Intro to TBTP Creations

 

As mentioned in the description to “Thinking Out Loud”, this is a place to talk about our crafts and other creations at TB Trading Post, with a few flavors on “whatever”. So far, I have published a lot of “Whatever”. This post will reflect on our crafting business.

As we started in the last post, I will open with the music selection(s) for this writing.
- Note -
I don’t use this blog to rate or compare music and artists. If I’m listening to it to write, I like it.

Today the mood is set with:

Kenny Loggins, “How About Now”, 2007, Columbia Records
Robin Trower, “Long Misty Days”, 1976, Chrysalis Records

As with many blogs and bloggers I will begin this with “it all started during the Covid” take-over.
In 2020 I was grounded from travelling with the company I worked for where I travelled on a weekly basis. In April 2020 I was told to work remotely on all projects and use the local crews for my footwork. Worried that my job would be on the chopping block, we started Two Beards Trading Post and began making our own beard oil and butter.

We wanted to make an all-natural high-quality product with comical names. We soon found out after starting an account on Facebook that they, Facebook, don’t have the same sense of humor as we do. Our products were blocked due to policy violations. Products such as our Morning Wood and Orgasmic Shag beard oil were denied and labeled as offensive. We moved on with other flavors like Ride My Face, and Rockin’Rabbit, but we were still fighting the policy battle. We were not to be deterred. At local vendor fairs and markets people loved our products and labels.
We went from oil and butter to beard shampoo, “Bush Bath”, to body soap, deodorant, body butter (bitch butter), perfumes, and lip balms, all the while keeping our products all-natural. After a couple of years of doing body products we realized you can’t have a trading post without a larger variety of products, and so the crafting began.

 
 Julie started crocheting hats and scarves as I began to learn wood carving. Seemed viable as the windstorms we have in Illinois, provide a great supply of wood all over my yard. This seemed like a simple idea of making cool and unique items for the store. Well now, I ventured into a whole new realm, and of course my stock of firewood began to build as one piece of crap after another was carved. YouTube videos certainly make it look easier than it is, but as I said I am persistent.

My first decent piece was a wood spirit, and decent may be stretching.
I created a few more and moved onto making coasters. 4-4.5 inch in diameter, that I would carve out animal paw prints and fill with epoxy. 
The amount of time it would take from start to finish on these made it impossible to turn a profit, so I switched it up to mount my original digital art onto the coaster blanks then a good thick coat of epoxy is applied. Faster, more colorful and still unique and original. 

Julie during this time began handcrafting beaded jewelry, and etching glass with a Dremel, and our inventory began to build for the upcoming marketing season.
I have carved a few walking sticks and canes as well as more wood spirits, but I must pay my respect to those on YouTube that produce the beautiful creations such as Jordy Johnson at Carving Fusion  and Stinnett Sticks. Check out the links and definitely give a thumbs up. 

The joy we get in creating the different items we do is far greater than any regular job. Using our hands and imagination (along with the needed tools of course), to produce a mood lamp out of a root, or an
      

 etched dragon scene on a piece of glass, then add lighting to it to illuminate the dragon, is amazing.
Of course, we do have dry spells where creating doesn’t come as easy, but it soon vanishes when new ideas arise.
How do we come up with new ideas? I will use tutorials from the experts to come up with my own renditions of a creation, but many times it is out of the blue. For the woodwork it also depends on how the wood is going to carve. I will start something, and the wood will tell me which direction to go. Meaning, if it is a hard wood, filled with knots, a bit of dry rot, and so on, it can change the design completely. Julie does the same thing with her jewelry; she gets motivated by videos and then creates her own patterns.

We love to create, and each day we learn more and get better at the crafting. And each time I write about our creations, I will share many pictures. A few of our crafts can be purchased in our online store at https://tbtradingpost.com, but because they are usually one of a kind, we stick with showing them in the local market places. If you have requests you can certainly reach out to us, tbtpclub@gmail.com.