Work with Your Own Hands

I believe this is the key to the most successful products. They were first made from the work of someone’s own hands.

Careful analysis, observation from start to finish ensures success of the project begun. Which materials work best? Will this weave of fabric work with that one. Do the colors complement each other? Is the design pleasing to the eye? Is the wood chosen strong enough for the build? is it the right density to carve what I’ve planned? Is the paint thick enough or too thin for the picture I want to paint and is the canvas correctly prepared? Am I using a quality butter filled with flavor to enhance my cooking? Are the fruits and vegetables at their peak ripeness for the best taste? Maybe I need to start over again.

All little things which add up to big things – the final product. Did we skimp? Or did our hands tell us we needed to work a bit harder or longer on the lump of clay turning on the wheel? The fabric didn’t hang quite right…the wood was warped and knotted…the paint was low quality and didn’t cover well or was not a rich color…it was margarine, not butter…the fruits were picked too early and never ripened.

Our good hands will tell us about our work if we train them and let them speak for themselves. From the butcher the baker and the candlestick maker, we can learn from working with our own two hands.

We can experience satisfaction from a job well done – one that others will enjoy using and be the better for – having your product.

I think we’re in another creative revolution of sorts. After being held down and back the last four years, people have risen to the occasion and begun to do what they are best at…thinking and making things with their own two hands.

The ideas and products have been phenomenal! We are making, selling, buying what we want again from person to person, small business to small business. All this ensures quality, originality, and good customer service. Our work depends on it.

How do you feel about your product?

Let You Out!

Once upon a time most of us were carefree little kids. Mom and Dad, or Grandma and Grandpa would let us out to play. We’d make cups and bowls out of river-bottom clay, build bridges with sticks and stones, clothes-pin baseball cards to our bike spokes and listen to the clatter. We’d mix our food together different ways and eat it. We’d sew dresses for our troll dolls…

We started to grow up and somebody told us our striped shirt didn’t look good with our plaid shorts. The frosting on our homemade cake was an ugly color. Our glasses looked dumb. Our feet were too long, our hair was too curly…self-conscious, self-conscious, self-consciousness began to set in.

It’s too painful fighting off the thoughtless comments from others… I’m not going to do anything different, not going to be made fun of again…gonna blend in so no one sees me AT ALL!

Years pass, nothing changes, it’s day in-day, day-out…same ole, same ole. “Oh how I wish I could be more than a cog-in-the-wheel.”

That is the voice of our true calling…asking us:

Who are you? Where are you going? What do you really want to do? Are you tired of the rat -race?

Get back to the childhood freedom of mind. Begin to think, play, design, dream, plan, imagine, tinker.

It’s time to let ourselves out!

We do not need to ask permission…