Happy Monday

Happy Monday Everyone, hope you had a great weekend!  We were busy this weekend even though it was rainy and nasty.  And when I got to my work bench this weekend to begin working on our latest project I found the following sign strategically placed at my work bench (and I love saying I having a work bench in our garage, not sure why...lol).  Someone thinks he is funny!!  Made me chuckle.

 
I guess its fitting since just last week I was saying how in college I wasn't allowed to play with power tools.  Although admittedly I am not exactly graceful, but thankful I have learned my way around the required tools and have loved showing our creativity through wood creations.

This weekend we started working on our coastal collection, and decided to take a quick trip down to the beach and created an improptu advertising photo on our own beach.  I have to admit my mom started our writings in the sand advertising.  Last year we started a writings in the sand photography series and my mom suggested we do the same for our name also, and for our impromptu trip this weekend it was Matt's genius that suggested the particular idea below.  Its a good thing we are never far from our cameras on our beach adventures.  More on our photography in a few weeks.  But the below photo is to announce our upcoming American Made Gifts (AMG): Coastal Collection.

I am so excited about what will be coming this week, its definitely unique and original, and completely our own design.  And here is a sneak peak as to what is coming this week .... and we will have plenty to put up for sale!

Oops, guess you will have to wait till I can step away from our custom order and get them painted and/or stained and finished so I can post pictures.  But we promise it will be worth the wait!  Today I have been steady away on a custom order for a friends child's room.  The John Deere Logo with the child's name cut-out and painted.  Don't get me wrong we love, love, love coming up with new ideas and creating unique pieces, but we enjoy the challenge of a custom order.  Creating something that someone else envisions, its a challenge and lots of hard work, and occasionally takes a few re-dos...simply because we are both perfectionists!  But today has been so much fun and we cannot wait till it finds its new home.  My brilliant brush strokes for your viewing entertainment...ok so its not that breath taking but it entertains me.  And I enjoy any reason to take a photo.  Now my excuse for taking photos is "I am doing it for the blog"...who can argue with that?

Well I hope you all stay tuned and keep following us to see what new things we have in store.  The photography portion of this will be set up shortly, we are still figuring out the best way to go about it, but I will start posting some of the prints for sale very soon.

Enjoy your week!!

Mosaic Wooden Love Signs

I can't believe how fast this has week has gone, but we have been busy coming up with new designs and new ideas.  Last year we created a wooden mosaic sign to go over our bed (instead of the hunting picture that was there before ;-) ) and we had quite a few people who really liked it, and to be honest we were really happy with how it turned out also.  Below is the one we created for our bedroom.

However I wasn't too entirely fond of the font we used, it was just a little too wonky for me.  So when we decided to make a few that were similar this week I decided to try a different font.  I just love the patchwork look to these signs.  We had lots of fun putting this together.

Though Matt is usually the master behind the power tools, I'm finding that I love working in our shop just as much as he does.  It feels slightly liberating to be able to work next to him and actually know what I am doing now.  I'm not the most graceful, and prior to my new found joy the hot glue gun was as dangerous of a tool that I was allowed, and all us women can certainly attest to the ferocity of these little gems, darn things will give you blisters.  Even in college during an art school wood working class they suggested I stay away from all things with a blade, but thankfully I have made peace with these tools and can now build just about anything and even know what I am talking about when going to Lowe's and Home Depot.  Well that is my little major accomplishment in life and I am certainly glad I did, so many wonderful things to create!  This is the work in progress for our Mosaic Love Signs, I think they look great!

After getting to this point I thought they could use a little glitter, and the Gold Heart (furthest sign away) was not standing out very well against the wood tones, so I thought some glitter might help.  Below are the two finished products.

As much as I love the idea of the gold hearts, I really think the teal is working for me best.  I have two more to complete and I am thinking of doing another in teal and one in coral, sans glitter, but I guess it just depends on how I am feeling when I go to work on them.  So last week I mentioned us working on a custom sign for a child's room, we got the letters cut out for it and wanted to share the progress.  I actually did get it painted today but it was drying and didn't want to chance moving it around just yet.

I love custom orders, it is so much fun to actually be making something for someone specific.  Knowing in advance who it's for, ok I guess I'm just Queen of the obvious, but I do enjoy that aspect.  Aside from the custom order and mosaic signs I am also working on building up our stock of Wooden American Flags.  Aside from the time it takes to actually make one of them from start to finish they are simply my favorite thing we make.  I love looking at ours on the wall in our living room.  Seen below...

So we still have more new things to come and if you ever want to purchase something just email us at AmericanMadeGifts@gmail.com, you can follow us on Facebook www.facebook.com/americanmadegifts, and Pinterest or Instagram.  If you purchase anything from us we would love to see how you have used it in your home, either tag us on facebook, Instagram or just use #americanmadegifts.

Hope you had a fantastic Thursday and an even better Friday tomorrow!

We Are Back...

So we are getting our blog up and started again, and it does sorta feel like I am writing to myself as we are new to blogging and do not have any followers.  But my hopes are that, that will change here in the near future.  We have lots of fun things coming up and I have some new equipment that will allow us to even further create some custom pieces.

That's right we now are doing custom cutouts, names, monograms and shapes.  The logo above is unfinished and I will post finished versions very soon.  Currently we are working on a project for a friend, a child's name cut-out and painted along with the John Deere Logo, can't wait to post how that turns out.  And as always our Wooden American Flags, and this year we have two different sizes, our large sign that we started out creating and now a little bit smaller version that costs a little bit less.  

As you can see we are hard at work getting these flags ready to go online and find new homes.  New coastal signs are coming soon as well as coastal cut-outs.  Please keep following us to see what's new, you can always order anything you see us post on here simply by sending us an email to americanmadegifts@gmail.com or if you have something custom you would like to order email us your idea for a price quote.  We have done business logos that turn out great also, so please send us an email!

Also you can follow us on instagram: AmericanMadeGifts or Pinterest!

Can't wait to post what we have coming next!