 How did your year go? How did our year go? We're about to do a review right now What is up a welcome back doing to do a builder make it so do we and we have a new video each week this week We're doing something a little bit different We are gonna do a 2022 year in review where we take a look back at all of our projects and everything that we've done this Year and we will be hosting this little review with Tanner doing all the question asking Yeah, we thought this would be a little bit fun for the last video of the year Let's take a little look back and see how things went. We don't know. It's coming Tanner put this together and he'll be asking us questions and we'll be reacting Real time I guess well real time So your most viewed video on the year is your DTF printer setup How do you feel about that? Wow? I'm kind of shocked at that as our most viewed video I'm gonna have to say that's probably my favorite new tool or toy that we got here for the workshop Yeah, yeah, I think that's one of the biggest Toys that we got this year It's very exciting for us because we are looking to Transform what our door rounds look like with this DTF printer. Let's take it to a whole other level Except we haven't really done it yet Yeah, we haven't done it. We made some t-shirts and we put it on a couple of things But Kim kind of killed the machine right now. So it's in pieces. Well and before I did that The biggest surprise about this printer is you know, yes, there's a lot of maintenance, but Our neighbor next door you know She was looking for DTF printers and researching DTF printers their t-shirt business next door and They were like, hey, I was looking they looking up videos and we saw your video on DTF Do you guys do DTF? Can you print some t-shirts for us like small runs small batches and we were like, yeah Yeah, I mean that's that's part of the reason we got this thing. Kim loves to say yes Yeah, Kim will not say no always over commit always always over commit and then I have to overdeliver We pull it out we pull it out So the thing about that was I was like, yeah sure thing So then she started giving us t-shirt order after t-shirt order small runs 10 15 that's where you kind of took over the whole machine. I I know maintenance That's about it. Otherwise all the color and the color Yes, it's because I wanted to learn I said this is gonna force us to really learn how to Maintenance this thing efficiently how to make sure, you know, how to operate it efficiently Into the fire, huh? Yes. Yeah, because I had to deliver a good product to her So it wasn't so much the t-shirts. We were just doing the transfer So we just had to I never planned on using it for t-shirts and it was just printing transfers I was like, hey, it's the same thing if I'm gonna print it and melt the glue on it Then we it doesn't matter what you put it on around our t-shirt I still have to get it right get the color settings right and so to me This was just the first step in letting you buy or letting me buy Having you let me buy Printer that's that my end goal is UV printer. I thought if I could prove With the DTF that it goes on wood and look it takes our science to the whole other level You'd be like, yes, let's get that UV printer Well, we printed so many transfers for her that it was running all the time non-stop. It's super slow For running like a business. So, you know, we could do one every 30 minutes and when you're doing 15 of them It's going to take longer than a day or it's gonna take the entire day So I I found that it was using more of my time than I had planned. Yeah So yes, and then we did learn to efficiently maintenance it and during one of those maintenance Well, I have since there was a maintenance mishap. Yeah Yeah, I did a little cleaning of the printheads, but I didn't power it off And so I fried the printhead and now it's down and I've had at least it's I've gotten a little break At least you've gotten a break, but I still love the thing and we will be replacing that printhead and Hopefully she's back up and running in a couple of weeks and I'm taking our signs to a whole other level Then we're gonna still we're gonna use it for what we bought it for All right, I've got the top three videos of the year for you and this is number two All right is the sublimate cotton t-shirts with DTF powder Sublimate cotton tees with DTF powder did not work for us Now we got a lot of comments saying that it works and that we're crazy I don't know. Did we bake it too long? There was a lot of behind-the-scenes trial in error, too Like I tried to bake it. I tried not baking it at all. I put the DTF powder and I tried pressing it I tried baking it for a minute. I tried baking it at 350 650. I tried everything Well, the funny thing about when I got it down the best that's kind of when we went video and still not best well, the funny thing about this video is it wasn't something that That we needed to do or was going to be useful It was kind of a tick-tock hack that we had seen and we just thought hey I'm looking for a video for this week and I think this is kind of cool Let's see if it'll work. See if it works It was just kind of a thing on the whim So I can't believe it ends up being the second most popular video of the year when it was hey Let's try this tick-tock hack Well, I think DTF is like a buzzword in the craft community right now, and it's like well DTF and sublimation So I guess they