So this was cool. Our open house invitation from October just got a little love from a print & design industry publication called PaperSpecs. Not only did it get a write up in the “cool cards of the week” section, but we got a second bump when they put together and posted an awesome video for it.

We are fortunate that we get to make a whole lot of very cool things for amazingly talented people, but it’s especially edifying to be recognized by folks we have never even met, for one of our own, in house projects.

You can check out the video below, and check out PaperSpecs as well. In addition to being a great resource, they curate an impressive gallery of cool projects from all over the world.

Okay, so it’s March of 2015 already. I’m not quite sure how that happened, but a client mentioned today that the last blog post was the one where we talked about the fire – and that’s definitely not a good place to leave things. Especially since lots of very exciting things have happened since then.

To catch you up, we are settled into the new studio. We do have several ongoing improvement projects, but from a business stand point, we are already running far above our former capacity and efficiency.

The new lasers are in – The large table is 48×96″ 170W, and the little galvo is 90W of pure, blistering speed in a tiny little package. We’ve also added a full show room, wood shop, spray booth, dedicated photo studio, grade high dock and enough permanent work space to support many more and much larger projects.

Business has been good. The new lasers have opened up a lot of new avenues for us. The little galvo has made super elaborate paper cutting far faster and more cost effective – making projects like the Fort Worth Zoo Ball possible. The large table is capable of processing a full 4’x8′ sheet of material, and the extra power makes working with woods and acrylics faster and more efficient.

If you haven’t been out to see it yet, it’s well worth a trip. The new studio is amazing, and we’ve been very, very busy.

As some of you already know, we suffered a serious fire in December. The studio was a total loss, and we have been running at limited capacity while we got all of the insurance details sorted out. Thanks to good insurance, the help of wonderful friends and colleagues and no small amount of plain good luck, we are still here and in full recovery mode.

Two new lasers will be in at the end of the month, and we are in the process of building out an absolutely amazing new space just a few blocks from our old location. We will eventually post a full writeup here, but in the mean time if you are interested in following our recovery milestones as we hit them, we are sharing pictures fairly regularly on our facebook page.

Also, as we get settled in and back up to speed we’ll have several exciting new surprises to share, including some major new capabilities, so stay tuned.

Thank you for your patience and support.

Michael, Shane and Donna

It’s been an exciting year for us, and unfortunately, the blog has been a bit neglected as a result.  However, we’ve finally got some extra help in to manage the volume, and we’re making a concerted effort to make more frequent posts to the blog and portfolio.  We have some great finished projects we haven’t gotten to post yet , and even more in the pipeline. This first post, however, is about an unexpected media mention.

One of the pieces we did with the Marketing Arm got picked up on “The 60 Second Fold of the Week” over at FoldFactory.com– a great weekly video series for paper/print nerds and design enthusiasts of all stripes. It’s run by Trish Witkowski, one of the major forces behind Sappi’s outstanding “The Standard #4” dedicated to folding and scoring.

You can check out the video below, and if you are unfamiliar with The Standard, I urge you to go check out all 5 editions. They are all great reference guides as well as incredible works of art in their own right.

On June 12th, 2012, high-end Jewellery Designer KORNMESSER presented their new collection at the French Embassy in Vienna. As an homage to France, Fashion Stylist Thomas Reinberger selected our 12″ laser cut paper Eiffel Towers to use as headpieces. The models were wearing Diamonds with a total value of 1 million Euro.

A full week after the Maker Faire, and we are finally getting back to normal. For those who are unfamiliar, the Maker Faire is pure Nerdvana. It’s a DIY festival that is something like a family friendly cross between Burning Man and an adult Science Fair. It covers everything from SteamPunk to Amigurumi, from crocheted C’thulu ski mask to ultra high precision 3D printed metal components. From “grow your own mushrooms” to building your own solid state singing Tesla coils… and we can’t forget the other fun stuff like a 65 foot long fire breathing metal dragon that carries passengers. We didn’t get many pictures, but check out the flickr feed for thousands of photos

Thousands of makers showing off their jobs, their hobbies, or their pet projects – and all of them eager to teach you how they did it is more than a bit overwhelming.  I simply can’t describe what happens when you put that many happy geeks in one place, but I can tell you that it is a truly amazing experience.  We have been to several previous events, but this was our first year as a presenter. With over 100,000 visitors on Saturday alone, it was an exhausting, and very very different experience, but we still had a blast and we will be doing it again.  Author Dale Wheat described it this way. “It may be the only place in the world that, if someone yelled ‘FIRE’, everyone within earshot would run TOWARDS them.”

It was in that spirit that we decided to actually participate this year.  Several years ago, we redid our kitchen countertop in resin cast pennies, and poured a secondary bartop for a local Absinthe lounge. The project how to has been very popular on Make Projects, so we decided to show some additional resin work, and do a public demonstration of how to do it. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, you can see the handout from the demonstration here, or check out the project page.

Because the Maker Faire is all about encouraging people to tinker and actually do new things, James also created a small “make and take” demo project that people could make for themselves. He engraved and painted the front of a small piece of wood with the maker faire mascot, and then routed a small well that would hold a single penny. People were able to select or provide their own pennies, and set them into the well. Then, using a quick setting two part epoxy, we taught them how to mix and apply the resin so they were able to create their own resin cast souvenir. It was quick and simple, but it proved to be rather popular, and we ended up running through each day’s supply of blocks by shortly after lunch.

We brought 3 people along to help out and we thought that with 5 of us, it should be easy for 2-3 people to hold down the booth and get the rest out and explore the faire. We were very wrong. I have to issue a public “Thank You”, and “I’m Sorry” to Donna, James & Ellie. We were on a very prominent corner, and we were busy from the moment the gates opened until they started turning off the lights to force people to leave. We all talked until we started to lose our voices, and kept talking anyway. They finally got to see a little bit of the faire late on Sunday, but not nearly enough of it. Thank you all for making it such a huge success, and my apologies for not doing a better job of getting you out there to enjoy yourself ( We’ll do better next year ). We could not have done it without you.