Ed) who are just as much family as any biological relations adopted her dog Gracie when my aunt had to be moved to a care facility because her bathrooms were inaccessible to the equipment needed to move her. Gracie experienced an acute onset of kidney and liver failure a few weeks ago and heartbreak struck once again, five years later. We have been working on ways to pay tribute to Gracie as well as to show gratitude to Debbie and Ed and their dog Annabella who all welcomed Gracie into their home at a very difficult time for us all. Their generosity will never be forgotten.

Cameron has been testing laser settings for the engraving. Any mistakes made will be set in stone, literally, so we are taking extra care to get this exactly right.

Since we are going to engrave the granite I thought it was the perfect time to engrave on rocks. I bought two kinds, polished river rock and unpolished. I have a friend who is a geologist; I should ask him what kind of rocks these are and if he has any insights to impart relative to the engraving process but absent that, here are our experiments.

Now you’re up to speed on most of what we have been doing. We are taking a small number of orders through November 15. Cameron’s work on the Lunar mission always comes first and of course we are like everyone else with household chores and maintenance routines. We also leave time for our own projects so we are careful not to over commit and under deliver. Year end is busy for every company so we aren’t taking anything additional on until sometime next year. Ping me if you’re interested in anything you’ve seen here or something else from your imagination.

Thank you for joining us here on our unfolding journey. We learn something new with every project!