solidio wood & metal craft

Toddler Rockers!

solidio — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:46:25 +0000

We’re so happy to premier our toddler line – “Sawyer Bee” at the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago. We’ll have them up in an Etsy shop ASAP. If you are interested, please email us: julie @ solidio.com.

Handmade Arcade & The Cufflinks

solidio — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:41:45 +0000

Handmade Arcade was an excellent show this year. We had numerous people stop at the booth to flash us their buckles. Its gratifying to see your work in use and appreciated. We have been on the circuit long enough now that we have gotten to know other vendors. Unfortunately I was behind my booth the whole time and so did not have much of an opportunity to say hi. We did get to see Tugboat Printshop and Cosy Makes as we were neighbors.

We debuted a couple of new designs for the show. The one we are most excited about is the Solidio cufflinks. They are made similarly to our buckles in that the backs are stainless steel with a variety of wood types laminated to the front. We avoided the use of moving parts in the design, keeping true to our design ethos of simplicity.

OMG, it’s a table

solidio — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 23:54:28 +0000

Being woodworkers, it only seemed natural to heat with wood as well. That way we could be completely inundated with wood all the time. But in reality it has been working out very well for us. For those of you that don’t know, we live and work in an old church (140 years old next year). It is a struggle to heat this place with its drafty everything and 22 foot ceilings. This year though we heated with slab. Slab is the cutoffs from logging when the tree is squared for milling. It burns great. Anyway, where am I going with this? When it is cold, I have to wake up to fill the stove once or twice in the night. I did not do that last night. I slept through the night. This is exciting.

We have been slower than we thought on completing a dining set, but it left today (finally); bound for its new home in sunny New Mexico. We made it mostly out of hard maple, with some curly maple and black walnut thrown in for good measure. If you’re interested you can see more pics here.

We have a busy spring and early summer schedule we’ve been working on. Tomorrow (April 2nd) we’ll be at the I made it Market in Pittsburgh. Also we have new product that we will hopefully be debuting at Handmade Arcade. We are trying to make use of our new CNC router.

We will be posting our show dates on our events calendar.

Its finally here (and together)

solidio — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 01:07:22 +0000

We ordered a CNC router last October. It took a couple of months for delivery and a months worth of evenings to make the table and get it setup, but it is now ready to route stuff. That is as soon as somebody learns to use the software.
We have a some new product ideas and a new new product line that we will be forthcoming, eventually.

A Helsinki fashion show

solidio — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:07:52 +0000

Amongst our current projects is this:

A Finnish fashion designer contacted us about designing a buckle worn high on the waist over clothing.

This is what we came up with.

So are we going to be famous? Hopefully we’ll at least get a runway pic out of the deal.

Happy new year!

solidio — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 00:17:38 +0000

We want to wish all of our friends, clients and fellow crafters a Happy New Year.

We have many exciting things planned for 2011 so stay tuned for new products and events.

We survived!

solidio — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:00:03 +0000

We did two shows last weekend – Mitch went to Renegade Chicago and I went to the Detroit Urban Craft Fair.

It was a challenge, but well worth it. I had little Sawyer with me at the DUCF, and luckily my Mom came and helped me out. I was very impressed with the organization of the fair and the venue.

It’s taken us a few days to recover, and today we are mailing out a bunch of etsy orders and getting ready to send Mitch off to our West Coast Debut at Renegade Los Angeles. Wish us luck, and come visit us if you are in LA.

Crafty Supermarket

solidio — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 22:55:45 +0000

Thanks to the people in Cincinnati for organizing Crafty Supermarket, it was a great way to start out the holiday season. Cincinnati was a sort of return to the “homeland.” All my family was originally from Reading (a suburb) but everyone moved to Florida in the 1970′s.

We’ll be heading to Cleveland for Bazaar Bizarre next weekend.

Holiday Show Schedule

solidio — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 19:36:44 +0000

We were sad that Handmade Arcade in Pittsburgh did not happen this year. It has been our favorite show. We love the home town crowd. We will be stocking up the good folks at Equita in Lawrenceville with buckles and frames. If you have a chance check them out they have all kinds of earth friendly stuff.
As for our show schedule we are stretching out further than we have in the past. The schedule is:
Nov. 20 Craft Supermarket, Cincinnati
Nov. 26 & 27 Cleveland Bazaar Bizarre
Dec. 4 & 5 Renegade Chicago & Detroit Urban Craft Fair
Dec. 11 & 12 Renegade Los Angeles
Dec. 18 & 19 Renegade San Francisco

We hope to see some of you there.

Arbor Aid Installation

solidio — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 22:54:41 +0000

This past Friday we did an installation for a show called Arbor Aid. Arbor Aid is a fund raiser for Tree Pittsburgh, a non-profit that focuses on education and propagation of Urban trees. The fund raiser’s theme is use of Urban Trees (e.g. furniture).

We developed a new product that we think is kinda unique. They are a set of four folding chairs that form an image when hung together on a wall. We have been working on this design for a while, but have lacked the time to produce and a venue to show it.

Four chairs that hang on the wall to form an image