 What is up? Welcome back! Do you like to do a little make it? So do we! And we have new videos each week so be sure to hit that like button, hit subscribe, tick that bell to be notified of our new videos each week. Today we're taking a look back on 2023. We thought we'd review some of our videos, talk about it, just do a little reminiscing of what we remember about some of the key videos. I've already circled a few for Garrett and we're going to try and get some genuine reactions and a little commentary. Alright so let's we're gonna start at the beginning of the year and work our way down. So you're gonna have to see if you can rewind that tape. Put my brain to the test. Alright the first one which was kind of a surprise video for us. We did it as a viewer request that turned into lots of viewers wanted to know and that was the puzzle piece backer. Oh that was a sleeper! I get comments every day how do I cut a big 16 inch rounds or one of your designs in my little desktop laser and I show them that video all the time. Paste it in, I haven't saved in a little folder over here so I could just copy and paste it now. It's easier than you think and that video is a total sleeper if you haven't seen it yet and you got a desktop laser you need to check it out. Yeah that's a good one, that was a good one. Alright you ready for the next one? I'm ready. Crazy money at craft shows. Oh that was a good one that was kind of a we'll take you along vlog style. Yeah so that was something new that we tried was kind of like a vlog style video as we went through our journey of the craft show. We tried to do some little commentary, some little video clips, some of them were in. Lots of tips and tricks. The car at night. Yeah a lot of bad lighting but a lot of good tips. Yeah yeah and people like watching that they like to see our journey and just what we have to share. If you go back and watch it just just know I was new to trailerism back then. Trailerism. I wasn't very good at trailers man and I was still learning how to drive it. So what we got there it was kind of evening hours it was late we had we there was a great spot for us the perfect spot. Perfect spot. It was just trying to back that trailer and if I had trailer skills. Between two other trailers I mean you had to thread that needle and it took a few tries. Garrett chef you found a family guy video that that was pretty dead on. Yeah pretty dead on. So you haven't seen that one that's a good one go back a little bit about craft shows and that little vlog maybe we'll do another one like that. I think so we learned a lot this year that we can share with others. Alright here's another good one that surprised us the LED acrylic lights. I don't know that one surprised me because it looks super cool and it's super easy to do like surprisingly easy and it looks so professional. Well we did a photo engraved so we engraved our photo it's actually up there and so number one I think here are the key points of that one that made that one great. One it's acrylic acrylic is hot. Two it's engraving a photo that's also hot and three it was lighted and so you really got to see this lighted acrylic. Like a wow factor to it. Yes. Just gives you like a haroomf. Yes and so much though that one did so well that we ended up doing that one twice we did it once with a co2 and once with a diode laser. I got a lot of comments can you do it with a diode laser. Because you cannot engrave clear acrylic with a diode laser. We gave you a hack though. Or can you yeah. Check it out if you got a diode laser you could totally do clear acrylic with a simple little hack. Yeah so we're going to do more with that because we get a lot with the diode laser and how to how to use acrylic. What can you do with acrylic and a diode laser. A lot. Alright here's another one this was a good one the 3D laser maps. Oh I love that one that thing looks so classy and classic and timeless. We just sold that so we actually had that when did we do that one. I was holding on to that one for a long time. In April right we had it in our front room we had it in our workshop space so people could see it and we were probably in early December or late November. Yeah somebody made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I had to let it go. Yes and they were like I need this I'm going to a party was it a housewarming right it was a housewarming party and she said can I please buy this map from you so we ended up selling the big one we had a bigger one and a small one. That one was really fun because we got to do something we hadn't done before and do that layering of the maps and that laser engraving. And again it was super easy there's tools out there to help you and it was just a couple of clicks and illustrator. And show you how you can do your lakes your city there's other and we got to see some other people. Yeah that's my favorite part seeing what other people do with the information. We love it. Yes when we do a video and you come back and share what you did with that video we love that. That makes that makes our job and coming up with new ideas every week the most fun so we see somebody do something with them. I love seeing what you guys have. Alright what do you got what do we got next? Our P2 so we got our P2 laser mid-year it was the beginning now see end of May very last week in May we did our unboxing we loved the P2 we were excited to showcase some of its features. I mean that thing I thought it was gonna be awesome it is awesome. Yeah yeah but I dove right into it with very little instruction. Well we were able to show you the curved surface engraving. That was great. We did the batching. How about when we use the pass through. Well the pass through