Our Story

The year, 2018. The world, everything was good! 1 Family, 2 incomes, living great. 

We've always tried to be somewhat self-employed since our twins were born in 2005. In 2006 we were running a small mortgage company at our house.  If you're old enough to have been working during that time, then you know the mortgage industry crashed. It crashed hard.  

Up until then everyone was living like nothing could go wrong. We were re- financing homes for other people, paying off their debt knowing they would be back in debt in many cases. But, for a minute they were happy. 

What we learned was home values always increase, but at some point, maybe a 150k house wasn't really worth 250k?  Anyway, the long and short of that was, we lost what we had built.  Gone. Done. No bueno. Now it wasn't just us though, it was us and 2 babies. Nothing scarier than having someone serve you papers that your house was gone, knowing you have a family and very few options. 

Fast forward to 2018 after a long road of re-building. Elton, convinced after watching a video on burnt-wood photos, tried to then convince me to buy a machine that makes pictures burnt onto Baltic Birch wood.  Finally, I gave in and 3 weeks later a box showed up from the Ukraine ...   

How we took our wood burnt side hustle and became full-time business owners during a pandemic. 

A Phone Call 

November 2020, we received a phone call from our bosses, went a little like this:

Them: "You know things have slowed down, right?" 
Us: " Um...yes." 
Them: "We have to let you both go, we're very sorry, you're like family and we know you have a family to support...this is so hard for us, but we need to keep our doors open. Again, we're so sorry. we'll give you 3 paychecks per our contract." 

“Difficult roads always lead to beautiful destinations.” — Zig Ziglar

Pivot

Stunned, as we were told we lost 2 full time incomes, and a bit crushed because, they were like our family. We got off the phone and looked at each other as tears welled up in our eyes.  We both knew either we try and find a job, in the midst of lockdowns, or we take this business even more serious and go full-time. 

In 2 years, we'd grown to about 6 employees and 9 machines running out of our kitchen already. What if we jumped in fully with no back up plan?

“Tough times never last, but tough people do.” — Robert H. Schuller 

Full-Time Hustle

We did jump in with both feet in November 2020 and since then, we've been full-time working round the clock 24/7 in our kitchen. We've burnt close to 20,000 photos and sent them around the world. 

Moral of the story, sometimes we choose to jump and sometimes people push us out of the plane with no parachute to figure it out on the way down.  Ours was the latter.  Lots of hard work and sleepless nights, but we get to own a piece of the American dream because of that. 

Thankful to be at the 4-year mark because according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 24 percent of businesses tend to fail in the first year, and around 48 percent won’t make it past the second year. We're Thankful & Grateful to still be here 4 years later.  

“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” – William Arthur Ward

Our Promise to You

There are so many variables to what a picture looks like when burnt and because we're humans and know we'll mess up once in a while, our promise to you is, we'll do everything we can to have AMAZING customer service when something happens. Never worry if you are thinking about ordering from us.  We live for happy and satisfied customers. It's the best compliment we can get.  

“It is one thing doing what you love for a living. It is another thing doing what you love with love”
― Rasheed Ogunlaru, 

Moral of the Story

The world waits for no one. Make a choice and step with one foot in front of the other every day going after what you want in life. 

Giving Back 

As a proud American business, we do what we can to give back and give special discounts, especially to our veterans and first responders.  If you're a Veteran or are currently serving let us know.  We know freedom isn't free and we're grateful. 

-Thomas Sowell