Wood scraps turn to wood craft items in Naga shop

NAGA CITY – A happy-go-lucky guy with a passion for the arts: Jojo Villafuerte, 51, can turn wood scraps into crafts and make money out of it to sustain a comfortable lifestyle for his family.

Villafuerte has found a way of expressing his flair for designs that follow the natural pattern and irregular shapes of the scrap materials and become functional as furniture and accent pieces and for trophies or plaques.

“Every piece is unique which cannot be rendered again with every piece of my masterpiece,” he says.

Villafuerte named his venture Crazy Cut Woodcraft because of the irregular shapes of his raw materials which do not allow for a uniform design for each piece.

The concept for his jobs, that have been giving him modest sales, earned him citations from local and national trade fairs.

He ventured into woodcraft production after starting out in the landscaping business when he realized he could better utilize the scraps and driftwood from hardwood that he used for his garden installations.

In 2007, he formally established his shop in Cararayan, Naga City and started using the scrap materials to make furniture which he sold to friends.

As the demand grew, he sought the assistance of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which provided him technical support in improving his design and marketing his products.

He adds he actively participated in trade fairs sponsored by the DTI and other groups that further exposed his products and allowed him to increase his sales, eventually paving the way for him to have a showroom in Makati City.

The materials he uses are sourced from antique houses, traveza, sunken vessels, logs buried in a river or wood pieces deemed as leftovers of furniture shops.

He says this would explain why his business thrives even with enforcement of the total log ban.

Outside of the shop and storage area, piles of wood scraps await processing – for cutting into desired shapes and sizes, kilning, assembling of components, sanding and polishing.

“The natural shapes of the wood scraps determine the design of each piece of woodcraft I make that’s why pieces of the furniture sets are totally different from each other even if they belong to a set,” he says.

Interesting are details of the natural designs created by exposure of the hardwood to the elements, such as those antique wood materials retrieved from sunken vessels, that are accentuated by barnacled surfaces.

Best sellers among his products are the sala and dining sets, wooden trophies, plaques and frames for different occasions, which schools and groups patronize, especially during athletic festivals and recognition events.

He observes the growing culture of environmental awareness may have drawn more clients to the products of Crazy Cut Woodcraft as shown by its consistent sales growth in just four years of operations.

Crazy Cut Woodcraft’s Makati showroom is located at 1723 Dian St., Palanan, or call Jojo Villafuerte at 0920-288239 or 0922-8156550.