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!

The post Go Big or Go Home appeared first on BZ FurFur.

“A thousand years or more ago,
When I was newly sewn,
There lived four wizards of renown,
Whose name are still well-known
Bold Gryffindor from wild moor,
Fair Ravenclaw from glen,
Sweet Hufflepuff from valley broad,
Shrewd Slytherin from fen.”

― J.K. Rowling

The Harry Potter books are so well-known that you can hardly run into someone who doesn’t know which house they belong to, be it Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, or Slytherin. We have all taken the quizzes online and hemmed and hawed about which house we fall in. Whether we think we are brave like Harry, Ron, and Hermione or cunning like Malfoy we know where we feel we belong. Personally, I am a Ravenclaw and I carry that with pride .

My latest coaster set brandishes each of the house’s crests on beautiful hardwood permanently burned in and hand-painted with acrylics. Like all my pieces these are sealed in a heat-resistant, water-resistant polyurethane that will protect them from all kinds of spills so you can show your pride in your house for years to come. All coasters can be personalized to carry your name, initials, or a short quote from the books.

Check back often as I am always coming up with new ideas for pieces and love to hear your feedback and suggestions.

The post You could be great, you know… appeared first on BZ FurFur.

The Lord of the Rings has been a staple of our culture for almost 70 years. There is no debating the story’s popularity. Fans of the books from the last century, or the Peter Jackson movies from this century, this story holds a special place in our hearts. Tolkien’s lore has made its way into countless other media from film to games to comic books. It is hard to even imagine what the fantasy genre would look like today if it hadn’t been for Tolkien’s works.

To celebrate these stories we have created this beautiful coaster set that encapsulates some of the most memorable locations from Middle Earth. Is your favorite location The Shire where our heroes Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin embarked on their unforgettable journies? Or is it Gondor and Rohan where so many unforgettable battles took place? Or is it Mordor where Frodo was tasked with the impossible task of destroying the ring? These coasters are a reminder of all the pivotal scenes that will remain with fans of the series forever.

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” — Gandalf

Check out our post on Reddit to see some positive reactions to these new coasters. We got a great reaction from people at ComicCon as well. We hope you all will find these to be “Your Precious”

The post Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost… appeared first on BZ FurFur.