Our 1st Post - a little background

Hi - Welcome to VanEss Expressions' Blog - a way for me to keep our website visitors and friends updated on what is going on with VanEss Expressions.

For those who do not know us, we are a small woodworking company in Minneapolis Minnesota - as the description and our profile indicates - and sell those items thru our On-Line Store.

We have been making our wood gifts and home decor items for many years, and finally joined the www in July 2003. We have slowly become established, then in November 2008 we crashed - badly. I had to totally redo the whole site, and am still trying to get all of our current wood items added to the 'Store'. This is taking a lot longer than I had thought - as I am not the least bit techie. As Dr McCoy (for those of you old enough) would say - I am a woodworker, not a webmaster. So, working on getting the rest of our current wood gifts/home decor added to the 'Store'.

Since the 'big crash' happened right in the middle of our 'Nut Bowl Season' (we sell a lot of our handcrafted holiday nut bowls during the Christmas season) - most all of our time was spent trying to keep up with the nut bowl orders, and didn't leave much time to work on anything else. Thus our inventory of our other wood items (clocks, vases, bowls & boxes) has really dwindled. So, working on trying to get some new wood gifts/home decor made to replenish our inventory.

In February I applied to the Edina Art Fair. It is the 2nd largest art show in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis) area and is the only Art/Craft show we attend. It is a strictly juried show, and am pleased that we were accepted. I am still waiting to see where we will be located, and will update here with our Booth number/location for our local customers who would like to stop by. So, working on creating some unique & unusual wood items to bring to the show.

We have several custom orders in the works. We do take custom orders, but it's just the two of us - so we can't take on too much at a time. We just finished up a large book box to house an 1875 world atlas that is to be given as a wedding gift. We are also working on a wall clock in the shape of the state of Indiana for a retirement gift. We already make wall clocks in the shape of the state of Minnesota - for a local government agency, but have never made an Indiana clock. We are also making a very unusual shaped table for a local customer. We do make some wood furniture and larger home furnishings - but only for local customers. And we do bring some of these larger items to the Edina Art Show - but no longer offer them on our website.

And, as with everyone else, there are a lot of personal things going on - but I don't do personal.

Well, that pretty much brings us up-to-date. Subsequent updates will hopefully not be so wordy. But I will try to give a little more insite into the different wood gifts and home decor items we make.

Please visit our website, VanEss Expressions and feel free to tell me what you think (and, of course, if you want to buy something - that would be good, too ;-).