Hello! We're away from the shop until June 30th. All in-stock orders placed between now and the 30thwill ship on July 2th. All made to order items will ship a bit later (we'll update you on exact time via email).
If you have any other questions, please send us an email:
don@happybungalow.com
Thanks!
The Making of a Wood Optimus Prime
/in Process, Prototype, Robots, Shop TalkHow do you recreate in wood an iconic childhood toy? With a little bit of wood, some sandpaper, great attention to how close your fingers are to a sawblade, and time. Lots of time.
Handmade Wood Optimus Prime Toy (it transforms!)
/in Fun Stuff, RobotsBeing a child of the 80s, I’m a big fan of the Transformers. As a young parent I still had a number of my original toys as my kids got into the series. It is one of my dearest memories; watching the cartoon with my kids as they played with those same toys.
I’ve made wood toy cars and wood toy robots, but not both at the same time. The cars could be stood up on end and be made into a “robot”, and the robots could be rearranged to make a “vehicle.” But I never got around to making a transforming robot vehicle.
UNTIL NOW!
Read moreGood Grief
/in BusinessGood Grief
In 2016, once a month [or so], Happy Bungalow will be pulling back the curtain on the wood shop to show what life is really like owning a small / family / crafty / handmade / diy / maker / struggling / mom&pop business (further referred to as SFCHDMSMP business).
I have been struggling to write this article for months. My life and family’s life was turned upside down this year. Ultimately it was a good thing, but oh man was it a HARD year. So hard that everything suffered, including my business. I won’t go into the details because apparently I can’t get it all straight and on paper.
However, I’m not sure if I’ll continue this whole behind the scenes business. I really want to, but I’m struggling to make it interesting and honest. Especially this previously mentioned article. It’s a mental weight I’m going to put aside now. I’ll focus on writing the fun and silly articles.
I want to say this though – for the small business, the one-man shop, and honestly any living person: Read more
Selling at Craft Shows is Easy
/in Business, Shop TalkSelling at Craft Shows is Easy
Earning Money at it is a Bit Harder
Doing it Without Breaking a Sweat May Be Impossible
IT’S EASY TO SELL STUFF AT CRAFT SHOWS
Craft shows span the spectrum from the elementary school fundraiser to the High Brow Art Faire. From the 2 hour church bazaar to the hip pop-up shop in the old hat factory. From the corporate office employee-only “farmers market” to the Crafty / Craftin’ / Handmade / Rebel / Outlaw / Misc. Profanity / Etc. Indie Art Show.
In more than four years of business I haven’t set up toy shop at every type of show, but I’ve done most of them. I’ve been out in the baking sun, in back hallways where the scant crowd didn’t even know I was there, out in the cold spring day that unexpectedly turned rain-storm, and at those beautiful shows where people are almost throwing money at me.
Read more
I’m a Work at Home Dad
/in BusinessI’m a Work at Home Dad
No, I Don’t Wear Pajamas All Day!
I Work at Home!!
I Don’t Stay at Home!!!
!!&$@+!@=!#!
Hi, I’m Don; I’m a father and I have job. Conveniently my job is based in my home. I’m a Work at Home Dad. And while I stay at home to work, I’m not a stay at home dad.
Confused? You’re not alone.
Most people who know me personally – I believe – don’t believe I have a real job. It’s possible some, perhaps most, believe I don’t even work. Let me explain, I believe this because –
Read more
Inside the Small Crafty Maker Business aka Inside the SFCHDMSMP Business
/in Business, Shop TalkInside the Small / Family / Crafty / Handmade / Diy / Maker / Struggling / Mom&Pop Business.
It’s a new year! Hoorah!
We resolution that running your own business is downright hard and it’s time we talk about it.
In 2016, once a month, Happy Bungalow will be pulling back the curtain on the wood shop to show what life is really like owning a small business. Well, that’s not totally accurate. Small business doesn’t quite describe us.
How about instead we call it a small / family / crafty / handmade / diy / maker / struggling / mom&pop business (further referred to as SFCHDMSMP business). We plan on showing everyone our accomplishments, just as we’ve always done, but we want to give some consideration to the struggles, disappointments, and hard work that is required to be successful (whatever that means).
Read more
Hello World
/in Business, Shop TalkHello World!
Hi world, I’m Don. Nice of you to stop by.
