Cottage Craft Works, LLC

Ph: 281-638-0050 | Visit www.cottagecraftworks.com





Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Amish Made Goods

Old-fashioned Amish goods, wares, products from over 100 Amish shops and factories across the US. Online General Store is an emporium for Amish products.

For over a decade this small family owned and ran online general store has been supplying some of the most unique and hard to find vintage products still being made and used in the Amish communities.

It was a dream born out of necessity for Paul and Elizabeth Stevens looking for old-fashioned products to help support their own self-sufficient lifestyle.

Their first trip into the Ohio Amish communities in the 1970s soon became an obsession to keep going back and exploring this fascinating lifestyle and the products being made and used.

They have spent countless weekends and vacations over the past 40 years on the back roads of the Midwest Amish communities from Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Along the way, the Stevens have made long lasting friendships with the Amish people.

When they decided other people might just be searching for the same products Cottage Craft Works LLC was born. The initial offerings began with Amish handcrafted hunting calls and then expanded into a full line general store.

It was rather an easy decision since they already had the connections and it was a time when the Internet was just becoming a major player in the way people researched and shopped for products from the comfort of home.

The attraction and ease of having all these products all together in one online store would hopefully be appreciated by would-be customers.

The results and the reception have far reached expectations as Cottage Craft Works has developed into a small business success story.

What makes this small company refreshingly unique is that they have kept the old-fashioned customer service once experienced in the small-town country store. 

Even though they are all online they still personally answer the phone and help customers walk through the product options just as if someone was right there with them in a store.

Themselves being frustrated with corporate voicemail or e-mail trouble tickets, the Stevens family are extremely responsive in connecting with customer questions or concerns.

What has also made the company more successful is the ability to bring back old time vintage items and replicate them exclusive for Cottage Craft Work customers.

Paul Stevens has his own woodworking shop where prototypes are built of favorite items being used in the late 1800s and early 1900s and then they have one of their Amish builders build them for the product lineup.

The Singer Featherweight reproduction folding card tables, a J & P Coats spool thread cabinet are just a couple of the products that they have successfully remade into production using Amish craftsmanship.

Cottage Craft Works goes beyond just selling you a product. While most online companies are focused on just pushing out an item, the folks over at Cottage Craft Works also provide the parts and accessories for many of the products that may be needed down the road.

For an example a Heller Aller PHB hand water pump can be easily found on the Internet, however, finding the replacement leathers and other parts is a different story unless you are shopping at Cottage Craft Works.

The Little Dutch Maid hand crank mixer is another great example. You can find one for almost $100 more at another online source, but you can save money and purchase a slicer-shredder and other options to go along with it only at Cottage Craft Works.com

Cottage Craft Works has become a respected leader in solid wood handcrafted Amish custom sewing cabinets as well as reproduction Singer style treadle sewing cabinets.

Other wooden items and furniture can be custom built.  The glass gun case has been custom built for judges and even a President of the United States.

The company offers several woodworking kits including the J & P Coats spool cabinet, a Studebaker Jr. wooden spoke kids wagon, sewing cabinet hardware, wagon seat hardware and ornamental vendor and peddler cart plans and hardware kits.

With the engraving option, the Amish handcrafted hunting calls are routinely ordered for gifts, and wedding parties.  

Many of the Amish products are so Authentic they have been featured in movies and on TV shows.  The peddler cart can be seen on a long-running soap opera show, the authentic wooden wheelbarrows were used in a Canada filmed Western and the lazy Susan turntables were used on a television series as the backdrop on a show about a Navy Ship.

Amish products are made durable to last for generations one of the reasons they are becoming very popular for non-Amish who want to escape the corporate greed of products with built in planned obsolesce.

You will find that the Amish products are just made heavier, and structurally more sound. This makes many of the products durable enough for commercial use. The heavy-duty aluminum dump trailers are made of thick aluminum and are being used by the US Military in a construction training facility.

From home goods, farm, and garden, to hand-turned stoneware pottery you will find it all at Cottage Craft Works.com  along with the organically grown Amish grains and flour to use with their wonderful off-grid Amish cooking utensils.









Monday, December 12, 2016

Vintage old-fashioned kitchenware, gadgets

Discover a treasure trove of old-fashioned kitchenware-gadgets still American made just as they were in the early times in the USA Amish communities.

Deep in the Amish communities back on some of the hardest to reach back roads small family shops and factories are still churning out high-quality kitchenware and gadgets from vintage American times.

Why you may ask?  Well the Amish you see still live a simple conservative life without grid connected power. They still depend on the most old-fashioned products to continue this lifestyle.

When the country moved forward with grid power during the mid-1900s the Amish were left behind and soon found themselves moving from what was the mainstream of products for everyone to having only things with electric cords or operated by electric kitchen appliances that they could no longer use.

This started the Amish manufacturing revolution not commonly studied or talked about. Basically, the Amish had to move into manufacturing or contracting with companies to continue a steady flow of off-grid basic simple vintage products for the future generation of Amish families who would continue the off-grid simple lifestyles.

American made products are very desirable. Amish products are in very high demand and here’s why.

The Amish haven’t been tempted by corporate and shareholder influences. 

The Amish still make or acquire products that they can use themselves and depend on lasting a lifetime well on into the next generations.

What has occurred elsewhere is a proliferation of jobs leaving America and the flooding of cheaper imported products has caused many Americans to revolt to the point they just don’t like to purchase anything that is not made in America bringing them full circle back to looking for the type of old-fashioned items still being made in the Amish communities.

Many are also concerned about the potential loss of grid power caused by some type of economic chaos, from terrorism as well as the uncertainties from around the world. Others are deeply concerned with the overall safety of our food chain.

Multiply all these concerns and understandably we have a rebirth of wanting to get back to the simpler life that the Amish seem to enjoy.  Growing their on food, processing, and cooking from scratch at home.

Many are discovering that the Amish made products work much better and faster than some of the modern-day clones of the old vintage products.

Sure, the Amish made products will cost more but, it is all about getting what you pay for.  One sharp USA made tool is much better than the stack of tools in the tool shed that isn't useable.

Most Amish especially the old order Amish settlements have very little access to the outside world over the Internet so people have a hard time finding their products.

One source is Cottage Craft Works.com an online general store featuring some of the hardest to find Amish products.

The owners of Cottage Craft Works started the company over a decade ago to provide the same products they had spent 30 years in discovering to others.

The outcome has been phenomenal according to Paul and Liz Stevens cofounders. The Stevens have also built the company on old-fashioned family values and customer service that they have learned in their previous years in dealing with the public. It is still a company where someone will answer the phone and you can talk to the actual owner. 






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