Timber Toys

New Season, New Products (Sort of)

Towards the end of last year’s flea market season we introduced two new products: Yardzee and LRC. A little later in the year we gave toy trucks a shot at the Weaver Holiday Mart. Given the success we had with both of those products we’ll be bringing both to the the beginning of this flea market season. It’s been a busy spring.

Blood, sweat, and tears

Look, tiny wooden barrels

Someone was busy

Tiny truck

Cute truck

Well… Uhhh… it’s a truck

We’ll also be unveiling a brand new product: Not so Giant Tumbling Blocks. We had a lot of potential customers ask about a more portable version of our oversized wooden block game and this is what we’ve come up with:

OH – IO

Still big, just less big

So nice and neat

Much like our Giant Tumbling Blocks, you’ll be able to customize the carrying tray to match your personal interest.

We’ll also have a few toy chests on hand. The construction is essentially the same as our storage benches for Giant Tumbling Blocks; however, the toy chest features a hinged lid. We’ve add a slow close hinge to ensure no one ends up with injured fingers.

First one complete

Elsa from Forzen

Classic Lettering

We look forward to seeing you at the Hartville Marketplace & Flea Market.

Getting Ready for the Weaver Holiday Mart

This weekend (November 12th and 13th) Weaver Industries will be putting on their annual craft show: The Holiday Mart. The Holiday Mart has “grown into one of the largest and most prestigious juried shows in Ohio” (their words, not ours).

We have no idea how accurate that claim is, but there is only one way to find out.

This Saturday and Sunday we’ll be selling our hand made wooden toys and games at the Summit County Fairgrounds. This is our first trip to a craft show. We really look forward to seeing how a new crowd of people react to our yard games and wooden toys.

As usual we’ll be selling our Giant Tumbling Blocks, Ladder Golf, Left Right Center, and Yardzee. While it may be a bit too cold for outdoor games, now is a great time to give them as gifts.

We will also be reveling three new products: toy chests, trump blocks, and toy trucks. While over-sized yard games will always make up a large part of our product catalog we are excited to expand into new product categories.

Toy Chest

Our toy chest features a high quality lid support that prevents the lid from slamming shut on fingers and hands. Like the benches we build for our Giant Tumbling Blocks, our toy chests can be customized to showcase just about any logo or image you want.

Trump Blocks

Trump dice featuring each suite and a no trump indicator

While Left Right Center and Yartzee have been a hit, we’ve had a surprising number of people ask about a small block to indicate what suit was called in games like euchre and 500.

Toy Trucks

With a name like Timber Toys it seemed like a good idea to actually have a toy of some sort in our product lineup. The 2″ x 4″ trucks you see above are the first of many toys you’ll see from us over the next year or so.

We look forward to seeing you at the Weaver Holiday Mart this weekend.

It’s Football Season

Football season is in full swing and a chill is in the air. This time of year means a few things for Timer Toys. The flea market season has come to an end and the craft show season is about to start. It also means we’ll be doing a lot less spray painting. It turns out cold weather and spray paint don’t mix.

We’d like to thank everyone that stopped buy and saw us at the flea markets. Regardless of whether or not you purchased something it’s always good to chat with anyone interested in what we’re doing.

The new products seemed to go over well. Left Right Center was a hit (we sold out of that) as was Yardzee. You can expect to see at least one new product from us next year (possibly two). We’ll update our site with details later in the year or once we have something ready to show.

In November you’ll be able to find us at the Weaver Holiday Mart (craft show). The show runs Novermber 12th – 13th (Saturday and Sunday) at the Summit County Fair Grounds Arena. You can get all of the details on their website. We hope to see you there.

Yardzee

We’ve been developing our version of Yardzee for a lot longer than we should have been. Our problem was finding the right balance between quality and price. We wanted to stick with hardwood; however, we also knew we needed to hit a price point consumers would be comfortable with.

The majority of the Yardzee dice we’ve seen were made from 4″ x 4″ pine lumber from the local DIY store (actual dimensions are 3.5″ x 3.5″). While the 4″ x 4″ gave the dice a nice size, pine isn’t the most workable wood, nor is it the most durable. In the end we decided to go with 3″ x 3″ red oak for the dice and walnut inserts for the dots. Painted on dots could work, but we prefer the all wood look and feel.

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We debut our version of Yardzee this weekend. It didn’t take long to sell out of it (full disclosure, we only took one set). We’ll have more sets of Yardzee dice available next weekend. Be sure to stop by and see us next Saturday at the Hartville Marketplace & Flea Market.

Ladder Golf

We’ve finished building our first custom Ladder Golf set and it should be delivered early tomorrow afternoon; in plenty of time for the football season.

