My name is Tami Barber. I am the mother of 7 wonderful kids ranging from 32 down to 9, and three gorgeous grandsons. Needless to say I’ve never had a brand new piece of furniture. I’ve always had to find ways to repurpose what we have or make-over thrift store finds. I suppose I’ve always been into crafting in one form or another, whether for a school project or for my home I am one of four girls and my father was always in his garage building something, probably to escape. His interests varied but he worked a lot of the time on building things for our home. When he passed away a couple of years ago, I inherited his tools. I began building things from wood. I was never allowed to touch those tools when I was a kid unless I was handing them to him, so there are times when I’m working in the garage with “his” tools and I think to myself, “Ha, ha, Dad, I’m touching your tools.”
A strong sense of humor is what it takes to raise this batch of children of mine, so I made signs for our walls that reflected our daily life. Those signs started to take over my house and garage so I found an outlet for them here in Ashland at the Artisan Emporium.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I love making them. My husband works right along with me in our garage to build the great finds we put here in our booth. We’ve had a blast creating new pieces of furniture and wall décor and found that we work pretty well together, even though he’s a little bossy! We find most of our materials from construction job sites, or a neighbor tearing down their fence, even an occasional garage sale. I’m still learning most of the tools in my garage, so once I’ve mastered a tool, I like to move on to learning something new. I don’t repeat myself very often when creating a sign or piece of wall art, but if it’s popular I might bring it back or personalize an item or two.
I hope you all enjoy a wonderful holiday season and maybe I’ll see you shopping in Ashland!
Ashland Artisan Emporium
1670 Ashland St.
Ashland, OR.
97520
(541) 708-0577
