Happy Holidays!

Many of you aren't working tomorrow so today we're
wishing you a Happy Holiday!

Great Gift Idea #7

Do you still wear a watch?

Great Gift Idea #7

WATCHES

Let's bring them back!

Hello Kitty & fasteners - love it!

If you google search Kimora Lee Simmons & Hello Kitty you will find lots of places to buy it.

We found this one at the Oakland Airport!

This masculine one was made by Hublot.

We found it at Watches Infoniac

Or this designer one...

by Marc Jacobs. 

If you google Marc Jacobs Turnlock watch, you'll find it.

And it comes in lots of bright colors and white too.

One more

This one is called, get ready for it, 

the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Montauk Highway

Go to Audemars Piguet website, they have lots of great watches.

Great Gift Idea #6

This is so funny.

Great Gift Idea #6

ALIEN GNOME BANDITS

Made out of fasteners!

Buy it at What On Earth

Quick! Aliens are kidnapping your old garden gnome!

A funny take on an old classic, all made out of fasteners.

Gifts Gift Idea #5

Gifts for the kids.

Great Gift Idea(s) #5

NUTS & BOLTS TOYS

Super cute and great for motor skills.
Find them at the Oriental Trading Co.


And check out this great rug for a kid's room.

It's so clever and pretty but unfortunately you can't buy it.
YOU'LL HAVE TO MAKE ONE!

We found it at the My Poppet Blog

Great Gift Idea #4

This is beautiful.

Great Gift Idea #4

Artisan Nut & Bolt Bowl

By Bert Lambier

A piece of art for your apples or avocados.  

You can find it at: WingNutDesigns.com

Great Gift Idea #3

For your someone special, we have some ideas.

Great Gift Idea(s) #3

FOR HER*:

The 'I'm-nuts-about-you' Keyring

At Uncommon Goods
I would love this (a not so subtle hint people!)

FOR HIM*:

Phillips Head Screw Cufflinks

Classy yet edgy, also at Uncommon Goods

*Although we'd like to mention that the men in our office also dig this keyring, and we know a lot of women these days who wear beautiful shirts that require cufflinks, so maybe mix things up and give hers to a him or his to her - that would also work.

Great Gift Idea #2

We got one and it was one of the best gifts we've ever received.

Great Gift Idea #2

CHESS SETS!

 Wing nuts, castle nuts, hex bolts - a chess set made out of fasteners - some people are so creative.
The one above is ours but below we'll show you where you can get one too.

So for that special chess Grandmaster in your life, who also loves hardware, here they are:

I think the other side is black - it's at Etsy

This one is really impressive.

Find it at Jazz It Up

Found it on Hello Antique by Laura Palmer

OR, if you want a lighter game, go for CHECKERS!

This is great! And also at Esty

I think I'm going to have to try and make one of these one day.

Great Gift Idea #1

With the holidays here we thought we would start posting cool products that we think would make great gift ideas.

Here is Great Gift Idea #1

Bolt & Screw Salt & Pepper Shakers

A Hex head and a Flat head - one for salt and one for pepper.

Not only do they look cool but you can't get anything out of them unless you bend them.

(As if salt-&-peppering wasn't fun enough!)

Then they return to their original form - so cool.

Here is the link where to buy them:

Gadgets UK

Fasteners & Festivities

It's December! It's time to start decorating, and we want to help.
Of course we're still keeping it all about fasteners.

Many of you start with a tree - how's this one? It's held together with threaded rod and nuts!

Lowe's teaches you how to make it.
Here's the link: Lowe's

Or, if you go with a real tree, you will need ornaments - how about these? Heidi Borchers made them out of spare fasteners and we think they're pretty adorable.

You can see how to make them at FaveCraft.com

Lots of great ways to incorporate fasteners into the festivities!

We're thankful

It's that time of year when we say 'thanks' for the things we are grateful for, and we of course are thankful for fasteners. 

We know that we're very fastenercentric here so it's not surprising to hear that we're thankful for them but, in reality, everyone owes these little bits & pieces some gratitude.  To better explain this I'm reposting an article I found on the internet that made me feel proud to sell them:

'Why the need for industrial fasteners?'

Screws are the pervasive and unseen power holding our industrial world together. Solely gravity can claim a better ability for preserving items together. Once one speaks of fasteners such as tek screws, zip screws or self tapping screws, one pertains to all manner of fasteners, bolts, anchors, Velcro, threaded bars, and so on.

Fasteners hold two or far more objects in place, with the aim of enabling zero movement. A screw joins two items as one. You may possibly most of the time wonder: why don’t individuals just construct things as one piece in the initial arrangement? Why use the middleman of screws? The answer is that not everything is small & adequate to erect, ship, or otherwise manipulate. Without fasteners, there would be no skyscrapers. There would be no cars. There would be no Velcro tennis shoes or quick-release point costumes.

There are many various kinds of screws, made of different materials. The most recognizable fastener is the screw. As absolutely everyone knows, it is comprised of a head, a shank, and threads for guiding the fastener in, to arrange and for maintaining it in there. The head can take many forms, including those that permit the screw to be removed once it has been inserted, and some that decrease the chance of folks from getting rid of the screws at all. The lengths, widths, and pitches of the threads all vary. (The pitch is the angle that the thread is set at; low pitches enable for less complicated and much more gradual insertions, though high pitches are far better suited for metalwork.)

