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DIY No Soliciting Welcome Sign

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Welcoming people into our home or shop is one of my most favorite things - there's nothing like laughs, snacks, coffee, wine (and cheese!) - and of course a good bourbon - with family and friends. Inevitably, we needed a welcome sign for our porch to welcome those loved ones - but at the same time, I felt we needed something else too. In this crazy world today, and with having two little babies, an unexpected knock at the door or silhouette in the window not only makes me jump - but disturbs nap time, startles the kids, and gives an uneasy feeling with a stranger at the door - almost always unwanted. I've seen the cute signs that say something similar to "No Soliciting - We know who we are voting for, we have found Jesus, we are too broke to buy anything" with the coy addition of "unless you are selling thin mints or have a package from Amazon, GO AWAY" - cute in it's own right, but a little too much for my personal style. So how do we

Making Wood Magnets

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It's important to us to use every scrap of wood we can and not let anything go to waste, which brings a fun creative challenge of "what can we make out of this?" It's important to utilize scraps for a lot of reasons - fully utilizing your resources, getting your money's worth out of your supplies - but most importantly, for the environment. With  an estimated 3.5 - 7 billion trees cut down each year , it seems respectful to Mother Nature to utilize as much of each piece as you can. People tend to take them for granted, but our natural resources on this earth are truly a gift (and a borrowed one at that!). As we continue to expand the pieces we make, I am finding my love of nature becoming more and more apparent in our designs and works, and it seems to be developing into a strong part of our aesthetic. In a way I'm not surprised; growing up running barefoot and catching grasshoppers in northern Michigan I developed a close relationship

Mixed Media on #FarmhouseStyleFriday

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Probably my most favorite type of work , whether it be purely for #art or #decoration or a fully functional furniture-esque piece, is incorporating mixed media . Using different elements and materials within a piece of work to create dimensionality and a variety of textures can make amazingly unique and beautiful pieces. Although 2-dimensional artworks - a beautiful painting on canvas, a well designed print, a lithograph, for example - are # beautiful in their own right, I've always been very strongly drawn to and inspired by those pieces that combine all sorts of elements, creating an interesting, thought-provoking and unique composition . Mixed media can be simple or complicated (for lack of a better term!) - with neither a bad thing depending on the intention and design of the composition. One of my favorite places to see mixed media is in the furniture and lighting business. I love the combination in particular of "natural" elements; metals, wood, fabric, r

Spicing things up on a Monday

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One of the best things about our job is finding inventive ways to use our materials - with bourbon barrel staves , of course, one of #creeksidebarrelco 's favorite mediums to work with! Today we're spicing things up with our bourbon barrel stave spice racks . Now, I #love them on these industrial metal brackets (I love mixing woods and metals, and anything with an #industrial vibe) while Steve is a big advocate of the floating shelf.  However you choose to mount it, not only does it look cool with farmhouse, rustic, or bar decor - its a conversation piece in itself and a functional spice rack . Having a spice shelf made from a piece of an oak bourbon barrel that aged in the historic barrel houses of the Wild Turkey distillery in Lawrenceburg, KY? It doesn't get much cooler than that. I also have an obsession with uniquely shaped bottles. Steve would call it my hoarding tendencies , but look how useful they become! Uniquely shaped bottles are an easy way to m

Creekside Barrel Co: Welcome To Our Blog!

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Creekside Barrel Co. was born out of the love of creating #beautiful pieces through good ol' fashioned sweat and manual labor. Anything that allows us to be creative and get our hands dirty? Yes please! After deciding to quit the rat race of the everyday work force and #YOLO doing what we #love , CreeksideBarrelCo was created and our journey has begun. We are no strangers to the challenges of creating and growing a small business, but we are in it to win it ! A lot of people are driven by proving the nay-sayers, those who doubt them wrong. We are blessed in that we have so many people who support and believe in us and our talents (many thanks!!), we owe it to them to prove them right .  It's a dream come true to create #customwoodworks for people and businesses alike, and we're excited to share this adventure - our projects, inspirations, ideas, hardships, and wins - with everyone..and all we can say is... LET'S DO THIS!  Check us out! w