About Us

We are a family team that hand turns acrylic/wood blanks on a wood lathe into diamond painting pens. We also offer other items such as writing pens, mechanical pencils, crochet hooks, seam rippers, key chains, stylus, phone stands, etc. We offer a loyalty program with credits on future purchase along with monthly customer appreciation give-aways. We have a no interest, fee free lay-a-way option available.

Our History

As a thirteen year old our son Patrick suggested he would like a wood lathe for Christmas.  Being a carpenter and a handy type of guy I quickly agreed that this would be a great idea and we bought him a cheap wood lathe.  Over the years he and I turned quite a few pens and other kits, but it was strictly a hobby.  Fast forward to summer of 2018 and Carol found a new hobby: Diamond painting.  One day I was sitting at the table watching her paint and noticed she was struggling with that silly, atrocious pink plastic tube they give you to place the diamonds.  Hmmm.....I ran to her desk and found a slimline pen I had turned and started thinking how I could attach the plastic tip for the diamond pen.  Epoxy!  Yep, it worked.  She was so happy she took a picture of it and posted it to a Facebook group she belonged to.  Soon I had people wanting one too and she said I should sell them.  Yeah, right...er, not interested...But my mind started turning it over.  How can I make these things more efficiently?  We looked all over the internet and found only one seller on Etsy selling anything like this.  I was thinking in terms of a writing pen kit when it hit me; this is NOT a writing pen.  It is a placer tool.  I started experimenting and building prototypes and soon Carol had a little mini collection of diamond painting pens.  Once again she photographed and posted them and once again found a lot of interest.  So I agreed to create and sell them.

I started out turning diamond pens from the small garage of a rental house on a part time basis.  Hey, it's soda money. Carol organized the sales from our Facebook group page and we started by selling pens I had already created.  But man!  They would sell out within minutes of posting!  So I was always wondering what blank I should use next.  Hey, why don't we let the customer choose?  Our unique business model was born!  We have been through a few iterations since then.  That first year I was so busy working alone in that garage that we had to form a waiting list (no longer being used).  Customers had to wait up to four months to even place an order!  We did not want to take money that far in advance so we worked within two weeks of an order.  We saw a lot of other startups during that time and watched as the entire hobby grew.  After about six months of business I took the scary step of investing in a better lathe so now I had a nice Jet 1221 to turn on and the cheap Excelsior lathe for polishing.  And we grew.  It became a full time job for me and my wife was juggling two work-from-home nursing jobs along with keeping up with all the administrative work involved in this business.  Then, in August, 2019 we took the step we had been working towards for ten years and bought our retirement lake cottage.  The 750 square foot garage sealed the deal. 

As we head into a new year (2021) we are continually discussing ways to improve and expand this business.  This website is part of that evolution. Carol and I work at this business full time.  She moved out to the garage part of the day and polishes pens along with all the organizing.  Our daughter, Caitlin, does all the drilling, the packaging and is doing more and more of the administrative work.  Our son, Patrick, lives in another city, but he does stop by to turn and polish part time doing piece-work when he is available.  We are up to three Jet lathes along with our cheap little Excelsior lathe that started it all.  I have been slowly renovating the garage (actually a dedicated workshop) since we moved in and will continue working on that project.   While we do not intend to use this site as a sales platform at present who knows what the future holds.  While we hold completely inclusive beliefs with our business, and do not allow or tolerate political, religious or racial differences to interfere with it, we do thank God for the blessings He has bestowed on us and we thank our customers for bringing us to this point.  We look forward to the journey ahead and the privilege of being able to create these beautiful items from our humble shop.

August 1, 2023 marked our 5th business anniversary.  We opened a Pattern shop alongside our Etsy one. We have added channels on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest. We also expanded to a facebook business page along with the group. Our Etsy shop continues to flourish and grow with over 4000 sales and an average 5 star review with almost 1600 reviews. We have a designated business email address. We continue with the loyalty program, monthly birthday discount and giveaway, and customer appreciation giveaways. Although we never planned it (as Sean said above), it is now time to expand this page into a sales platform along with the others (keeping eggs in multiple baskets just in case there are ever unexpected problems). Never in our wildest dreams did we expect our business to get to this point and we are grateful to you, our loyal customer base.

What We Offer

Our diamond painting pens are not kits.  They do not have a tube of any kind in them.  They are solid-bodied and have 7/32 holes drilled in each end to accept the placer tip.  This allows us the freedom to create many designs.  We have developed a library of basic shapes and allow the customer to choose a style they would like.  Our diamond painting pens are turned freehand, I do not make exact sizes or dimensions, and I do not copy other turners.  Different blanks have different limitations, we like to use the term "...as possible".  As thin as possible or as thick as possible.  That said, over time we have developed a business model that allows our customers to chose virtually any pen blank (baring structural limitations) from virtually any vendor and have us turn it to virtually any shape and thickness they can describe (again, baring the limitations mentioned above).  The best way to explore the possibilities is to browse through the pens I have created.  Many can be found on this website on the "gallery" and the "testimonials" pages.  We also turn other item types that can be ordered by having a conversation with Carol.