The Toymaker is based in SE Melbourne, and makes wooden toys, puzzles and models to inspire the imagination. NBN* Toys (*No Batteries Needed)

I think I have always been intrigued with woodworking, back to when I was very young seeing my Father and my Uncles making things. Made lots of billy carts as a kid!

This interest grew when I had an opportunity to do woodworking at school on a number of occasions - workshop time in other classes, then as a subject when I got to secondary school. (At least for one year).

(As a bit of an aside, I tried to take woodworking, metal working and tech drawing for my first year at high school, and the principal said "he shouldn't do three technical subjects - drop one and take a language". So I dropped metalwork, took German, failed it two years in a row and became an engineer. Go figure).

Things got quiet for a few years, until I left the Navy and got a day job. With one of the wedding presents being a small wood lathe (a gift from another Uncle!), the scene was set, and my first workshop established.

Things have grown from there. I was president of a local woodworking club for a couple of years, did demonstrations of woodworking machines at wood shows and hardware stores (all in my spare time), and grew a website called Stu's Shed, which was one of the first woodworking blogs in the world, and the first in Australasia. That is still going (and is now approaching 3 million visits. That number is actually very low, as it doesn't take into account email, RSS, Facebook or Twitter subscribers, which pretty much doubles the total site reach). stusshed.com

The shed has been expanded and expanded, and is now home to a raft of machines, including the CNC router that I use to make a lot of the items that appear in this shop.

A bad day in the workshop still beats the best day at work!

I hope you like what you find in my Etsy store - there is a lot learning, time, blood, sweat and tears that has gone into it all, and while you may only see a Hodor door stop for example, there is in fact so much more that has gone in behind the scenes!