got tricky and it took up a lot more room than I anticipated. I rearranged this room to try to get it to work. Well we thought it was gonna be another one of those easy videos. We had to design all we had to do was cut it put it together videos done. Problem is in the in our first attempt or was it maybe the second attempt at cutting it. Sixth. Because we had to learn a little bit about tabs and how you didn't want to fall through it would jam up at the layer laser. Yep. You got to have the proper spacing we learned that it only cut in a certain area so we learned a lot. A lot. But in that process we broke the conveyor belt and so we couldn't finish our project. Come to find out it was a super easy fix. There was a screw that got loose and it wasn't me. That was all that was all we had to do was tighten the screw. But at the time that's what we had for the video for that week and we didn't have time to film anything else. I showed you five ways not to use the conveyor belt with the P2. So we did share our lessons learned but we couldn't actually finish the project that week. That was a what not to do. That was a fail video. We brought it back around. And that was something we had. Well I guess we've done plenty of fails but usually we we fail and then figure it out. This time we had to fail. Well I figured out. I just had to wait for somebody to tell me how to fix it. Yeah. Here's one that we thought that we really enjoyed and thought would be we were super hype on this idea. Secret design design. Oh yeah. That was that was the most fun video of the year. We were hype on it. This is gonna be so fun. People are gonna love this. Yeah. You guys are gonna love this. You get to see the the dueling design techniques. And nope. Yeah. Nope. There's a flop. Nope. You guys didn't love it. We loved it. We enjoyed doing it. I do it every week if we could. But that video did not do well. So you probably haven't seen that video. Maybe go back and check that one out because. Might be a thumbnail. It's kind of horrible thumbnail. Yeah. We were. That's something we're definitely learning. I'm learning. All right. So Secret Sign Design. I don't know if we'll do that again. Well we'll come up with another bright idea that we thought was fun. I think it's fun. I like the verses. Here's another good one. We had a patron come in and share some stuff with us and talk to us. I know where you're going with this. And he shared with us how you could laser and grave on t-shirts. Mind blown. We hadn't even seen anyone do that. We didn't even know you could do that. I thought it looked real cool. Yeah. Get super intricate. So we told him he was like, Oh, I'll bring you one before he could bring it. We were like, Nope. We gotta do a video on this. Yeah. Come on and visit. But then I ended up doing it anyway. I'm like, No, I gotta try. I was super excited. Yes. And if you don't care, he doesn't he doesn't hold secrets well. He doesn't get excited. He's gonna take action. As soon as I know something, you know it. Yes. Yes. But I got a lot of comments that it doesn't work. It didn't work too well with the CO2 laser. It worked pretty well with the diode laser. And I got comments saying, Well, when you wash it, it's gonna wash right out. Nope. It didn't wash out. I wish I had it today. I still have it. The one on the diode laser is great. The ones we did on the CO2 laser did. Yeah, start to fall apart where it got too hot in some places. It actually ate all the way through. You can see, you can see. Would I do it again on a T shirt? Like a cut T shirt. Would I do it again on a T shirt? No, but I want to try jeans. I think I think they'll stay together a little bit better. I just think that if you have a diode laser, I think that's something you could try and do something cool with. So go back. You haven't seen that video. Go back and watch that one. Maybe it's just meant for like a pocket or something. But it's cool. Oh, well, it's cool. I mean, you can go big and crazy. Just know it's slow. It's very slow and it takes a long time. But yeah, it is a definitely something you could talk about and share with people. Hey, look, I laser engraved this T shirt. It's cool trick. Yeah, cool trick. Part of the tricks. How about the liquid filled acrylic key chains? Never again. Those things were a mess. Oh, I forgot. As always, I got a little panicky when I glued my fingers to the acrylic. I mean, like they were glued. We did some research. We thought we had it down. We thought we had some nice tips and tricks to share with you. We got them to work. I bought all kinds. I bought all kinds of fun, little trinkets, confetti, little pieces to put inside because I was doing. I was going deep on liquid filled key chains. Yeah, she's going so deep that one of the liquids was an enema. Well, it's because you needed, you needed, what was that stuff called? A glycerin or something. Yeah, and that was the only thing I could find it in and but whatever. Didn't matter. Didn't matter. They were a mess. They were a mess. Yeah. We had, it took us like three days. Three days. We had oil, baby oil, water. It was just, it was just, the desk was a mess. It was a mess. Yeah. So guess what? We didn't do much more with acrylic key chains. And I still have all that trinket stuff. Well, we went in deep. Maybe I could try again. For our first key chain, maybe they didn't need to be liquid filled. Right. Maybe we start with just the layered key chain. Or angry key chain. Seems like, nope. Liquid filled. Yep. I need to liquid fill these things. We're going big. Otherwise, what is the purpose? Big, big dreams, big dreams. Always big dreams. Always. Oh, here's another good one that kind of caught us by surprise. But is an awesome video. The door corners. Oh, the door corners. Yes. Those blew up. I love door corners. 