We Went Down The Road Through Fire
And Came Back From It
A father wanted one object that still looked like the first day, fifty years later. This is why the way we make things is not the way the industry does.
A Father's Quest
"I didn't want a keepsake that faded into a drawer. I wanted one my child could hold fifty years from now and feel the same day in."
When I became a father, the instinct to preserve kicked in. I looked at the plaster and air-dry kits on the market and saw exactly what I did not want: something that yellows, crumbles and goes light as ash after a few years on a shelf.
So we started where every serious keepsake starts: in front of a fire. We pressed the prints into soft material and put them in. Most came out wrong. The heat pulls the moisture out, and the piece shrinks as it goes, so a footprint that entered at one size came out at another. Tiny ridges blurred. Some pieces cracked in the fire, some later on a shelf. To keep what we were actually paid to keep, we would have had to throw away most of what we made.
We took the fire out of the process instead. Not as a shortcut. As the only way to make a promise we could keep.
Ethan
Founder & Father
What We Do Instead
Sculpted from a photograph, built in layers, dried between every one. Slow on purpose, and slower than any process that hardens with heat.
Nothing Touches Skin
No ink, no plaster, no pressing pad against a newborn. You photograph the hand, the foot or the paw, and within twenty-four hours we tell you whether the shot holds. If it does not, the order has not started.
Carved By Hand From Your Photograph
A sculptor works the print out of the photo as a model, ridge by ridge. The base is built for the piece, the print is formed at finer resolution than the base, and the two are joined by hand with the counterweight and a small chip set inside.
Layer Upon Layer, Each One Dried
Primer first, then color, then the lettering as a decal laid by hand, then clear protective coats. Nothing moves on until the coat under it is dry. That is why the piece waits for you, and why the color is covered by our written fifty-year guarantee.
Recommended Image:
A sculptor's hands finishing a footprint model at the bench, tools on the table.
The First Day, Kept At Its Own Size
Nothing shrinks after you have approved it, because nothing goes near heat after you have approved it.
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