It all started with my sister Ellie and her husband. They were teachers and needed a way to make a little extra money during the summers. It was the early 1970's, the handmade movement was in full swing, and I started helping them while a college student. I was soon designing for them. My husband Tom and I built our own shop in 1997 in Kiel and created Heart to Heart. I design our line of signs, birdhouses, yard art and have recently been spending a lot of time on a plasma torch cutting lacy patterns into salvaged metal items. Ellie continued in her woodworking shop with her laser, fabricating the engraved signs. She just retired from that last year and we are folding the engraved sign part of out business. My sister Peg spent many years doing shows with me and then started her own business cutting and welding metal. My brother Bob and his wife Karen, who live in Washington state, worked hand-in-hand with us and did shows for many years as Cascade Designs. Bob now makes his own line of metal luminaries and still travels to many shows in the West with his partner Darlene. My husband, Tom, quit his "real" job and joined me full time in 1995. He's a mainstay not only in the wood shop, but at our shows as well. Thank goodness he does the books, too! We've done art and craft shows across the country for a long time; perhaps you've seen Heart to Heart at one of your favorite events. It has been a grand adventure.
 
Shari Grenzow Mauer