CSMcreative

Had a little bit of Father’s Day fashion fun this year. Made each of my brother’s-in-law a dad fashion starter kit, they’re simply too cool still and we needed to up their dad game. I found some old (dare I say vintage?) handheld coolers and filled each with cut-off sleeveless t-shirts, sport shades, white tube socks, and a dad hat from our local drag racing club. If you’re looking for gift ideas for the new, too cool, and/or dad’s to be in your life I totally recommend! We had some good laughs when those sleeveless t’s came out 🤣 Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!

Wishing you a safe and happy weekend!

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Created a little race suit for our sweet niece to match her dad’s championship jacket 😍 Our family has a big hobby and this little keepsake was a lot of fun to make. 💕🏁

Love love love these reclaimed tea light holders. They are a blank slate that pleasantly surprised me with how naturally they lend themselves to centerpieces, cozy nooks, and even special events. Grab yourself a set, or several 💁🏻‍♀️

Looking back at one of the first gifts I created when my Maker 3 arrived. And I’ve learned a LOT since then. A few custom tea towels for each of my coworkers with at least one nod to a department joke or two 💕 The theme of the gift was “let’s cause a stir in the new year”, each towel set was wrapped with a gourmet soup kit and spoon to, you know, stir the pot 😉👩🏻‍🍳

This one is more than just a sign. It’s the logo for 😋 And we’ll be the first to tell you that if you’re in the neighborhood or happen across a stand with a sign like this one you’ll definitely want to stop and give their cold brew a try. 😋

Where does all that sheet metal come from? Central Sheet Metal is a fifth generation, family owned sheet metal shop and the source of our creative materials. When you order from CSMcreative you’re receiving products cut from high quality, American made steel remnants. Central manufacturers parts and pieces for a variety of industries from medical to entertainment and just about anything in between. Those coasters you bought? That’s medical grade stainless that will never rust. Those custom address sign numbers you had to have? Cut from the same steel racks holding broadcasting equipment at the big game. Head over to for a behind the scenes look!

📸 sheet metal scrap bin. Don’t worry! If the pieces can’t be used in house they’re destined for recycling ♻️

Speaking of custom… I received a Maker 3 for the holidays and have spent the last few months learning how to make the magic happen. Each piece is a new lesson learned and, if I’m lucky, a little bit cuter than the last! This week I gave flocked heat transfer vinyl a try. Officially obsessed with how these cropped cuties came out 😍 We call my youngest, tiniest, and mightiest sister moose and creating a gift she loved brought me all of the joy!

📸 Cropped blank sweatshirts in ca from dressed up with strip flock in black. 💕

The sheet metal shop has been busy busy busy IRL so the side hustle has been just that - a nice, slow, side gig. We’ve taken a much needed, extended pause on custom - but recently snuck in a few pieces for friends and family, including this long overdue campground sign cut from a medical grade stainless steel remnant. 🥰

The weather is warming here in Chicago-land and we cannot wait to get our seedlings in the ground. What are you planting this year?

Perfect little something to tuck inside an Easter basket 🐰🐣🌷

Wood and resin, we can’t get enough and neither can you 🤩 Which pair is your go to? I love the white and natural bars but find myself wearing the black and wood cutouts on the daily. 💕

Family is everything around here. Tested out a few stain colors on some scrap wood, everything around here is upcycled 🪚👩🏻‍🎨 I think I prefer the bottom grayish hue, how about you??

We couldn’t be more ready for spring weather and mornings in the garden. What are you planting this year? garden stakes are back in stock for the season, grab a set and they’ll ship this week!

So many ways to customize and style our wood block candle blanks 😍 From gifts to home decor to special events, the options seem endless!

Ship ship hooray. Nothing like a little pack and ship to start the week. These little lightning bolt earrings made from upcycled stainless remnants are a fan favorite. ⚡️

It’s been a busy winter season but that hasn’t stopped us from bringing new ideas to life. We’re obsessed with these wood and resin earrings in pale pink, ivory, and green.

Red, White and Brew! Wishing each of you a safe and Happy start to the 4th of July weekend!

Two words: Sneak Peek 👀🤫
In case you were wondering how we spent the rest of our rainy days this past weekend.

Tackling a few rainy day projects and this one is easily my favorite!

For a few years I’ve held on to favorite photos, invites and post cards sent by family and friends. It’s fun to watch kids grow, reminisce about milestone events and marvel at the wit of our favorite pet parents. Unfortunately, the basket these live in also doubles as a catch all for clutter.

What do you do with stuff like this? I used to toss ‘em, but I’m becoming more sentimental as our families grow!

