Last Minute Christmas Shopping

Well it looks like I'm not the only last minute shopper. Now that I've been able to get up the hill and to town I've spent the last two days at the Trail Bay Mall Craft Fair. Boy it has been busy! With the fear of another snowstorm hitting the Sunshine Coast, people are getting out and doing their shopping. Both for food and gifts.
My ornaments have been selling fast and I sold out of the diggers that I had there yesterday. Thankfully I have lots more at home and I brought some more there this morning and some of those too. I'll have to take in more tomorrow!

Well it's late and I've got more work to do on some custom orders!

Stuck in the snow

With Christmas fast approaching I have been getting ready... for friends ... for company, as well as getting a tree with my family and also doing a daily craft fair at the Trail Bay Mall in Sechelt. It has been busy, doing custom orders, selling ornaments, motorcycles and 'Diggers'.
But a couple days ago we had quite the dump of snow here! Part of the reason we moved from Whistler to the 'Sunshine Coast' was to get away from that! Well we got about 6 inches here. the snowplow didn't get here for two days and then ran out of salt and sand. I tried about 10 times at different times of the second day to get up the hill and ended up getting stuck in the ditch. After over a half an hour and some help I got out and gave up!

Thankfully some of the other vendors have been helping out on my booth.

It did give me some time to play with my son and do some more creations. I did a bunch of buttons and some ornaments. Most of which I have added to my store, the rest I will add soon. I also did some work on the drawing for the dump truck, which I had hoped to get done before Christmas but it is looking like it will be afterwards now!

Digger video

Here's a video of us playing with the diggers in the sandbox!

Today's Craft Fair

Well, it was a busy day.... We definitely have a crafty kinda family. My wife did her own craft fair with her etched glass at one location, my daughter did her own craft fair and I also did one. I had my backhoe and excavator digger kits and the new motorcycle kit I just finished. I sold two motorcycles and 7 diggers along with a bunch of the Christmas ornaments I make! I also got some custom orders to keep me busy!
My daughter sold her stuff and had a couple diggers on display and sold two also!
Great response from everyone and lots of people took my card and were going to get back to me when they were 'without their kids'.
Lots of fun.. A good day!

Craft Fair

This past weekend I had my first craft fair with our new invention (me and my son's). I have done many shows in the past and always get a good response to new things that I create. But this weekend was very different.

Most of the things I create appeal to just one type of person. I used to do blown and fused glass, jewelery, sandcarved stone, sandcarved glass and many other cool things. It would turn some heads for sure. But still many people would just walk by when they saw it.

This weekend was different, I was set up outside the hall between a couple other crafters. I had a bunch of the diggers built and let the kids play with them. Some of the kids just didn't want to leave! As people walked by and glanced at my booth almost everyone came by and checked out our new diggers! Boys, girls, moms, dads, even grandparents were intrigued. There is nothing like watching the excitement on a kids face!

I was talking to woodworkers, crafters, truck drivers, machine operators and so many other people that had some connection besides having kids to these toys. Even parents concerned about lead paint, plastic and other toxic issues. I even had a father buy one for his father to put together with his son! Very cool, grandpa and grandson! A machine operator bought one for himself!

Many times people will say 'you should do this color' or 'this shape' or have some idea about what you do that will make one of your products better in their opinion. Well this time I not only got great comments but suggestions on other things to create. I got ideas like tow trucks, four wheelers, race cars and bicycles!

In the end I sold eight! A very good event with lots of good comments. Most of all I had fun doing it!!!!!!

An Introduction

I’m Duane an Artist, husband and dad. Since a young age I was always creative, building models, hammering wood together and just be constructive. Also I did take a lot of things apart too. I had to figure out how they worked and were put together. For many years I had a handyman business and a full on wood shop. Now that my son is 2.5 years old and has just been totally addicted to 'diggers' for the past year, he helped me come up with this idea. I would be drawing pictures of diggers for him to color all the time. We also cut some of them out and played with them. Then it came to me that why not build him some out of wood. With all the issues with plastics these days using a natural, non-treated product, I would at least know that these were safe to play with. After many drawings, changes, my son doing 'the product testing' and helping me put them together, we had the first great little backhoe digger! Since then we have built many of them, painted them with children’s paints, some are multi coloured, some all one. We also created the excavator so that when we play together we both have something different to play with. With time and play I added the little hole for the seat to place the toy men into. As I create these myself, my son gets to see a toy just made for wood. The parts he calls digger parts! Our next toy that we are working on is a dump truck to go along with the diggers! Check out my website with more photos at http://www.dp1.ca/ and my new etsy shop at woodtoy.etsy.com