This is us: Robin and Carol Rycraft. We run the family business passed down from Robin's folks named Rycraft, Inc. We would love to hire an employee or two, but for now, we are a "Mom & Pop" operation, meaning it's just the two of us doing it all.

We appreciate our customers' understanding and patience when we can't always ship next day like an Amazon.com. Some folks have very high and unrealistic expectations of a couple of senior citizens.

Left: October 2010 Robin and Carol enjoying the Arizona sun.

Robin works alone at our warehouse and ceramics studio (where the Rycraft, Inc. phone and fax are located), so he usually answers the phone when you call. We know you appreciate his personal service!

Robin CARVING a new design

After a series of drawings and paper cuts to transfer a new design to a square blank of wet clay, Robin uses various tools to carve the design – an "outie" master which he will use to imprint each and every Heirloom cookie stamp, craft stamp, Keep It Soft, and Christmas ornament that Rycraft sells.

COPYRIGHT and TRADE DRESS

All Rycraft designs are copyrighted, so if you want to use them to make a product, we require you to ask our permission by applying for a license. Also be aware that our Trade Dress (the "look and feel") of our products may not be duplicated in any fashion. Scroll up to the top of this page or click here to go to "Copyright and Licenses"for more information.

Please, no emails about how Robin is greedy if he wants to be paid when others want to use his designs to make money, using his creativity. This is America and we were raised to believe in the rule of law, so we will use the law to defend our copyright and trade dress, as we were forced to do in a 4.5 year lawsuit and 5-day jury trial which we won in 2000. The message being, don't mess with Rycraft.

MASTERS

Left:  These are some of the oldest masters in the current Heirloom collection that Robin uses every day in the Christmas season.

TERRA COTTA
RED CLAY from California

 Yes it comes in plastic bags in 50-pound boxes that are delivered on pallets and stored in the warehouse until Robin opens them one at a time to produce the blanks and handles he uses to make our Heirloom products: cookie stamps, craft stamps, and Keep It Softs.

Note: Christmas ornaments are made of pure white clay, also delivered in boxes like this.

This is one of the "pug mills" or extruders that Robin uses to make the clay soft enough to work with by hand. The end of the machine (on the left) is the attachment that produces blocks of clay that Robin cuts into squares for
the next step.

There is another attachment with small holes on the end that he uses for making long ropes which he cuts into handles.

CLEANING a blank

After Robin extrudes the clay and cuts it into blanks, he cleans all impurities and imperfections from the blank before he stamps the design into the clay.

STAMPING from the master

The master is oiled before stamping a blank.

The cleaned blank is placed on top of the master, then inserted under the handmade "stamper" that's been passed down in the family. :)

Robin applies some muscle and the
design is imprinted into the clay...

...making an "innie"...

...which will soon be turned
into an Heirloom Collection
cookie stamp, craft stamp
or Keep It Soft.

Next the square is cut into a round, either 2" or 2.5" in diameter, depending on the product.

Then the excess clay is removed – and recycled into the next batch that goes into the pug mill.

Robin needed an easier way to release the newly-cut round piece of clay from the metal cutter...

...and Robin's friend Kent, who is a blacksmith and machinist in Corvallis, Oregon, as well as an old family friend, made this crafty little gizmo for him which does the trick nicely.

This part is pretty labor intensive, as every small imperfection must be corrected, the disc made flat on both sides, and the edges smoothed.

Robin likes to time himself to make sure he's keeping up with his speed records set years ago... perfectionist that he is, he's his own
best competition and worst critic.  :)

As many times as Robin has offered to teach his wife, Carol has steadfastly refused to learn how to make a cookie stamp. LOL

HANDLES

 Robin cuts the handles so they are just the right length for a cookie stamp and stacks them in rows like this and keeps them in a big refrigerator until he's ready to put them on the round discs.

CLEANING the HANDLES

We call it "roll pat" because that's what Robin does: he first rolls the handle to make it perfectly round and smooth.

...then he pats it on the top edges to make it uniform.

Attaching HANDLES

Robin mixes up some slip (clay and water)
and applies a drop to the back of
each imprinted disc.

Then each handle is applied individually
and pressed firmly into place.

DRYING time – it can't be rushed.

 Stamps cannot be fired until they
have dried sufficiently.

Stamps need lots of air circulation so we keep the fans going to help the process along.

After stamps have dried sufficiently, they are fired for the first time in the kiln.

A lonesome job at the back of the shop – no windows, but there is a radio.

Here the stamps are out of the kiln and cooling until they can be put away in inventory.

Robin personally pulls each stamp on your order. If an item is not in stock, he schedules it for production. When all stamps are completed, Rycraft labels are applied and the stamps put into cards to protect them in shipping.

Next our shipping clerk (Robin) packs your order in a box with foam and/or peanuts as needed and attaches a label.

Then Robin drives to the local post office where he either stands at the postage machine (or in line if it's international) to pay for postage – unless the package is to go by UPS, in which case Robin generates the UPS labels and paperwork for our daily pickup. The majority of Rycraft's business is wholesale – we ship to
retailers all over the world.

ORNAMENTS 

and some special order cookie stamps require that a ram press die be made from the master which Robin has carved.

It is a long and tedious process of working with plaster and a metal ring, which Robin has perfected over the years.

Below left is the ram press with the #025-Jingle Bells die.

Below right are the ornaments which the die produced, after they have been glazed and fired, and are ready for the ribbons to be applied.