As a creative, I am always thinking about making; what can I do next? What should I do next? I have mental and written lists of projects to do, requests from customers, and ideas I get from speaking to people at markets. This abundance of projects can be wonderful but it can also leave me overwhelmed and, when I get that way, it leaves me feeling stuck. I may have an idea but can’t always visualize them all in my head. People often ask me where my inspirations come from. Seeing that we are BZ FurFur much of our inspiration comes from our furry critters: Our cats (Aesop, Frankie, Phoebe, and Fancypants), our hedgehogs (Lacie and Gracie), and our sugar gliders (Merlot and Lore). But, more often than not, I turn to Brian
Finding a Passion
When I decided I was going to start a business I knew it was going to be selling one of my many crafts. I had recently discovered Pyrography and really began to experiment with it. There was something about it that really spoke to me. I got to work armed with nothing but a trusty Walnut Hollow Creative Versatool I purchased decades ago. It was a piece of work. They hadn’t yet added temperature gauges and the tip was a solid nib burner (i.e. a solid piece of brass that has to be screwed in).
So I decided on the medium but now I needed to determine what to make and sell. Coasters are small and relatively easy to make. Drawing from our passion for board games my first collection was Classic Board Games: Checkers, Chinese Checkers, Backgammon, and Monopoly (before you say anything, yes, I have been made aware that the general consensus is that Monopoly is THE WORST). These were great but I wanted to challenge myself. Going to Brian, our resident boardgame guru, suggested coasters based on a tile-laying game where you create a French Medieval City. I asked him to choose the 4 best tiles from that game and those are now our best seller.
Expanding horizons
Brian always gives me many ideas and challenges me. Often times this is by suggesting the things that he, himself, would buy. Given the success of our board game coasters, he suggested a set of Lord of The Rings coasters depicting the map of Middle Earth. He found a map and helped me create the templates. We cleaned up, resized, and cut the map into smaller bits to fit on the coasters and it turned out fantastic. So what was the next, logical step? Burn the entire map of Middle Earth for Brian as a gift.
I started on the piece months ago working on it a little at a time. I would bring it on location to markets as a way to show people what pyrography is. Creating at markets is always fascinating. People love to stop, watch, and ask questions.
Going Big
As you can probably guess we buy our fair share of board games to play together or with our friends. There is a local place, Your Local Game Store, in Charlotte where we usually pick up our games for our collection. It’s a nice little spot with a good selection of games and knowledgeable staff. It’s a nice atmosphere, and they even have nights where they teach games.
As you can guess they have plenty of fantasy decor on the walls; posters, models of dragons above the doors, and even a painting of a dragon inside of one of the game rooms. We reached out to the to see if they would showcase one of my pieces on their walls, and they said YES!
I’ll be doing another map of middle earth only this time much larger. I have never done a piece this large, but I love a good challenge. You should never stop growing out of your comfort zone. The piece I am making is 24” high and 36” wide. I am using a solid piece of Sycamore a little over an inch thick for this piece.
I started it today and I can’t wait to update everyone on my progress!
