Welcome to the JAM Factory, your online Craft Fair!
Hi! I’m Rikki. Half of the team at JAM Factory Crafts and JAM Factory Supplies. The other half of the team is my mother, Julie. The crafts you can purchase in the JAM Factory Crafts shop are handmade at home by either Julie or I. Julie does the personalizing, as trust us, you don’t want to see my handwriting.
Mom grew up in the middle of nowhere. Which is located in the Puget Sound area of Washington State. She has a lot of vivid memories of my grandfather working with wood and metal, crafting and building, as she grew up. Grandpa added additions to their house at one point. And after he ventured into wood working, he crafted many beautiful items. One of my favorite items is a chest that I still own. He and Mom worked together that year. Him crafting the trunk, Mom sewing doll clothes, and at Christmas the chest sat in front of the tree, filled with the doll clothes for me to find. Her love of woodworking comes from him.
In the early 1990's, my dad moved the family to California. Mom starting participating in craft shows to earn some extra cash. At first she sewed most of her inventory, calling herself The Jam Factory, a play on her initials of J, A, and M. The name JAM Factory Crafts is a nod to that original business name. She’d spend the year building her inventory for the craft shows she did around the Christmas season. My sister and I would join in here and there, making some inventory of our own to sell for some spending money. Mom eventually ventured into wood working herself. She’s the only woman I know who was happy to get a table saw for Christmas. Dad hid it in the car trunk and sent her on a treasure hunt for it. Mom’s gotten really good at cutting out her patterns and painting them over the years.
As a result of Mom’s crafting, the family spent years without a dining room table. Not because we didn’t have one. We did. Mom took it over as her crafting location, covering it with her paints, fabric, and wood. We rarely ate there for the simple reason there wasn’t any place to sit. It got cleared off for company, and of course, holiday meals, but for the remainder of the year, it served as a crafting table.
Mom’s since moved. So have I. We haven’t done craft shows in years, but Mom still does her wood work. The majority of our wood products are hand cut and painted for your pleasure and enjoyment. This means that you get all the natural beauty of the wood, with all its imperfections and flaws. We hope you agree with us that those flaws make your piece truly unique and often one of a kind.
We’ve also collected some excess craft supplies over the years. You can purchase those in the JAM Factory Supplies shop.
