How Grampas Workshop Began
I never thought I'd be able to say I love my job and love what I do!! I never thought I would be in the toy making business, until I became a grandfather in 2004. My first grandson and I spent many hours in the workshop, he on his workbench, and I on mine. Granted, my grandson usually was just playing with sawdust or asking Grampa can you cut this, or nail that? Of course I would stop whatever I was doing to help this young lad. We now have 6 grandchildren to date who are my pride and joy, my quality control and test team, I'm still loving what I do.
When we first started our business, Valarie and I both decided that we wanted to stay Eco-Friendly, and handmade. That quality and safeness of each and every item was very important to us. So we started our business slow, doing a few local craft shows, with only a few items, we wanted to see how the Customers felt about our products that we had to offer. The response was AMAZING!!! People loved our products and wanted us to create more items. We were happy to say the least. :D It felt so wonderful to have great feedback about our products. From there, we looked into joining United Maine Craftsmen, while we were living in Maine, and started our Grampas Workshop website as well as our Etsy webpage selling online.
Currently we have some of our products in local shops in Florida, as well as John's walking flamingo's, ducks and alligators are in Flamingo Gardens Gift Shop in Davie, FL, and Val's Amigurumi Hot Dogs and French Fries are a part of Chicago Children's Museum ~ CIRCUS ZIRCUS.
In 2011 we decided to move to Florida. We have continued to sell online, as well as selling at local Craft Shows. We will always continue to set up at craft fairs as we love the public and the smiles on little faces. We have recently started to sell our items to Wholesalers; and started a new line of Infant / Toddler Photo Props.
To this day, no item leaves our shop unless it passes our quality control. Each item that is made in my shop is made for an individual purpose. Because this individuality is an integral part of every step of the process, it is easy to accommodate custom requests. We strive on safeness and ruggedness for each and every item. We will always stay handmade on each and every item. All of my wood products are made completely of sustainable wood which I source all from local businesses and suppliers. All of our crochet products are made out of 100% wool yarn and/or cotton yarn.