were two two hot topics. Yeah, that's like just saying Reese's peanut butter cup And so putting them together was probably you know, hey, let's see what they can do with it Although we didn't we didn't get it to work really. No, ours are Reese's peanut butter cup was very schmelt-y Yeah, definitely now your third most popular video of the year Is pretty new like brand new and it's really shooting up there. It is the OM Tech Polar Laser Oh the OM Tech Polar Laser Just being unboxing Yeah, wow that well, I don't see why I wouldn't it's a great little machine I see nothing wrong with it I see improvements that I would have liked to have seen in the glow forge In the OM Tech like the better air assist not just a a computer fan kind of Spittin at the At the materials, but like true air assist. Yeah, I was really really excited when we got this in I really wanted to see what this thing could do. I was really excited that it works with lightburn I can't wait to do more with it. So you're right. It is the most recent video Uh, I think I'm still just in the month of december. We published that so I can't wait to do Tumblers. Yeah more projects with it. So like I'm really really Chomping at the bit to do a tumbler Like I want to see how fast the 50 watt laser can do a tumbler Yeah, if they if the little 10 watt thing From x-tool can do a tumbler in like 30 minutes What will it do with 50 watts? Well, and when you do a tumbler, I want to do something else that will Require the use of the rotary tools. What if we did like golf balls? Yeah, that's what I'm saying I want to do something else round like baseballs softballs Yes, exactly A great group. So we know the top three videos of the year. What do you think did the worst? Oh, the worst. Well, I think that the worst the door that we turned into a clock Well, I Personally liked that project. I was excited about it. I wanted to do it. I got to go pick out the door I thought it was really cool to Test it for lead paint. I didn't even know that I didn't know that was available. Yeah, I like that. So And I wanted that distressed look it's actually still in our front workshop area It's a functional clock. It is and we use it and I think it adds to the aesthetic So when I know it's time to go home It did what I wanted it to do. I guess I just I feel like we needed to take it to a whole other level And maybe filled it with resin. I don't know just no, I think put some leds back there and I think it was a bad thumbnail What was the hardest project that you did this year our hardest project this year what made it so hard Well, just right off the bat I think it's the beauty and the beast inspired cabinet for me or the craft show booth makeover One of those two everything else I think was all doable when we got into the paint on the beauty and the beast cabinet. Remember, we were like, oh, yeah Well, we saw how you do the swirling paint effect. This is how we'll do it And that took way longer than you guys have no idea How long or how many times we repainted it we yeah Practiced we yes fixed it and then fixed it and then because you had to blend Dark blue into light blue and so we're like, I mean that's easy You just a little dark blue on the outside and now we're gonna Put the light blue and then we're just gonna blend But it didn't blend it just kept swirling. Yeah, and I was like, no, I don't want to swirl I need to blend I need a fade and so We were like more light blue Oh, no, no, it was too far. Yeah, we're too far into the dark blue Let's add a little dark blue and we were going around and then it was just Swirls of dark and I'm trying to get them to kind of match the different boxes to them kind of match Fading in the same like this the fade was a three inch fade or something like that No, we argued and we were like, no, let me do it. That is not how you do it. No, let me do it No, no, that's not how you do it. Okay. It's like how in art class. This is how we did it And I was like, okay. Well, I watched a bunch of people do it I've done it before why can't I get this to fade? So yeah, we We struggled with that. That's why I became a two-parter at Because it took us what four hours to just to paint a square to fade that dark blue into light blue But in the end it came out great with all the little glow forge pieces that we added to it Well, it's still not where I really wanted to be. It's not really At that fade doesn't look like I really wanted it to look but Oh, I thought the fade looks good. It got to an acceptable level. Oh an acceptable level. Yeah Okay, let's not rehash anything cute What was your hardest project? Do you think it was the same one? One of the ones that I could think of that never even made it to a project Was us trying to use the powder coat filling and engraving with powder coat. Yes That's a video that never was a video The other day I was cleaning out the glow forge and I still found powder all up in there the green fluorescent powder So we saw someone do this and we thought it would be cool to try and show you guys Hey, look what you can do with powder coat, which is what you use to paint cars with Like metal things metal. Yeah, you dust the metal with it and then you bake it at like 450 degrees for like an hour or something So we saw that you can do that with the laser. So the laser essentially Bakes the powder and hardens it. So that That never happened. We never got it to work hours of