We’re introducing ourselves (myself really) as though this is our first blog post, but
This is not our first blog post. We’ve been at it for four plus years now, with varying regularity. But we’ve never had a real solid plan for what we’re doing with the blog. Nor has there been contingency for how to regularly publish when we’re super busy in the shop. In the shop making toys, miniature furniture, and yeah, the best card holders east of the Ozarks.
However! All of this lost-in-the-blogging-woods ends in 2016.
We have a publishing schedule, and more importantly a writing schedule. As this is written in December 2015, we have half of next year’s posts penciled in and outlined. We also have all of January [nearly]ready to publish.
This is a bit of those public-deceleration, crowd-accountability deals, but also a big of a warning . . .
A bit of a warning to those living in the future who are reading backwards through our blog looking for more articles like you see in 2016 and beyond. Those articles do exist on this site before 2016, but we were still finding our blogging way, so every post isn’t a gem of internet goodness.
Boy, who’s that for a sales pitch?!
Pre-2016, most articles were written on the fly. Typically they started with the idea of selling a toy and wherever the post or story went, it went. Now though, ideas are roughed out, stories outlined, drafts revised, etc. etc. We’ll have more on this in a future blog post specifically about the business.
Here’s some of our favorite pre-2016 posts though:
Circus Dinosaurs and the Thunder Lizard that Never Was
This post was the inspiration to create a series of upcoming stories
The Daring Adventures of Riley Justice episode 1
This was the story that inspired us to write a series of serials.
Be the first to read future articles by subscribing to one or more of our newsletters:
Toy Robot Movie Production Troubles
/in Fun Stuff, Kid Approved, Robots, StorytellingIt’s been well established that toys come to life under certain circumstances (ie: when placed in magic cupboard, or when the kids leave the room); our toys are no exception. Our animal toys are mostly content to graze around the living room or nap under the shade of the couch. The fairies buzz around the potted plants. The cars usually zoom around, always underfoot. But the robots? Oh boy those robots.
The robots are restless and always working on something. Of late they have taken up movie-making. They built their own equipment and took over a corner of the garage for production. They fooled around with physical props and sets, but couldn’t get the look they were going for. So up went a green-screen for later CG work. Everything was going well . .
I made it clear the movie was their project, and I also made it clear they could only have the garage for the weekend. I thought this was plainly stated in the contract. Whoever wrote the thing and whichever bot signed it were two different beings. I brought this to their attention (again) late Saturday evening. Wow! Drama!
Lot’s of yelling squeaks and bloobs and bips (I struggle to understand them when they talk fast). I caught every third or fourth word – lot’s of blame and name calling. But to their credit they worked out their differences, and then worked through the night. They finished up garage photography the next day and my wife and I were able to move the car back in.
The robots finished their movie. It had a limited release in all the art-house theaters (poster below). It’s a big hit as far as small movies go. Robot Lords from Cosmic Space is due for home theater release later this year; certain to be a cult classic.
Pick up your own robots and make your own movie today!
One Simple Trick to Happiness
/in BusinessOne Simple Trick to Happiness
You can’t flip through a family magazine, play a parenting podcast, or tune into a talkshow without being bombarded with advice, tips, tricks, and strategies to spend more time with your family and lead a happier life.
Want to spend more time with your children? Have more quality family time, happiness, and all that? Forget all the articles and books you’ve seen. When it comes to spending more time with your family there is only ONE SIMPLE TRICK you need to know.
And honestly, feel free to substitute anything you’d like in place of spending time with your family. This simple trick is fairly universal.
And unlike all those silly internet advertisements, this simple trick is real.
Looking for a way to spend more time with your children? It’s easy: JUST SPEND MORE TIME WITH YOUR CHILDREN.
But before the spade of “buts” come, there is one simple catch that accompanies this one simple trick: YOU’LL ALMOST CERTAINLY EARN LESS MONEY AND HAVE LESS TIME FOR YOURSELF.
My wife, Liz, and I have been testing this trick since the day our oldest child was born. We work(ed) very hard to spend a lot of time with our children. On workdays we have breakfast at home, some days we even make pancakes or waffles from scratch. We hunt for bugs under rocks or blow bubbles on the porch. At a time when most people are still working at their desks, we’re sitting down to dinner.
The best of all, with few exceptions either Liz or I, if not both, have spent Fridays with our children. For us three day weekends are the norm. For us Fridays aren’t that slackadasical last day of the work week, instead they’re trips to the less-crowded zoos and museums, picnics in the park, hikes in the woods, puzzle-building in the dining room, block building in the living room, and all around fun-having.
