Welcome to Craft Cut Concepts
My name is Andrea, and along with my family and our team of fellow artisans, we help bring our customers’ projects to life by cutting the craft shapes they need right here in our Minnesota shop. Our mission is simple: we want you to feel proud of your artistic works, and good about how they were made, from concept to creation.
Our Story
Craft Cut Concepts started in our Minnesota garage in 2015. Before it was a business, it was a family hobby, but I was always having trouble finding the right craft shapes and supplies for my projects. Curt bought some equipment and worked out a process to make what I needed — and it turned out to make more than I needed. We started offering that extra capacity to local customers, and that was the spark.
Word spread. Customers came back, brought new requests, and we grew — eventually finding ourselves a regular top-10 shop on Etsy. That growth came from you, and we don’t take it for granted. Your satisfaction is part of the foundation we keep building on.
We’re a small shop with real horsepower. Curt, a systems engineer by trade, made the choice to commit full time and to enjoy the time to formalize our business to be generational. The industry would call it Lean Manufacturing and Design-for-Manufacturing that we applied to craft shapes. We love working with other small shops and hobbyists. Many of our customers are makers, mom-and-pop businesses, and entrepreneurs building something of their own — and we’re glad to be part of that. The craft world is limitless, and so is creativity. We’re proud to be in a position to support people in their creative endeavors — we’d rather help build a better world than treat anyone as someone to keep out. So if you’re building a business, even one that overlaps with ours, we want to work with you, not around you.
Meet the Family
Craft Cut Concepts is family owned and family operated — not as a slogan, but as the literal staffing chart. Here’s who you’re working with when you place an order.
▸ Meet Andrea
That’s me — and this business is mine in the most personal way a business can be. It started with my hands at our kitchen table: a stay-at-home mom (a title I wear proudly) crafting with our daughters and never finding the shapes I needed. Craft Cut Concepts exists because I decided we’d make them ourselves, and it still runs on that standard — if it wouldn’t be good enough for my own table, it doesn’t ship.
Today I lead the customer side of everything we do. My background is in business and administrative work. The experience that matters most is the kind I’ve built right here, order by order, with you. Being a LEAN team, I wear many hats so we need to use the tools available. Many of which were developed by my husband to give you, the customer, transparency in information to answer questions before they arise. “Quality supplies, quality pricing, and a quality experience” isn’t a tagline I approved; it’s the standard I set, and the one I answer to personally.
▸ Meet Curt
Curt is my husband and the engineer behind everything you don’t see — the equipment, the processes, and the technology that keep a small shop running smoothly. He’s a University of Minnesota alumnus with extensive education in machine and manufacturing technology. He earned ASME certification as a Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing Professional and had his mark in space before Space-X. He’s led machine shops, quality departments, projects, and still consults in the manufacturing trade today.
Ask him about any of that and he’ll shrug and change the subject to whatever he’s building next. He can’t sit still — off the clock you’ll find him tinkering with antique equipment, engineering “fun”, or outside, where he’d rather be anyway.
▸ Meet Jesse
Jesse is my brother and the production manager who runs the shop floor. He came to us from the sign and banner industry — vinyl, signage, production work — and he’s the steady hands managing the schedule and shipments. He’s the quiet one of the three of us, and he likes it that way.
▸ Meet Justin
Justin — Justin the Jester Artisan, a title he awarded himself and we ratified unanimously — is our fourth set of hands and the shop’s entire morale department. He’s family in every way that matters, he works alongside Jesse making your order, and the shop floor is louder and better with him on it. If your shapes arrive and you get the strange feeling somebody waved at the box before it shipped — that was probably Justin.
Off the Clock
When we’re not in the shop, we’re outdoors together: camping, hunting, fishing, biking, hiking, and traveling when we can. We love nature the way it is and try to leave it that way. Down to earth, in every sense.
Around here, age is just the number of boxes on a shelf — and you get to choose which one you take down. When your at peace, put the grown-up box back and reach for the kid ones. We all still play.
More than anything, we’re raising our kids to build — and to build them in service of others. We want them to grow up knowing the point of making something is who it’s for. It’s the same idea the shop runs on: keep your hands busy, and make something that ends up in someone else’s.
How We Work
We treat a craft shape like a manufactured part: we measure it. Every design in the catalog is defined by its real geometry — cut length, material, the actual work to make it. Price follows from that, not from guessing or rounding to a size bucket. Same method every time, which is why the number stays consistent and why a custom size can be quoted honestly.
The floor runs on the same data. The laser cuts fast and holds tight tolerances; we know what each order takes and what each machine is doing in real time. Knowing the load lets us schedule instead of guess — how a made-to-order shop keeps pace without warehousing pre-cut stock. Most standard orders ship same day plus one. Heavier seasons move that number; when they do, the current pace is posted on the home page, straight from the shop.
A tight operation stays lean, and a lean shop holds honest prices without thinning the material or rushing the cut. We’d rather run it tight and let that show up in the price than run it loose and make up the difference somewhere you can’t see.
We list what an order actually involves — material, work, timing — and leave the call to you. Our job is the real numbers and the finished part.
None of it runs on spreadsheets and guesswork. Curt built the system behind the site: it reads each design’s geometry, prices it, and schedules the floor. Same approach he takes to everything — reduce a process to its simplest solvable form, then rebuild it for throughput. Built the way a modern engineer builds: manufacturing discipline plus current AI tooling as a force multiplier, 160,000-plus lines written and verified. Today it’s dozens of purpose-built tools running all
What That Means For You
- Made to order. Your shapes are made for your order, in our Minnesota shop.
- Quality Materials, Need something we don’t usually stock? We know the people who make it.
- Honest, consistent pricing based on what a piece actually takes to make.
- Predictable shipping — standard orders typically same day plus one, with current pace shown on our home page.
- Customization when you want it. Adjust sizes or pick from available modifications in our Concept Studio. Most simple modifications are at no additional cost.
Whether you’re just looking, new here, or a returning customer, we’re here to support you and your crafting ventures. If you have a question, or you’re wondering whether we can help with an artistic endeavor of yours, contact us — we’d be glad to.
Thanks for choosing Craft Cut Concepts.
— Andrea, Curt, Jesse, and the team
Concepts, made real.