hours of trial and error Yes days two days. Yeah two days. We worked on this trying to make it this week's video kind of thing Powder was blowing everywhere And we had to switch gears and move to another project. Yeah last minute last minute project change So that's one of the hardest ones. That's that was so hard. It never happened. Yeah I was I remember just yelling. Why would anybody want to do this? Yeah But you guys never saw that but we worked really hard. There might have been boards thrown across the room There was boards there's a lot of drama a lot of drama Yeah, so a lot of drama that thing would not work And I would be like, okay. I got new settings. It's gonna work didn't work Like thousands of attempts, I'm gonna say tens of thousands of attempts 100 000 attempts One million attempts. Wow, okay All right, enough with your youtube videos. Let's talk about new toys We mentioned the DTF printer. Yeah, we mentioned the omtech What else did you get this year? What else did we get this year? Um, we got a full-size heat press. That was fun. Yeah full-size heat press. I love that thing Yes, it's on a timer and it's our friends from heat press nation gave us a good deal on that. So Um, we love those guys over there. They're fun to work with and it's been a great product And what I'm surprised you got the heat press before this one. You got the x-tool this year Oh, the x-tool is this year. God is a great little guy. Yes. That seems forever ago And so many of you bought the x-tool. So I just hear from a lot of you guys using it It's a great way to be introduced to lasers I just think that yeah, I think that is a great Great little starter laser if you want to see what lasers are all about It is a small guy that can sit on a desktop. It can be moved. It can come back You don't have to go too deep into the pocket or something like that Yeah, it's a super affordable price. You can start doing earrings keychains You know small craft items that you can sell I wouldn't say small. I mean, it's uh good 17 by 17. Yeah 16 by 17 something like that Yeah, you can engrave on things with a tumbler attachment Yeah, oh, yeah, and it also has a tumbler attachment. Can't shake a stick at that thing So what is that 40 watts? I think it's 10 10 watts. So it's a it's Not very powerful, but I think you could do lots of things with it Oh, it'll go through eighth inch bulk big birch all day long engrave on leather, you know, you could do fun things with You guys did a lot of projects with it this year. Yeah, I guess we did do a lot of projects with it Oh, that's right. Let me roll it your skateboard Oh, yeah, I didn't grade my skateboard You did tumblers You did the uh whiskey glass, I believe that was that was cool. Yes, we engraved on the glass. Yeah What was your favorite craft show of the year? My favorite craft show Oh easy picosin picosin Yeah If anybody's watching from picosin leave us a comment down below We love that one. It's the picosin seafood festival. We will be back Good food good music. I don't know man lake fest was also a really good virginia lake fest. That's when the uh Tornado came through at the very end Oh, wait, was that that one that one was a good one. What was the one where we had the corner? Right across from the live music. What was that one? I don't know. Oh, that is Matthews Matthews market days. Yeah, it was picosin. Yeah or Matthews market days for me because Both of those were good food good music good time good people Good time aqua quen that was a good one to you aqua quen was a good one. Yeah, that was down by the water and um It was like a cool little towny area The little the little shops and everything were really cool. Can you tell which ones I liked? It was one where we were by the food in the music What was your biggest takeaway on starting the bigger craft shows this year? Well, yeah, that was our thing for this year. So up to this point, we've done farmers markets And we've done um a couple of different farmers markets So we did the one that's really close to our house. So that was really convenient to get to and that's how we Like got started. Yeah, definitely got our feet wet Kind of waving into the pool. Then last year we moved into in the fall and over january, february and march We were in um, well, it's called the rva big market Which is also kind of a farmers market, but on a much larger scale Um, and that was outdoors too. So both of those are outdoor shows And our first real indoor craft show Was last january during the ice storm and then we just ramped up from there That was really great. The the biggest one that we had started with in the spring was arts in the park And that was a great one too. That's a classic. That's a richman. It is a richman classic So and it was it was a really big show. I don't know how many vendors 750 vendors or something There was just tons of vendors. It's a huge show Um, we had a really big, yeah, there was the first time we had to make Yes, it was three days. We had to make tons and tons of product. And so that was um One of the things you probably get ready to go in there. What we learned about it. Is that what you asked me? Lessons learned Start earlier Yes, we really learned how to Better estimate how much product we need for the show Um, we started to learn that, you know, if it's a three day show If it's a holiday show, it's what the attendance numbers are expected to be allowed us to