Hearts to Honor Josh

We love partnering with our customers to make their creative visions come true! So when Sue Fuller asked for our help, we were excited to join in!

When Sue contacted us early this year, her husband, Josh, had just passed away after struggling with cancer. She wanted to honor him with a keepsake for family and friends at his Celebration of Life gathering.

Josh was a natural-born craftsman and carpenter all of his life, and he left a shop full of wood behind when he died. Sue asked if we could use his wood to make something unique. And, of course, we said yes!

We soon received a package filled with the beautiful mahogany, balsa, and oak woods that Sue gathered from Josh's shop. We went to work on the scraps she sent and turned them into almost 300 wooden hearts. We started the project by cutting hearts out of the wood Sue sent. Next, we carefully glued the remnants from the first round of hearts together and made more. In this way, we used every possible inch of Josh's wood.

These little hearts, handmade from Josh's wood, are a pretty special gift, but Sue wanted them to be even more meaningful. So she asked us one more question—"could you engrave them?"

Josh marked his tools and projects with a distinctive personal mark—his initials, JF, with the tops of the letters connected to make a solid line. Sue wanted his mark on the hearts, so we made a branding iron, and she branded them with his signature "JF" mark.

She gave branded hearts to everyone who attended Josh's Celebration of Life in August. They were an incredible gift for people who loved Josh to cherish their memories of him.

Thank you, Sue, for letting us be a part of this beautiful celebration!