2024 might be the year of the door corner. Well, and we had so, so you guys like the door corners. We got a lot of great feedback on it. Took them to the crash shows. They did extremely well. Yes. I could as soon as I put them out, boom, boom, boom, boom. They were sold first. You know, great. There's two things about that. One, I don't think people have seen that very often. So something cool. Oh, I want this. Two, it was at a lower price point. So it's great to have another project at a low price point. Three, it kind of adds to the door hanger. It's like a companion piece. Yes. That is what I found through the holiday season because we did a Grinch Hand door corner and we had the Grinch Hand sign. And if you bought the sign and we had the door corner displayed in our workshop space. Probably buying that too. You had to buy that door corner to go with it. So I think that's a great little thing to kind of pair the two of them. And I think you're going to see more from that. More of that from us in 2024. I got big dreams. So I really liked the door corners. And I know I keep saying if you've watched us for a while, you've probably already heard me talk about them and how I want to do more. I still want to do more. Me too. We're going to come back to that. And some of them. I mean, the basic ones are pretty easy to do. We just did it in Canva. Don't sleep on Canva. Yeah. We've said that all year. Do not sleep on Canva. That was a big theme for us this year. Let me tell you the powerhouse that Canva is. Yeah. Okay. Here's one that you probably don't have a great reaction to. But I'm going to tell you one of my favorites. And so earlier in the year, back in June, in June, we received the X-Tool F1. And we showed you that is the little portable laser. It's an IR. Powerhouse. I love that little guy. Yes. Yes. And if you go to craft shows and you want to do personalization and customization on site, you need that little F1 laser. That thing has been great. We took it on the go twice this year and we filmed it. Well, that's where I'm going with this. In the fall, they did, X-Tool did a partner program with Jackery so that you could purchase the F1 and get the portable power station. Well, just so you know, for probably a year now, I have been wanting a Jackery. When X-Tool said, Hey, I'm going to send you this Jackery because we're doing a partnership with Jackery and the F1. I was so excited. I was so excited when it came in. I was doing the happy dance and so now we had to take it out of the box. We had to hook up the solar panels. We had to go see it all work. Yes. The moment it arrived. Well, if you don't have a Jackery, you should get a Jackery. You should get an F1 and you should get a Jackery. Might as well get it in a bundle. If you're going to laser on the go, I mean, you just do the whole thing with a backpack. All right. Stick in with X-Tool because they are one right after the other on my list. Here's a good one for you. Yes. We got the S1. That thing is surprisingly, I was shocked by the power of it. That was something we didn't feel like. When they said, Hey, we're coming out with a new laser. We want to send it to you. Well, you test it. We're sending you a diode laser and I was like, Well, we already have a diode laser. Well, I didn't think it was a bad thing, but I just felt like we already had one. So what? And they were like, No, but this is new and this is enclosed and there's all these new features. Well, we have been pleasantly surprised. Super surprised. I have been super surprised, super impressed with this S1. So if you're a hobbyist. Yeah, I was gonna say, if you're in the market for like a desktop laser, maybe your first laser, this surprisingly powerful little diode might do you right. It's enclosed in everything. It's enclosed. It comes. You can get the rotary tool with it. You can get the pass through with it. It'll cut the acrylic that we use. You can create the door rounds. It is quarter inch MDF. Super surprised at at a pretty good pace at a pretty good speed. Yep. Yep. Yep. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. Yeah, that's a good video to go back and watch and then turn right around. And I think they were one video right after the other, the unboxing and then the pass through. That's that was just a really great laser. That's just a I'm very impressed with powerful little dude. Yeah. How about the countdown calendar? Whoo. That thing was awesome. But so here's how that one came about. I said, you know what we need? We need a new door round, but I want this thing to be something different. I want it to be like a step up a level up from our traditional door round. So and and it was holiday season and I wanted a countdown calendar. I actually want an advent calendar, but that's another story for another day. But I started with the countdown calendar and I wanted to do that little rotating wheel. So I started with some ideas for Garrett and that thing evolved. Well she said I need wow factor. I did. I did. I wowed it up. Yes. You wowed it up. Shot me myself right in the foot. Yes. Yes. You did and put it together then. Yes. So we that was one of the that's probably the only time for when painting came to me and I Garrett has been, you know, your painting is not his favorite thing. So when we're doing a project and it's paint time, he's like, ah, that he just does it. I gotta go. But for me, I'm like, Oh, no, we're just gonna knock this out here. We're gonna knock this out to be great. With this one, when I saw all those pieces and it was paint time, I was like, I think you can tell in the video when I show her all the pieces, you