We made you something...

For our New Year's Eve celebration we made charms for our champagne glasses out of - you guessed it - fasteners!

We were inspired by these we found on Etsy.

They're great, right?

Perfect for a small little New Year's celebration, right?

So we made some of our own!  We made 6 different ones.

And guess what - I still have the Christmas spirit in me and I want to give you a set!

For the first 5 people who leave us a comment I will send you your very own set of 6.

Leave a comment and then email me at justine@freewayfasteners.com with your address and off it will go.

Have a safe and happy new years everyone - see you in 2013!

We Decked our Halls...

We'll be closed Monday & Tuesday and this is our last post until after Christmas so

Season's Greetings Everyone!

Time to shop!

2012 Holiday Gift Guide

From (or For!) a Fastener Freak

Nut & Bolt Ice Cube Tray

Would you believe I couldn't find this for sale in the US - only in the UK!
But I found one site that will ship worldwide - Auravita.com

A Cap Nut Bowl

Am I crazy to think this is beautiful? You can buy it at Uncommongoods.com

Screwball Paperweight

Also from Uncommongoods.com - this is so funny! For that special screwball in your life.

Screw Wall Hooks

Get them at Gadget.brando.com

Screw Lamps

Perfect for a night light. Found them at USBGeek.com

And lastly...

Screw Pens

Basblue.com sells the whole pen set - who wouldn't love this?!

There's still time to order so get shopping!

Gift an Andrew Myers

THIS WOULD MAKE A GREAT GIFT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Andrew Myers is our favorite artist. (We've posted about him a couple of times here, here and here.) Not only because he uses screws as his medium but because his ability is amazing. I'm always impressed how much feeling there is in his pieces. It's the way he draws, his details and his lines, the subjects often have a vulnerability, playfulness or sweetness that I am deeply attracted to.  They're just great, like this one.

Anyways, until now I never thought it possible I could have one! But Andrew is giving one away (GASP!)  It's not one of his portraits but an abstract, which are also beautiful.

Here's how you can enter:  First 'like' him on Facebook and then share a photo on your Facebook page - this photo - and you're entered! You may win the piece in the photo (the one below.)  That's it.  I included the links to everything so click away and enter.

And when you win,

GIVE IT TO ME FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!

More Holiday Fastener Crafts

Menorahs! Why not make one?!

We found some good options online...all with fasteners.

Nuts surrounded by glitter is so great! 

Super simple and super awesome - I love that she used birthday candles.

She'll teach you how to make one over at Vickie Howell's blog.

Despite being hardware, it's cute!
And you can use birthday candles in this one too.
Learn how to build it at Craftster.com

Here's one with bigger nuts.

Although I would put it on something a little more classy than cardboard, 

maybe like bubble wrap - just kidding! (Or am I?)

Found it at instructables.com

And lastly...

It's not the most complicated but the color makes it great! Go to his webpage - The Bohmérian - to see it in action. He makes the nuts move with a gif file (you know I love those from this post!) 

Start lighting December 8th - you've got two days to make one.

Happy Hanukkah!

Holiday Fastener Crafts

It's December! Time to decorate.

We like to build our own holiday decor - we do it ourselves - so we're posting a couple clever holiday crafts we found this year.

(Last years' crafts can be found here!)

DIY snowflake ornaments and tree toppers

-made out of hex nuts!

This awesome craft came from Instructables.com.  We're going to try and makes some. The website gives you all the instructions and materials you need.  I also think a wreath made out of different shapes and sizes of hex nuts would look cool too.


         And lots of people make snowmen out of recycled nuts, like the ones below, but I'm thinking if you spray paint them white and then get a little loop of ribbon - they would be great to hang from a tree!

This one is from Recycled-market.com

From the Westermans Int'l Blog

That's it for now.

Do you have a  good idea or suggestion for us to try? We'd love to hear them.

Enjoy December.

Tubing at the Queen Mary

After Thanksgiving my sisters, nieces & I went to the Queen Mary's CHILL - a super cool event they put on during the holiday season which includes Ice Skating and an Ice Kingdom. And by cool I mean it was both awesome & freezing! They turn their dome into an igloo and the igloo contains gigantic ice sculptures and ice slides - it was 12 degrees in there!  And outside the igloo they have tubing; you sit on a large inner tube while it slides down an icy slope.

And while my nieces were waiting in line to tube, I noticed all the fasteners that were holding the magnificent manmade slope together.

And underneath the rails.  

I wish I could have looked underneath the icy slope - I bet they're there too.

There they were - lots of little fasteners supporting my holiday fun.