better Estimate how much product we needed to bring and the amount of product we needed to bring kind of dictated How our booth setup changed we went from using the dividers and stuff to using the metal racks Because so that we can display more display more and something that was easy to come and go Yes, we really learned how to set up and break down Yeah, you want to be able to set up quickly and break it down quickly We want to make sure that we have a variety A variety of signs to meet different tastes, but not a bodega Also, know your best sellers and make sure that you have a ton of those You also started workshops officially. What's your biggest takeaway? Our biggest takeaway is that people love doing them. People love coming to hang out and painting something that they can use in the end Yeah, it is the most fun. Yeah, it's fun. I It would I mean it's hard to think that that's a job I mean, I'm glad they pay me, but I love hanging out with them Well, everybody leaves my biggest surprise with that is everyone leaves happy Like everyone loves their project when they're done We haven't had a single person leave here disappointed. We did not have a giant smile on their face Well, maybe one one couple They had um, they did a kind of a difficult project and she got a little overwhelmed the one girl That might have they might have been unhappy because I wasn't attending that workshop I think that might have spoiled it just in general here. I it's Maybe because you guys would be surprised that when garret gets in the air and starts laughing and joking with everyone Um, it just kind of brings the spirits up even more So like everybody starts having a good time and teasing and laughing and joking Yeah, everybody loosens up and it's even more fun. Yeah, everyone loves a good food poisoning Yeah, they were food poisoning prank. Yeah, I don't if you guys haven't heard that story the first workshop we ever did for our friends and family was on april fool's day and We ordered food in and everybody had Sub sandwiches and chips and some cookies And they made a big to-do about the food order Yes, I wanted I insisted that we have food for everyone that we feed everyone And I was busy running around because it was the first time we had done this And I was trying to make sure everyone was happy. Everything was perfect Everyone had what they needed. We were making bows and I was like mega ultra focused on making sure this workshop was successful And then garret comes up to me and says That was on the phone. Yeah comes past me on the phone Fake phone call and says Okay, okay He goes the meat in the sandwiches was bad. I said, did you guys eat all the sandwiches already? I go pop billy's on the phone about the sandwiches or something No, you told me the meat was bad. I never said the meat was bad You jumped to conclusions. No, you said the sandwiches were bad or something You told me that food was bad because immediately when everyone's got food poisoning now what am I going to do? And I just had a small Freak out like I was like, oh my gosh But you you were angry with both of us for two weeks. Yeah, I didn't even have a heart of it Yeah, you you were laughing You were laughing they yes, I got so mad at Garrett She's like you want to do this right now You thought a good time to prank me is right now And I said, yes, you're unsuspecting on april fools day Let's talk about patreon because you guys did a lot with that this year. Oh, yeah You can plug your patreon. It's okay. This year is the year that I I guess this year was the year patreon. I mean I spoiled them this year With all of our top tier patrons. They got every svg out there. They got a t-shirt They got shout outs. They got some extra content a lot of zoom calls. I made a a lot more friends this year Yeah, I was gonna say what surprised me about patreon is we built a family We built a little kimming gear like make it fam for sure. Yeah, and um hangers Yeah, our hangers our top tier patrons join a top tier patron group like a private group And everyone is like a big group in there. They share information. They ask questions Yes, yeah, it's like and I feel like not only did we make friends and make this fam Um, I feel like everyone in the group also are a lot of them Also, yeah made friends with each other and built a lot of connections. We shared a lot of business advice Um, I just think it's been a great group the zoom calls Started out with a few people Now they're now they're like, I don't know 20 people now last one It was almost like 50 people because yes, there was two screens of faces that you could go through So we have tons of folks joining and asking questions and interacting Um and sharing information. Yeah, I love that everybody Is willing to jump into the conversation But nobody nobody on the calls are shy. They're all it's not about us presenting on zoom calls It's about it's a it's a group conversation and that's what makes those makes those fun. Yeah, we know Yeah, I feel like Feel like they became our friends. Yeah, we did meet a lot of new friends this year So what do you have planned for 2023 any big plans? Well 2023, uh I let go of the reins. I started all of this youtube thing. This was me and then this year I'm letting go Yeah, there's a lot on Garrett's plate. He does the design work. He does the editing work. He helps design Inputs into the projects. He helps set up for the project. I do