could just see the enthusiasm drain out. Oh, it took us forever to paint that thing. But she was not happy the rest of the video. Oh my gosh, it was just over. I just came overwhelmed immediately. Hangar of a thousand pieces. Yes. Yes. That's kind of how it was. So we tried to share it with everyone. You know, this is a labor of love. This is one of those thousand piece puzzles. If you like a challenge and you want to put together a thousand piece puzzle, then do the countdown calendar. You only ever have to do it one time. You just be patient, put it together and you've created this very unique and like advanced projects that you're going to be really proud of when you're done with it. We are not going to offer it in our store. We are not selling these finished. Definitely not. As a finished sign, right? I'm not going to try and finish these and sell them in our store as a finished item. There's too much labor involved. That is like a one time project kind of deal. Not for us to make on a regular basis. So fast forward six hours maybe. Six hours after the video is published, Garrett's mom texts him and says, I saw the countdown calendar. I love it. I want to order five. I said, LOL. Yep. He wrote back and said, LOL. I said, I think your mom is serious. And he goes, No, you just don't get her humor, which was hilarious. And I said, Okay, I didn't really sense any humor in that. So I wrote back in the text because it was a group text. And I said, Garrett thinks you're joking. Were you serious? Did you really want five of those calendars? Yes, I'm serious. I'll come down and pick them up. When will they be ready? And at that point, I said, you shouldn't have let it. You should have just left her on red. Yeah. He told me I shouldn't be answered, but I agreed. And it took us almost a week to get six of them because ultimately your, I guess it would be your step sister in law, something reached out and said, I want I want one too. So we had to do six of them. And it took it took almost a week to get them fully painted. All right, last one. And this one was a surprise to us. The artificial intelligence video that we did, an AI video, surprising amount of hate for that video. I thought I was providing a lot of good information on something you might not be able to do in real life, right? There were a lot of specifics requests for this image. We couldn't find exactly what we were looking for. So Garrett's like, Oh, I got an idea. And I could show others how they might be able to utilize the same tools to do what we're doing. What I was surprised is how many thumbs down we got. We don't have very many thumbs down. Usually a video has one. I feel like it's the same person every video. We just like one person that will thumbs down the video. I'm pretty sure it's our daughter. But this one is our most hated video of all time. We've never had such hate on a video. And the comments were all hate comments. We're I was just surprised, shocked, other social media platforms, a little angry face. I thought I was giving good info, right? We were excited. We thought we were sharing something cool. People did not like that. I thought I would unlock a whole other level for you. Yeah, that was our surprise. Yeah. All right. All right. So the last thing I want to go over I thought we could talk about is maybe our top three videos for 2023. So if you haven't seen them, you might want to go back and watch our top three worst videos. If you haven't seen them, I'll tell you if you should or should not watch it. All right. Let's hear them. All right. Number one, acrylic LED lighted signs. Oh, yeah. Hands down. That was a good video, a lot of good information. Good thumbnail. I can see why that did well. Go watch it. If you haven't watched it, I think it's got good information in it. And it's a good one. All right. The craft show video. We talked about that. Again, wasn't surprised. Got a lot of good information in it. And I like the style that was shot. And I like that vlog thing. I think we should try it again. That's the style. Yeah. And number three was the 3d layered maps. I'm surprised that's not higher because those things look so good in person. Yes. So good. You can make a whole craft booth of those really. Well, we actually did the paint tree. Somebody has something very similar to that. Pretty much. Yeah. All right. All right. All right. This is our embarrassing three worst three worst. Well, let me guess. Let me guess what the worst one is. Okay. I'm not gonna show you. All right. Fixing the DTF printer. Where we try to do a little bit of acting. No. Nope. Oh, that was a bad one. That was yes. We did some acting. We did some really slow repair. I didn't really talk about that one. Yeah. That's a good one. We came in that one. We decided we were gonna do a little sketch copy. Yeah. We're gonna play out some ER. Awful. Awful. Terrible. Bad idea on our part. We will not sketch. I'm not an actor. You will not see me on the big screen anytime soon. You don't have to watch that video but you might want to watch the first what one minute. So we can embarrass ourselves. I had some crazy hair going on and we were trying to act and we're terrible actors. All right. Number two worst video. Number two worst video. What do I think it is? Well, what is the number one worst video? That was number one. Oh, that I guess number one. Yeah. The DTF. No, no, no, no. Oh, I haven't told you that yet. Yeah. Let's go with the number three. I'll go three to two, three to one. Okay. The third worst video. Clock video. The clock video where I made the big clock? Yes. We didn't talk about that either. That's another funny one. I mean that clock was good. I mean that video. That's pretty cool. I