After posting about a hundred things on a hidden board, it was decided. We were going to make lawn dice for our parents and other homemade gifts for the siblings (more on this later). We'd never heard of lawn dice before, but thought they could be fun. We purchased a 4x4 board from the hardware store, cut and sanded it down into 15 dice, then wood-burned the dots. Both sets of parents received 5 lawn dice, as well as a mesh laundry bag to hold the dice and Yahtzee score cards. (http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~davis/yahtzee.pdf)
We had such fun working on this project together and since making them, had considered making more and improving on the final product.This idea simmered for nearly two years.
I mentioned that we had decided to make homemade Christmas gifts for siblings. At that time we only had two siblings with children so I decided to make activity books for them and the kids. Again, Pinterest was my main source for ideas which I compiled into a book of over 52 crafts and activities that would be good for kids ages 2-10. Included with the homemade books were a few materials that I thought wouldn't be readily on-hand for the activities - craft sticks, masking tape, Velcro, etc. My sister-in-law loved it and lovingly called it: "Mom's Sanity Keeper - Some Parts Included" this planted the idea of selling them at Christmas bazaars the following year or maybe even open an Etsy shop.
As I don't know what the copyright issues would be to sell these books and knew I would have to replace nearly all the pictures. I decided this wasn't a product I could really spend the time on with an active toddler and baby on the way. (It still may make it's way to our site, but at the current time it's on hold.)A few months ago we were brainstorming ways to make a little extra money because Luke's job at Starbucks wasn't keeping up with our growing family and income needs. We had been searching for a new job for about three years and it seemed we weren't going to be able to make a job change soon. So, we started to seriously talk about opening a shop on Etsy. I had some ideas of what I might want to sell on the site; however, I felt a bit intimidated and not a hundred percent convinced my items would be of interest to anyone.
We landed on wood dice for a few reasons: Luke got a new job working for a small construction company and was able to re-purpose some of the materials leftover from job sites, It's a project we enjoy doing together, and Luke has experience woodworking.
Luke was able to put together a few prototypes to show friends and family, after positive feedback we decided to take the plunge and open our store: L & R MeierWorks (lrmeierworks.etsy.com) on April 9th. To date we have over 400 views, 11 favorites, and 4 online orders. Not bad for only being up and running for 2 weeks.
It is wonderful to see how God is providing through this. Right now we're just covering our costs for tools and materials, but nearly daily we're receiving encouragement to keep going. And we potentially have a small game store that may either display, purchase a set, or become a seller. Not sure if that will materialize, but it was fun to have them excited about our product.
Praise the Lord for how He provides!