Though we didn’t take up this grand experiment so willingly. Initially we had no choice in the lifestyle. I was laid off from my job as an architect when our oldest child was just four months old. I made due with part time and odd jobs for a few years and in doing so Liz and I came to cherish all the time we had together with our growing family. It’s nice to be up every morning before the sun is.
I had time to make some playthings for the Kids and heard a few too many “you should sell these” comments. So I did. Thus Happy Bungalow (famous wooden toy company) was born in our basement. It has been a tremendous amount of work, but has allowed me to earn enough money while working from home and spending more time with my family.
Now every morning isn’t berry topped oatmeal for breakfast. And every Friday isn’t a Mary Poppins inspired romp through the chalk drawings. We have to leave early or work late sometimes. Fridays see sick or grouchy kids (or parents). And now that our oldest is in school, mornings have become much tighter (and funny enough, the school doesn’t subscribe to our three-day weekend schedule).
The catch though? Working less to spend more time with our children means earning less money. This means we’ve become even handier at fixing lawn-mowers, repairing leaky gutters and toilets, and getting by with clothing that’s more worn than we’d like. We make pancakes from scratch, because it’s so much cheaper (they taste pretty darn good too). We eat in more because we can’t afford to eat out as often as we did pre-children.
Then there’s the stress, the worry, the anxiety, and the occasional fight. Liz has had a full time (though flexible) job throughout our children’s lives, but I’ve largely had unpredictable work. Initially as a part time architect, then as a newbie professional toy-maker. So for several years the burden of supporting the family financially fell on Liz. Again, very stressful for everyone.
BUT WE’VE MADE IT WORK
Sticking with this lifestyle hasn’t been easy on the accounting end, but it’s been wonderful on the personal side. Our children will only be young for so long. We’ll play catch-up on the monetary side in a few more years when the Kids aren’t so into spending an afternoon playing made-up adventure games in the park.
I know, this isn’t easy, and it may not be possible for you. Though I will say that before we were put into the situation, we wouldn’t have thought it possible for us.
Throw Back Thursday – Too Many Train Buildings
/in ProcessJust because you make it, doesn’t mean they’re going to buy it. Say like you make 300 and some odd little toy train accessory buildings for your first craft show (that’s modestly attended by the way). Let’s say you make all these buildings. Not everyone wants to buy them. You can worry all you want that you’re not bringing enough product, but there’s no need to. YOU WON’T RUN OUT.
Ok. I didn’t expect to sell 300 little buildings at my first [small] craft show, but there was like 12 different kinds of buildings, so there’s only 20 of each type . . .
We’ve had big runs on one items at shows before. You know, big shows in the Fall when people can’t buy enough cool toys.
The train buildings were one of the first Happy Bungalow toys. The thinking was: everyone sells those little toy train track and magnetic trains, but accessories are hard to find. And if you can find any buildings, they’re always painted. How about some plain and simple accessory buildings? Guaranteed to sell right? We identified a product missing in the marketplace. A NEED that all those business books always talk about.
Being one of our first toy lines, it took a while to figure out just how to cut the wood safely. The saws in our shop cut fingers just as easily as they cut wood – and these toys are so small – and if you don’t/can’t hold the wood firmly in place it will fly away from the machine at high speed. So once we figured out the techniques and process we maximized our tool setup overhead and ran off a few hundred buildings.
For our first show we put together a train demo display on the ground for the kids to play with (see below). Then on the table above we lined up a few dozen of the buildings. We really fussed over the best train layout too. Probably went through a half dozen configurations beforehand (don’t miss those days). So it was a lot of work, you follow? And did it pay off? Did it pay off?! The NUMBER ONE product people wanted to buy that day?
Yeah, the trains. The dumb old trains. The only thing on display that we didn’t make. [insert Charlie Brown hopeless sigh]
This was the first and only show the train and tracks were ever displayed at. The buildings come to shows from time to time, and they do well enough. Though we still have a box full of the suckers.
For all the fussing about the layout we did come up with a cool idea for the table toppers – using a sort of butcher paper that we wrote little product descriptions and prices on.
A note about the first two pictures. They were part of our first photo shoot. We drug furniture, ladders, props, and back drops out into the back yard. Spent and afternoon shooting hundreds of pictures and another afternoon editing them. Eek.
Read the rest of our Throw Back Thursday series here.