In the above photo you can see the custom built OSU Ladder Golf in the foreground and our standard Ladder Golf set in the background. The customer chose the colors for the uprights, rungs, and golf balls. Although we don’t normally apply vinyl to our Ladder Golf sets we did add “Buckeyes” to both upgrights at the customer’s request (for an added cost). We think it turned out looking great.

You can see our standard Ladder Golf set on display if stop by and visit us at the flea market. The standard set is available for purchase starting this weekend (assuming we don’t run out of them). As with the giant Jenga-like sets, custom orders take about two weeks to build and deliver.

Have a great weekend and be sure to spend at least part of it putting your back yard to good use.

Happy Fourth of July

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This past weekend was a lot of fun for us: good weather, great fireworks, and good days at both Rogers and Hartville. We hope your holiday weekend was every bit as good as ours.

The week leading up to the holiday weekend was a busy one for us. We had a few custom orders we needed to deliver by the weekend and we needed to restock our inventory to replace some of the bases and blocks we sold. Hopefully our hard work paid off and those of you that purchased a set from us had a great time playing it at your Fourth of July parties.

We’ll be back next weekend. We hope to see you at Rogers Flea Market on Friday or Hartville Marketplace & Flea Market on Saturday.

Competition is in the Air

Mid-afternoon I had someone stop by and tell me about someone else selling an over-sized Jenga like game much like what I’m selling a few rows over at a lower price. Out of curiousity I had to wonder over and see what the gentleman was talking about: it’s true, we have a competitor. I can’t really say I’m surprised. After all, cutting 2x4s into shorter 2x4s isn’t rocket science.

That said, I don’t really think the competitor’s product offers the same level of craftsmenship as what I’m selling. Nor does it come with the storage base that is what really makes my product stand out from the rest. Imitation is the sincirest form of flatery: at least that’s what I remember someone telling me at some point. I’m not entirely sure if that’s true or not, but I welcome the compitition either way.

Meanwhile, back in the shop, Timber Toys is currently hard at work building the orders we recieved over the past two week. It’s been a very busy week, but that’s a good thing. With the holidy weekend coming, it’s bound to be another busy few weeks ahead of us.

Have a great Fourth of July. We look forward to seeing you at the flea market this weekend. We’ll be at Rogers on Friday and Hartville on Saturday and Monday.

Rogers

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After speaking with some of the other vendors at the Harville Flea Market (and Market Place) we decided it was time to expand our operation further east. Hartville will continue to be a weekly stop for us; however, we wouldn’t want anyone visiting the largest open air flea market in Ohio, West Virginia, or Pennselvania to miss out on the opportunity to purchase backyard games at their finest.

Having never been to the Rogers Flea Market we didn’t really know what to expect. As anyone who’s recently been to the Rogers Flea Market already knows, we were not dissapointed. The market was bustling from early morning through most of the afternoon and into early evening. Much like Hartville, there was almost always someone stopping by to play with the games, share a story about the games they made, or just trying to figure out exactly why we had neatly stacked a bunch of wooden blocks on a bench (it turns out not everyone knows what Jenga is).

This week also marked the first time we had our version of Ladder Golf on display. The prototype had some errors in dimensions and the old golf balls we used had some people confused. Overall the response seemed pretty positive. We have some other products in the works. You can expect to see those prototypes in the near future.

And so it Begins…

Our first weekend at the Harville Flea Market (and Market Place) is in the books. All-in-all it was a great weekend. The weather was in our favor, people were out, and we had a great time.

We brought a few new looks with us this year. The Cleveland Cavaliers base is the first we’ve left with a natural finish (to reflect the hardwood basketball is played on) and the Fear the Roo Akron University base is the first we’ve tried with an off-center logo. Overall we recieved positive feedback on both designs.

One of our first customers stopped by to let us know that he and his sons are still enjoying the set they bought from us a year later. It was great to see him again and to have a chance to hear how things are holding up after a year of use. We hope to hear many similar stories throughout the Summer.

Thanks to everyone that stopped by. We love to hear your woodworking stories, share information about our products, and of course do whatever we can to make sure you go home with a set of Giant Tumbling Blocks of your very own.

Welcome to Our New Website

It’s taken a bit longer than it probably should have, but we finally have our new blog up and running. An online store will have to wait a little while; however, we will be happy to work with you via email to accommodate any questions or orders you may have.

Please check back regularly. We will be updating this blog with pictures of new products we make, locations we will be at, and anything that strikes us as funny. Enjoy your summer and we look forward to seeing you at the Hartville Flea Market.

Toy Chest

Trump Blocks

Toy Trucks

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