T & G Woodworking Fine Handcrafted Wood Keepsake Boxes, Jewelry Boxes

ABOUT US

We began exhibiting our boxes and woodcrafts at arts and crafts fairs in mid-2006.

John Gay has been making boxes for over 15 years, and currently has a large basement workshop in our home in McDonough, GA. John handcrafts his fine keepsake and jewelry boxes from carefully selected domestic and imported woods, using hand and power tools. He uses salvaged wood, such as from storm-downed trees, in some of the boxes. Most of the boxes are finished with oil and wax, a few are dyed and lacquered.

The quality John puts into these boxes shows in the matched grain patterns, precise hand-made joints, and clean design.

Paula Todd does the woodburning for T & G Woodworking. She does all the burning by hand, including the

"T & G Woodworking" signature you see on the bottoms of the boxes, with a set of pyrographic pens. Paula designs ornaments and plaques using home-grown holly, which John prepares in slices, and she does hand-woodburned designs on these and on some of the box lids by hand, and adds watercolor accents to the ornaments.

John has a Bachelor's degree in History from Georgia Southwestern University, and a Master's in Industrial Arts from the University of Georgia. After serving in the Navy in the 1970's, he was a teacher of high school and middle school in Georgia for almost 30 years before retiring in 2005.

Paula has a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Syracuse University, and an MBA in Finance from New York University. She was a financial analyst at a large insurance company for 19 years until 1991, and later was a tax preparer for 8 years, leaving in 2008 to concentrate on the arts and crafts festivals.