Uses for Valet Boxes

Our Valet Boxes make a beautiful keepsake gift for anyone (including yourself). Here are some of the many uses:

Adults
End of the day watch, keys, and wallet
Next to the bed for your glasses and ring
Stationery, stamps, pen
Remote controls
Bills, stamps, checkbook, pen
Delicate hair combs
Today's mail
Next to the phone, a pad, pen, and address book
Essential oils
Guitar pics
Extra copies of important paperwork like your will and passports
Love notes/cards to one another
Wedding mementos
A bundle of old letters from a lover or loved one
A list of wishes or goals
Small craft project like embroidery
Keepsakes from a recent vacation
Sunglasses

Kids
Pokemon/Yugioh cards
Baseball/football cards
Marbles
Stamps
Shells or stones
Friendship bracelets/Silly Bands
Report cards/achievements

Did we fail to list a way you use your Valet Box? Let us know!

September Shows

Find us up and down the east coast this September.

August 31-September 3 (Labor Day Weekend)
Long's Park Art and Craft Festival
Long's Park, Lancaster, PA
10am-5pm each day
$8 adults, $10 multi-day ticket, kids 10 and under free, coupon in the link above
Booth 227

September 15-16

Atlanta Arts Festival

Atlanta, GA

10am-7pm Saturday, 10am-6pm Sunday

Free

Booth 39

You may always find our year's listing at our Website.

Host/Hostess Gift

Recently, we suggested bringing one of our lovely tea boxes as a host/hostess gift. But when do you bring your host a gift of this value? We asked leading etiquette expert Emily Post.

When you're the guest of honor
Bring a gift for your host or hostess, or send flowers before the party. After the party, send a thank-you note.

Housewarming
It's customary to bring a gift to a housewarming. It doesn't have to be expensive, but it should be something lasting for the house. 

Overnight stay
A gift is mandatory. You can present the gift upon your arrival, during your stay, or after your exit. The longer the stay, the more expensive or elaborate the gift. For example, for a weekend stay, you may decide to send flowers. If you’ve stayed for three nights or more, a gift certificate to the host’s favorite spa or restaurant would be a good bet. 

Sources: 800-Flowers, Emily Post

August Shows

After a long summer of replenishing our stock and getting in beautiful new woods, we are ready to resume the juried art show circuit and will be traveling in August!

August 10-12
Berkshire Crafts Fair
Monument Mountain Regional High School, Great Barrington, MA
10am-5pm each day
$7 for ages 13 and up, kids 12 and under are free
Booth 63

August 24-26
Berkshire Arts Festival
Ski Butternut, Great Barrington, MA
10am-6pm Friday & Saturday, 10am-4:30pm Sunday
$9 adults, $8 seniors, $5 students, kids under 10 are free, $11 for a weekend pass, coupon in the link above
Booth not yet assigned

August 31-September 3
Long's Park Art and Craft Festival
Long's Park, Lancaster, PA
10am-5pm each day
$8 adults, $10 multi-day ticket, kids 10 and under free, coupon in the link above
Booth 227

Jewelry Boxes

If you are looking for a totally unique Jewelry Box to own or give, check out one of my handcrafted creations. Each box is a one of a kind heirloom quality piece constructed using traditional joinery and modern adhesives. The miter joints are reinforced with dovetail splines, chevron splines or internal "butterfly" splines running top to bottom.

The veneered lids are glued up in a vacuum bag exerting 1750 pounds of force per square foot assuring a permanent bond. Each box is lined with suede cloth and the trays have removable dividers for added space.

Since I never create two boxes exactly the same, I am constantly searching for new and exciting woods to incorporate into my designs.

See more detail on the box pictured above Here.

Find all my current designs at My Website.

Beautiful Snakewood

Snakewood is an incredibly beautiful wood which originates mostly in Suriname, South America. The specific gravity is around 1.2, making it one of the worlds hardest woods. The part sold as snakewood is really the heartwood of the larger tree. This wood is usually felled with axes and carried on the backs of hard working natives over streams and through snake infested jungle areas. Each tree felled is monitored, and the government has developed a strict permit process to control harvesting. Much of the wood has inferior or no figure, but the small amount that has attractive figure is exported. We use only figured pieces that have high density of figure. All snakewood has at least minute hairline cracks. We take the extra step of soaking some pieces in cyanoacrylate to minimize or eliminate any cracking. Fortunately, if cracks do occur, they can be hidden completely if caught early. We do not recommend attempting to dry snakewood, as this almost always leads to cracking. Being dense, the water content is already very low. To be successful, always have superglue and hardener on hand, cover the piece with plastic completely when not working on it, and seal it completely with a finish that does not allow moisture transmission. Needless to say, the wood should never be allowed to get overly heated or left in direct sunlight.

Summer of...

This is not the summer of shows as we have none scheduled until August. It is also not the summer of rest, as we have been selling a good deal of our inventory at shows and from our website. This is the summer of labors of love as we restock our inventory. This means experimenting with new combinations of woods, revisiting old favorites, making more outrigger boxes, that seem to be popular, and refilling our inventory with humidors that completely sold out!

Since everything is made by hand in our workshop, by the two of us, each one takes a bit of time to put together, but we assure it's quality that way also.

Remember that 10% of every internet sale of our boxes goes to support Children in Distress.