all the pre game stuff or pre show planning and press show Yes, I pre and post it all Yes, and and you do like I said all the design work and Editing and so there's a lot on his plate. So This year he was getting a little stressed out the end of this year Especially well, like we said, we just added a lot on our plate this year when we added craft shows We added workshops. So our business is growing And even with those things I'm like, okay, you've got to you've got to come help me in this workshop So he has to stop what he's doing with editing so he can come in You know be funny. Yeah be the goofball in the workshops We're gonna change things up. We've done some planning for 2023 And I'm no longer in charge of video You can see what he's excited about So we've moved some positions around and tanner who's done all of our I guess he's been our production manager. He manages the lasers and he's done all of the shipping and manages the shipping He is moving into a producer role And video editing and that's going to take a lot of that off of Garrett's plate I'll hopefully all of that off of your plate And all of the Coming up with projects and thumbnails and the structure of the video That's all up to tanner and Courtney now So they're gonna they're gonna help us with that so that we can focus more on What it is that we want to do and and the content and they can they can bring it to YouTube for us. Hopefully we can take it across the finish line. We can give more content Both here on patreon on the other social medias. Yeah, just You'll be seeing a lot more of our faces because we won't be behind the laptops as much Yeah, and the other big change and I know you're about to ask tanner. I knew where you're going with that Um, so one of the things we've we worked hard at this year was making sure we had more than one video 2022 was we need to do two videos a week So we went live on tuesdays. We do a new Door around design or two of them every tuesday live test cut tuesday. Yeah, our test cut tuesday We've had a lot of friends for that too And then on fridays we do our regular More curated project video that comes out on friday. So in 2023 We're not going to do test cut tuesdays any longer Sorry, we'll replace it But we are going to keep that second video and we're going to turn it more into a vlog It's going to be hey what's happening around here. What did we do this week? It's kind of like our patron after show. We're going to do a little of that You'll get a taste on youtube and then the whole thing on patreon. Yeah, something like that So we're going to keep two videos. I don't even know that's not even up to me I'm just here to show up and read a script. Well, he's really trying to let go of the reins Probably not that much. I mean you might show up and it might be a mannequin With a hat on No, we've got we're we're going to work it out still two videos But probably not a tuesday live. Well that about sums up all the questions I had for you Anything you want to add to your year 2022 review? Our 2022 year review. It was a good year. I feel like it was a good growth year for both. Yes Like every aspect of our business if you don't know we moved from our home into this workshop space or business space a dedicated business space here In november of last year. So this was our first full year In this space first full year owning like our own real business. Well, we well We still owned our own real business, but I guess this is our first full year brick and mortar business. Yes. Yeah Yes, people coming in customers coming in We like we said we continued to do our videos. We added a second video We started workshops. We started craft fairs. Yeah, we the craft shows I mean we did 13 craft shows this year. That was huge And yeah, and then we started the workshop space and we've held I don't know how many I haven't counted how many workshops it was like 30 plus I think last time we counted I think we decided on 30 plus workshops. Yeah So It's it's it's a big growth year We have nothing but big dreams for 2023 We like I just said, we just reorganized what folks are going to do We have some nice goals and objectives That are I feel like are achievable achievable And I'm looking to expand and grow even further All right, right now Tanner's our full-time employee and he's our oldest son only son and Courtney our oldest daughter we want to employ her full-time. So that's my goal for 2023 There you go. That's a good goal and everybody gets money Well, we wanted to say thank you for supporting us this year It was a big growth year for us and you guys were a big part of that Especially our patrons. They they got to see a lot of behind the scenes on our growth and they always have our back Not only do they support us on patreon outside of our youtube channel, but they're there for our tuesday lives If you guys have been watching us for a while, you'll know that the biggest craft show of the year was Reigned out due to a hurricane We had a last-minute hurricane party and we did an online sale that was all like impromptu for sure and a lot of our patrons joined us for the Online sale. We were live all weekend and they were there Lois and Helen, you know Scott Jason all you guys Jumped in and would comment and and just kind of be there to support us. So Yes, thank you all of our viewers. Thank you. Yep. Thank you for your support And uh, hopefully we'll make you proud next year