Thankful Wife

Do you know how thankful I am to have a husband like Josh? I know he's a rare breed - he's charming, funny, loving, sexy, sweet, thoughtful, kind, a master-mechanic and super-genius handy man. :) Okay, I might be a bit biased, but I love how handy he is. I really never have to worry about things around the house. Look at one of his latest creations for our bathroom made from a scrap piece of acrylic sign that he picked up from a sign shop's discarded inventory.

I have another in our master bathroom that has a slot for my hair dryer and straightening iron designed specifically to fit them both above the plug. These things usually cost upwards to $20 a piece or more depending on where you might buy them....  I usually take this stuff for granted, but in this economy, I can't say how many countless dollars he has saved us by knowing how to do this stuff.....

I said it in my first blog, but I have to say it again..... He may have A.D.D. and keep everything under the sun in our house, but it almost always winds up as part of a very useful tool in the house or a piece of artwork. From shelves made from discarded wine crates to shelves made from thrown out acrylic, I absolutely love the talent that my Josh has. 

Stay tuned next week.... Josh is brewing up some ideas to show YOU how you can do it for YOURSELF!

Until next time.....
Jen Crandall

Wife/Manager, Brass Hammer Designs

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JOSH A DULL BOY

 

I had to put getting the business ready for business junk on hold for a while and do something important.  All I could think about

was the things I needed go get done to make the business work and wound up getting nothing done.  To remedy my artistic constipation I grabbed a piece of poplar and the first woodworking tools I ever owned, Pfeil palm gouges given to me by The Jen.  

What I started working on was a Mexican folk art cross similar to one I made more than a decade ago.  After a quick sketch, with Swiss Steel in hand, I began carving the poplar like it was butter.  Within minutes everything seemed fine.                                               

We all cope in different ways, let your mechanism open your eyes.

 

Jen used to make fun of me for keeping old cigar boxes around the house.

The Test of Time

One of the hardest, yet most rewarding, things that I’ve ever done is being married.  Josh and I have been married 11 years this coming October and are going on 17 years of knowing each other on the same day (October 19). Last year, our 10 year wedding anniversary caught us both by surprise. We couldn’t believe that we had been married a decade, and now I’m looking at the fact that we’ve been together a few years shy of 20 years and it blows my mind. A testament of our marriage kind of hit me tonight when one of our friends gave us the biggest compliment I could’ve imagined. She told me that we basically radiate the passion and affection we feel for each other through to others.  She told me that when she met us, she told herself: “Here’s a couple with a marriage that has endured trials and has sustained the test of time.” Or something to that affect. And we have endured many trials in our marriage. It’s not easy and some days, it can be hell on earth. 

That same friend helped me see how much we share our spouse's emotional ups and downs. I carry a burden that Josh has with himself, but it affects me as much as it does him.  Josh desperately wants/needs success in his life. I want that for him more than anything else because I know how much happier he would be in general with that success. That’s not a bad goal by any means. I think it’s natural that people want success, but it’s a burden at times to us because of how much emotional energy it takes up. And starting Brass Hammer Designs was a huge risk for us to take because we feared it wouldn’t be successful. Josh has put so much pressure on himself to be successful that daily he struggles with the potential failures as well. I try to be an encouraging wife to the best of my ability and I hope he feels the love and pride that I have for him because I truly believe he is more successful than he knows. In our society, unfortunately, the buck stops here though. Success is defined oftentimes by the dollar figure that is associated with the action. And to be honest, at this point, since we announced BHD’s start-up, we haven’t earned one penny and that puts even more pressure on the table. We have a few orders that Josh wants to get started on, but we’ve been so focused on getting the equipment, raw materials and marketing tools necessary to make the business successful instead.  We’ve had to do those things in order to make the shop more efficient and conducive to filling those orders. And to free up some of the creative juices that Josh has that originally gave us the idea to start the business anyway….. 

So, I leave you with the honest truth of this commercial because it’s the most accurate way I can present what we’re feeling right now. We're looking for that easy button right now to start bringing in the success. Too bad Staples can't give us that..... http://youtu.be/MXO46Jbtzuk

The Eager Anticipation and Fear of Starting Up Brass Hammer Designs

 Hi Everyone. Jen here. I'm Josh's wife and co-owner of Brass Hammer Designs (BHD). First, where the Blog Name, A.D.D. Art, came from.... Josh has A.D.D. I'll let him go into details another time on here and give you insight into who he is, but I wanted to introduce the reason we named this blog what we did. I do not have A.D.D. and can say it gives Josh a creativity that I am envious of many times. If you tell me exactly what you want and sketch/write it out on paper, I can probably make that happen if I know how. A template would make it even better for me; and even better, is for me to just go tell Josh what you want. I'm always amazed how Josh's vision of a piece just happens from his head - brand new, never had been out there before. I cannot even describe what he can make out of the most boring, ugly pieces; from old floor joists in an 1800's home to the coffee can I'm about to throw away. And it all just happens with some brainstorming or sketches. At first, keeping all of these materials and "trash" was the most annoying thing in the world to me. He'd keep everything that I was ready to throw away! I thought he was just storing up stuff without a cause and it just seemed to clutter up the garage or room that he put it in; and it cluttered my life too at times. But then, he started using some of it and made things like shelves and bowls and carvings. He's really quite the artist. He works with just about every media I can think of: wood, metal, acrylic, leather, fabric, etc. And I might be biased, but I think he's a great photographer as well. How many people know how to do all of these things or are willing to learn at the drop of a hat?! I don't know many.....  So the idea has been in our heads for a while that we need to do something with it. And that's how our dream of Brass Hammer Designs came to be.

So, Josh is knee deep in trying to do as much as possible and I'm on the administrative role trying to keep us organized and help him get to the point of being comfortable in our garage and making beauty come to life. So far, since formally announcing we started BHD, we've experienced so many raw emotions: often feelings of being overwhelmed, then at the same time relieved to have taken the step and excited  about this new adventure. Josh is wheeling and dealing to buy up raw materials and equipment left and right. He's purchased a table saw from one of my co-workers, a brand-spanking-new band saw, a huge piece of red oak that will be so amazingly beautiful in future pieces and lots of scrap wood. We also hired Tony Deal Photography to take some of the photos on our website and Tamara Deal, Tony's wife, did some initial business consulting for us to help us figure out what direction to take, as well. All of this has given us a good start to what we believe is the beginning. We're working as fast as we possibly can to get up and running with an efficient shop and get down to the actual business of bringing art to life. Getting everything set up and aligned to best serve our customers for us has been overwhelming and exciting. We've started setting up the web page, a Facebook business page (Brass Hammer Designs), this blog and getting business cards printed; plus we're trying to get the shop up to par and this all has been happening in the past 6 weeks. All of you small business owners probably realize the numerous hats we're wearing here, but did I mention that we both have full-time jobs and are trying to juggle those as well?  Also, I won't list all of the financial constraints we have in our personal life, but let me just say that some days, it would make better sense to hire a maid, a cook and an accountant. But, alas, we are doing this on our own. And we hope that you enjoy watching the process unfold as much as we are. Thanks for following. Thanks for listening. Thanks for inspiring us.