And lastly, here's a video of the tubing fun to be had at the Queen Mary's CHILL

A Fastener Thanksgiving...

We're open today until 5p and then we'll be back Monday morning.

Have a good one!

Who's with me?!

Dagnabbit, we couldn't figure out how too make a 'G'.

But G or no G, it's Friday so
Have a great weekend!

Customer Appreciation

Last week we got a nice phone call from a customer who wanted to make sure we knew how appreciative he was for how we had helped him.  He told us how thankful he was for making things easier on him. He said if he had ordered the parts from some other place on the internet it would have taken him 7 days and he would have lost sleep over whether the bolts were going to arrive fully threaded or not. Then, if they were wrong, he would have had to send them back and wait another 7 days for the proper ones to come!  With us he was able to have a reliable contact person - who personally checked they were fully threaded - and his parts delivered the next day! He was so thankful for our service that he called us just to tell us...and it touched us deeply. So we're actually the thankful ones.

We're so thankful to have such nice customers!

Election Day

Today's a big day for the USA & no matter who wins we're thankful for our right to vote.

 

Trick or Treat and...

Have a safe one people!

Freaky Fastener Pumpkins

Pumpkins by Freeway Fasteners
Yep, we made them.
 

 Frankenfreeway's Monster

 

You know Pinhead but do you know

Screwhead?!

( Phillips-Wood-Screwhead !!! )

SCARY!

Hot shoes...hot dipped galvanized

For Halloween my 7 year old niece is going to be a character named Frankie Stein from something called Monster High. I had no idea what she was talking about so she quickly educated me.  Monster High is a line of dolls, like Barbie Dolls, that have turned into TV shows and books. Each Monster High character is either related to or is the kid of a famous monsters such as Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, Medusa, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Phantom of the Opera and zombies (that part I got from Wikipedia) but they're super fashionable (that part is from my niece.)  It's kind of a funny premise.

And here is Frankie Stein - my niece's favorite character:

As I was getting to know her I was pleasantly surprised to find that she's my favorite character too!!  And here's why - here is why she shows up in our blog - take a look at these:

Bolts in her shoes! Her fashion sense rules. Of course Frankenstein's monster's daughter has to have bolts somewhere.

Frankie Stein is adorable and clever

...just like my niecey-pooh.

Fastener Pumpkins!

People are so clever!

Check out these pumpkins and fasteners.

Found these artistic ones at The Swell Life.

What a scary mess - I love it! From a site called French Knots.

You know, Frankenstein is the scientist, not the monster, right? He's near and dear to our hearts - those bolts! This friendly Frank pumpkin came from Parents.com.

And we found this one at Lowe's - they have a great creative department!


 Later this week we'll show you ours - I'm bringing pumpkins to work!

SEX!

You've heard of the HEXAGON but have you heard of

The SEXAGON!

I found a blog post from some adorably clever brothers and one of their posts informs readers that the word SEXAGON also describes a 6-sided shape but has fallen out of fashion and we now commonly use the word HEXAGON instead.  The word SEXAGON uses the prefix SEX (latin for six) to describe things with 6's, like SEXTUPLETS (6 babies born at once) or a SEXTET (a group of six) or a SEXTANT (like a quadrant but a sixth of the space instead of a fourth.) The brother that wrote the post wants the word to be made popular again - and so do I! They have a post called "I'm Bringing Sexagon Back" which basically goes over a brief history and then shows lots of photos of sexagons - and that's what I'm going to do - help bring SEXAGON back! 

There's a SEXAGON in the center of the flower.

3 irregularly shaped SEXAGONS on the top of a turtle's shell.

Of course our beloved HEX nuts but we're going to have to start calling them SEX nuts. (Let's see if we sell more of them since SEX sells.)

A card I found that showcases my favorite shape.

"STOP calling me a HEXAGON - I'm a SEXAGON!" said the stop sign.

There is one in the sky! This constellation is the Winter Hexagon - which we will now and forever call the Winter SEXAGON (although, as the Greeks probably named it, hexagon may be more appropriate, as hex is Greek for 6.) Click here to see what the constellation looks like: Winter SEXAGON

Probably the most famous natural SEXAGONS made by busy little honey bees.

Sexy SEXAGON tights...I'm going to get them for my sisters.

And lastly quilters love SEXAGONS - I've seen this pattern done SEX million times.

And that's the SEXAGON.

Odd ball thing

Check out this sample I delivered to a customer the other day.

You can probably see there is a U bolt in there and some nuts but
does anyone know what the other piece is? Anyone...anyone...

You're going to have to call us if you want to know the answer! (562) 634-4510!!!