don't know. I didn't really love the clock. I wanted the clock and it was my idea and I picked out the style of the clock and then ultimately I don't love the clock. It's not even hung up anywhere. I still think it's leaning against a wall outside. But the funniest part about that video, if you haven't seen it, which you haven't because it's like the third worst video, go watch it. Do you know about how far into the video? I don't. Midway, I don't know. About midway, you've got to see Garrett trying to figure out that he doesn't know his Roman numerals. I did it one time. It's been a while. And then to see his, the funniest part of that video is to watch his face when he realizes he doesn't know what Roman numerals eight is. Well, I was trying to calculate in Roman numerals. That is, and we do a little, we have some funny, well would you say graphics that we added to that one? So Tanner made it seem like I was a little odd. It was totally written on your face. You had to see that one. That was puzzled. The number two worst video, our craft booth sign. We just did that one. Oh really? I mean that was a good one too. That must seem like a big request from our patrons or anybody that has a craft booth was like, oh this would be really cool. I mean it looks cool when it has done it. We're going to try that one again, you know. I'm going to double down on that bad video. Oh you think that video was bad. Watch this. I'm going to try again in the spring because I have some other ideas. So we're going to, we're going to do that one again. We're going to, we're going to redeem ourselves on that one. And the number one worst video, our craft room makeover. Oh yes, I can see it. It was, it's a crowded space. It's hard to get good shots and there was nothing like exciting. Yeah, we were really excited to do a new, a new like backdrop here. But there's still nothing super exciting and there's no real wow factor with it. It was a boring video. It's functional. Don't go watch it. That one, don't even bother watching it. There was nothing funny about it. In fact, I think Kim was angry that there was no wow factor halfway through. I was, I was. And the last thing I wanted to talk about, it's kind of our honorable mention. I wouldn't say it was a big video and I wouldn't say it was the best or the worst. But for us, me and Tanner who's sitting behind the camera right now, our most entertaining video was our video where we attempted to use a teleprompter. This way we wanted to do a great job. And so we decided we would kind of script the video. By we, by we, she means Kim decided. Yes. I thought let's, you know what, we are off the cuff. I like to fly by the seat of my pants. And so I was like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to script this one and we're going to use a teleprompter and then we'll make sure we get all the points that we don't miss anything while we're off the cuff. So it was scripted out. Okay. And I'm sure there's a clip showing right now. You have got to see Garrett's face as the teleprompter ran. He could not be himself and read a teleprompter. There was either robot Garrett or off script Garrett, but you could not get. And it was so hard because if I went off script, the teleprompter didn't know what I was saying. So we jump around. Yes. And then I would try to go back to the teleprompter to see if I missed a bullet point or something. Nope. And the teleprompter is just a completely different place. And Garrett's like, Oh, stop it. Stop it. I can't, I can't read the teleprompter. And then it would start again and I would, I would be doing my part very naturally. And then you could see him like this. Reading the teleprompter, trying to get there. Oh my gosh. I, I feel better using my own words. The words that are formulating at the time, not the words that I wrote 20 minutes ago. I don't know who wrote those words 20 minutes ago. Who's that Garrett? I don't know. So that, which video was that? That was our Tanner. It's the which laser is best for your business. Oh, that's right. Which laser is best for your business. Yes. That was our compare. I don't even remember what was said in that video. I have no recollection. That, I guess that was in August, August 18th, the laser compare video. And that one actually took longer to film reading a teleprompter than it did if I were to just wing it. I mean, two days of filming. Now that you have the behind the scenes and you have the little like a tidbit of information there, go back and take a quick peek at that video. You'll see that I never look you in the eye. Never. I'm always looking out and beyond. I got that thousand yard stare. All right. So that is it for my videos. I did want to give an honorable mention also to our test cut Tuesdays. Those are my favorite videos of the year. I love test cut Tuesdays. I love when we get to interact with all of our new friends that we've made. Yes. We get to talk about being off the cuff, right? Yeah. We just get to chat with you guys and talk about whatever topics might come up through chat. And we've got regulars that join us. A lot of our patrons make sure they're there every test cut Tuesday and hang out with us. All of our hangers are out there. All of our hangers hanging out with us. And you know what? We love all of our hangers. Big thanks to all of our patrons. You know we love you guys. We have a super secret Facebook group, a new Discord channel. You can get all of our SVGs, ad to show us extra content. So much stuff going on over there. You should check it out. Otherwise, I am about out of time. I got to go figure out how to read a teleprompter. You got to go back to work and I will see you next week. We'll do it, build it and make it again.