Happy Thanksgiving!
Nov 28
I normally don’t make a big deal about the Holidays, but I have a ton to be thankful for this year! Most importantly, my Mom is healthy, cancer free, and was able to host another great Thanksgiving dinner this year with many more to come hopefully. I think this year’s was extra special since it’s been a long tough year. I can’t thank my sister enough for staying close to my Mom’s side and helping her get through this.
We are truly blessed to have our families, our health, close friends, and great customers who have been with us through it all. I honestly can’t thank everyone enough for keeping us in their thoughts, standing behind us, and for supporting our efforts. It has been a very tough year. Everyone’s kindness and support was well received and greatly appreciated. To my very patient and wonderful wife, I couldn’t have kept it together without you. Thank you… Thank you all…
—–Brandon
Signs
Nov 25I got to meet another artist recently. He and I started talking about signs, gold leafing, airbrushing, pinstriping, etc.. That got me thinking back to some of the one-of-a-kind signs I’ve done over the years. Most of them got featured on my old site so I figured it’d be nice to get them posted on my new one. I’m probably missing a couple, but here is a good collection of the sign work I’ve done. Click on the images for a larger view.
Vintage Greyhound Sign Reproduction
Mom & Dad's Camp Sign
Missy's Mom and Dad's House Sign
Commissioned Bar Sign
Commissioned Residential Sign
The Jester
Nov 10
Jester nutcracker
Here’s another great piece I had in the shop for repairs from one of the Nutcracker Club members. This Jester had a nasty break back by the hinge and it also had a broken tooth. Once the repairs were done, the piece needed an overall refresh on the finish to show of all the great details. I am very pleased with how this piece came out.
Jester before and after
Happy Halloween!
Oct 31
It’s Halloween! One of our favorite holidays We went to Monroe’s Orchard & Farm Market to get pumpkins to carve and apples for Missy to make a pie. Missy, Dane, and I spent last night carving cool pumpkins. Take a look…
Missy and Dane intently carving their masterpieces
My Jack Skelington pumpkin
Missy's Alien from Toy Story pumpkin. The ears are awesome!
Dane's Batman Symbol pumpkin
All three pumpkins on display
Make Magazine
Oct 23
Make Magazine picked up the Changing Portrait project I did for Halloween this year. Check out the project write up I did for them here:
http://makezine.com/projects/disney-inspired-changing-portrait-using-a-raspberry-pi/
Disney Inspired Haunted Mansion Prop
Oct 07Okay folks,
Anybody who knows me knows I am a Disney nerd and a huge fan of the Haunted Mansion attraction at Disney World in Orlando Florida. So this Halloween I decided to put my Raspberry Pi ($40 computer) and an old Dell 19” monitor to good use and built a Master Gracey changing portrait to hang over my mantle.
My personal overall cost for this project was around $110 and about 3 evenings of work. Your costs and time involved may vary as I already had an old 19” LCD monitor, some plywood cutoffs, and drywall screws in my shop to make the monitor box. The PDF file at the end of this post is a basic list of what you would need to make this prop. It is not a How To per se because the hard part is building the box to house the monitor and building that is going to depend on the specific size and configuration of your LCD monitor .
Changing Portrait Frame Parts List – PDF
UPDATE – This project can now be seen on Make Magazine’s projects page — 
Anri Monk
Aug 05Here is a great example of an Anri Monk. This guy needed some repair work done on the lever and had a couple chips that needed repaired. He has great patina and everything was repaired to match perfectly so the integrity of the piece remained intact.
Anri Monk in need of repairs
Anri Monk All Fixed
Anri Monk close up