Most screws are made of steel, but there are many cases when plastic screws will do the trick. Plastic material fasteners are non-conductive, and, in many circumstances, heat-resistant.

Whatever type of fastener you need, there is one on the web for every single kind of job imaginable. Simply think: people are tool users, and screws are arguably one of the single most very important tools in history. If there had been no fasteners, you almost certainly wouldn’t be alive today.

From toys to tuna, cars to chemicals - the mighty fastener is helping to make all of it.

So, to the fastener gods, thank you!

And to everyone else,

Happy Thanksgiving!

Lastly, I have no idea who to credit but click on the link below and you can see where I found it:

Why the need for industrial fasteners?

Insane Bolt

Have you heard of Usain Bolt? He's insanely great!

Usain Bolt is the 2011 World Male Athlete of the year, becoming only the second man in history to win the prestigious award on three occasions. He holds World Records and he's won Olympic Gold Medals; he's arguably one of the greatest runners of all time. 
I am going to quote a friend of mine, telling me about Mr. Bolt:

"He is the epitome of FULL MASTERY of your instrument.  He is in the OLYMPICS and 10 meters before the finish line he drops is arms and starts to pound his chest!!!!!  He has sooooo proven himself that he doesn't even need to finish.  Look at all the other athletes behind him and how intensely they are concentrating while he just gallops across the finish line as if he were a young colt on its way to an open pasture."

My friend goes on to say that as a spectator, there is a moment of disbelief, of awe, at what they are seeing; there's a joy at watching someone that is so good.
Here's the video of that Olympic moment:

Man-o-man - he's impressive!

To learn more about Usain you can check out his website: UsainBolt.com

Art with Washers

I found a lady who writes an arts & crafts blog called:

I'll Get You My Pretties

She made wall-hanging pictures out of washers! A simple idea that I think are super sweet.

She makes different letters - I want an 'FF' for Freeway Fasteners!

What else could she make? An orange, a chair - maybe a bolt!
Even a lightning bolt would be cool.

Canvas, some washers and some glue...simple & sweet.

Check out the blog:

I'll Get You My Pretties

This is Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Fastenating Costume!

The owner of our company and her husband found the perfect costume for Halloween.

HAHAHAAA!

Freeway on the freeway

We stopped on the side of the freeway.

Most people don't see the freeway from this side. 
We took a look and found really good sized bolts & nuts - jackpot!

So a lot of our product are there too.
We found actual freeway fasteners.

Fancy Fasteners

A lot of people are making jewelry using fasteners - we of course think it's great!

Here are some of our favorites.

Handmade by BCAINSPIRATIONS

Wedding bands by Kiley Granberg

An eye bolt & shackle as earrings...would you wear these?
They are all over the web but I found them at The Find

Dangling eye screws! From Rubymoms.com

At Max & Chloe - look at that clasp!

This one is so great! Made by CaliforniaSolidArts.
Those are Swarovski crystals with hex nuts!

By Gal Barash - everything in his store is good.

This one's kinda scary.
www.cutoutandkeep.com

Well we're feeling inspired so we are definitely going to be making some in the future.

Screws as Corks

I know you know of corkscrews but have you see Screws as Corks?

How great!
Buy them at Pop Deluxe

BOLT BARBERS

BOLT BARBERS is barber shop in Downtown Los Angeles for social beasts (that's their slogan!)

"SHEAR SHAVE SHINE"

Clearly the name caught our eye because of the bolt reference but after checking it out we discovered this place also shares the same sensibility to life and business that we admire and strive to achieve & promote.

At their website I was pleasantly surprised to see that they are the type of company that is doing things in a new way - in their own unique way - which included integrity & community.  They're bringing back the neighborhood barber shop, "Just good old school barbering at DTLA prices in a neigborhood we're not trying too hard to "belong" in."  

They sound great to me...now someone go get a haircut (!) and let us know how it goes

Best of luck BOLT BARBERS!

Here's a link to their website if you want to check them out: BOLT BARBERS

Fashions with fasteners

There is a store in Los Angeles that boldly uses fasteners to display their clothes.  The fasteners (and also gears) actually appear to be the theme of the shop.  We were super impressed; it looked great. 

We think their shelves are made of Acme threaded rods with shaft collars.
And we think they're so clever.

Could I do this at home, like as a coat rack?

THEY'RE USING 'S' HOOKS AS HANGERS!
This is just the greatest idea and I'm for sure going to start using them at home.

Rockin' Fasteners

From folk rock to surf guitar to death metal - the Fender guitar has been at the center of it all.

Let's see how many fasteners are used to hold it together - to help make those wonderful sounds!

Take this Stratocaster

Starting on the pick guard, there are like 15 screws holding it down.

One screw holds each string - we're up to 21.

This is called the 'machine head'. 
Each tuning pegs is being held down with 2 of our tiny little products...how many is that?

This is the thing on the backside of the guitar - let's unscrew those 4 and take a look inside.

I had a feeling...more screws!

So how many was that? I think around 39.  Although I'm sure there are even more that I missed.

In a small way, my product has helped to contribute to some of the best music...that's awesome.

Endless Summer & Endless Fasteners

Despite the end of September approaching

my love of summertime, like my love of fasteners,

is neverending!

Uncommon Threads

One small change makes a huge difference.
And who knew there was a 'shakeproof division' somewhere?!