Editorial
Our Story
A small workshop that makes one thing well
PawCreator began in 2019 in a converted garage in Portland with a laser cutter, a borrowed bandsaw and one order — a memorial stone for a friend's lurcher. We have made about forty thousand pieces since then, and we still cut every profile by hand.
Why we redraw every photograph
Software can trace an outline from a photograph in about a second. The result is always slightly wrong: a fringe of fur becomes a sawtooth, an ear disappears against a dark background, the shape ends up reading as a hedgehog.
So a person redraws it. It takes between twenty minutes and an hour depending on the animal, and it is the single biggest cost in what we make. It is also the only reason any of this is worth doing.
The bench
What happens after you order
We read your photo
Within one working day a person looks at your upload and tells you honestly whether it will engrave well — or asks for a better one.
We redraw the profile
By hand, at the size it will be cut. This is the step that takes the longest and matters the most.
You approve the artwork
We send the rendered preview to your account. Nothing is cut until you say yes.
We make it
Cut, finished, checked against the preview under a loupe, then packed by the same person who made it.
If it would not make us cry to receive it, it does not leave the bench.
What we will not do
What we will not do
We will not engrave a photograph we cannot read clearly, and we will not guess at a name. If something is not going to work we will tell you before we take your money, even when that means losing the order.