Here’s how we addressed the mess:

1. Organized post cards, holiday photo cards and important-to-us invites by year. Tossed the rest.

2. Stacked in chronological (ish) order, by month and year.

3. Punched a hole in the top left (ish?) corner. I’m a bit particular so, while some cards have a hole in the bottom right corner, I adjusted a 3 hole punch so the corners and punched holes lined up consistently, as pictured.

4. Looped and clipped a metal ring through each collection. I found a package of hinged, multi-size metal key rings in the junk drawer during a separate organizational quest. These were a total time saver compared to the hassle and damage [I assume] a spiral key ring might cause. Highly recommend!

5. Tucked the finished flip books into our winter holiday storage bins so we can repeat the process and enjoy looking back at the end of each year 🤗

Mostly finished, lots of lessons learned 😉
Looking forward to gifting this labor of love to a member of our community through our local group. If you aren’t familiar with the Buy Nothing movement I’ll just share that participating has improved my community outlook greatly over the past year and, frankly, we’re a little obsessed 😉

Pack, ship, repeat.
👉🏼swipe to see what’s inside!👉🏼

Gifted a few scraps and sandpaper pieces from our candle holder line to a local preschool class exploring texture. The opportunities to lean in to the interests of young learners and offer real materials in developmentally appropriate ways are endless, and It brought me so much joy to contribute in this small way! Learning about the world we live in isn’t just about the alphabet and numbers, although they’re quite helpful around our shop when my patience for trial and error wears thin 😉📚✂️✏️

In case you were curious about the coasters we use daily - nothing fancy, just these galvanized rounds! And yet everyone mentions how cool they are, something about seeing something unexpected used in a new way always gets the conversation started.

Every now and again a little something extra finds its way into our outgoing mail. In this case, an acquaintance in Super Secret Extra Special Online Poster Art Group (with an artistic eye AND a green thumb!) was on the receiving end of some blank garden stakes and they are getting out to good use!

Here’s why we love them:
🌱Made from 100% re-purposed, upcycled remnants destined for the scrap yard and reclaimed by yours truly 😉

🌱Rust resistant medical grade steel lasts longer than popsicle sticks, paper packets or any other label I’ve tried 🙌

🌱Reusable! A quick wipe down with rubbing alcohol removes sharpie and you can repurpose again next year! ✍️

From small to BIG! An artist friend creates tables with unique inlays and came to us with a special request - this sign! Picked up over the weekend, this old remnant will get a fresh paint job and have its cutouts removed and re-purposed. Then, into a table it goes; we can’t wait to see the final product!

We don’t score large remnants often, this particular piece will rust without a proper finish and has a few pre-production scars, making it less desirable. In this instance, one shop’s scrap is another shop’s treasure!

Shipped out a stackable set of camp-inspired coasters to a former camper today. When we ran a few sets we had no idea how popular they’d be and, more importantly, how much good they’d do in the world by. For my birthday this year we raised funds for YMCA Camp Pinewood and these cute minis helped us exceed our fundraising goal 🥰

Happy Monday, friends! Did you find time to relax and care for you this past weekend? Painting these geometric shapes always puts my mind at ease - it must be the exercise of attending to something deeply and seeing a definitive start and end to a task. With the craziness of the past year and so much uncertainty I’ve found that small, attainable projects have been my sweet spot. What does the trick for you?

Fulfilling and shipping lightning drop earrings always makes me smile. I’m not a dead head, but the other half of this operation is. I reluctantly added them to the shop; turns out the people want the earrings! I enjoy meeting and connecting with unexpected fans who love the subtle look of these lightweight, upcycled bolts; I am amazed by the process by which they are made. If you could see the size of the industrial laser (who’s M-F is dedicated to manufacturing and cutting gigantic sheets of cold rolled steel) and the delicate little bolts it creates you’d be amazed too. It’s incredible. And a really awesome way to give medical grade stainless steel remnants a new life. I’ll also give a shout out to the solidWerks master who’s been running fan art in his free time long before I came around 😉⚡️

We had so much fun co-creating a few sets of custom coasters for a customer recently. She took the time to leave us a short ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and it just made my week! Before we launched I can admit that my commitment to shopping small and taking time to leave reviews was well intended yet consistently inconsistent. (The battle between intent and action, amiright?!) Now I’m in the know. And am not afraid to publicly admit to doing a little happy dance every time we learn that we made someone else’s day. 👉🏼👉🏼👉🏼 to read a poorly cropped screenshot version of what she wrote! 🙃😘