Let The Games Begin...ancientgamecupboard

I'm really excited about this feature. The first time I visited this shop on Etsy it instantly became a favorite.



Tell us a little about yourself.
Antiquity Gamecrafters is a team effort. Our names are Brian and Jennifer Kooshian. We make reproductions of historic board games from throughout history and over several continents.

How long have you been crafting and what made you decide to sell?
Brian started making games as Christmas presents for the kids. We homeschool our children and would learn about games from the period of history we were studying and Brian would make one for them. They were so nice that I (Jennifer) encouraged him to try to sell them at a local "everything" sale one year ago. They sold so well there that we decided to try to sell them seriously. We did several craft shows and then started seeing sales on etsy.com around Christmas and have had a steady stream of orders there ever since.

How do you promote your work and where can we find it?
Most of our promotion is on etsy.com. We are currently upgrading our own website, antiquitygamecrafters.com, so we are having that address re-directed to our etsy shop http://ancientgamecupboard.etsy.com.

What inspires you to create?
We both have a love for games, for history and for beauty. These three things inspire us to make beautiful, reproductions of historic board games. We also love to discover wood that we can 'reclaim' to make the games really unique.

How do you organize your time?
Brian created a spreadsheet for our reference with checklists for each stage of game creation and a built-in deadline for each order. It has made our time management much more efficient.

What is your favorite item that you create?
My favorite is The Royal Game of Ur and Brian's favorite is Senet.

What are your business plans for the remainder of 2008?
We plan to attend a few well-attended venue possibilities to decide whether we could be ready to rent booths for the 2009 season. We also have one craft show scheduled for November. We have taken part in advertising on an indie artist radio program and are considering doing so again. Our main goal this year is to develop a 5-year and 10-year plan for how to turn our love for historic games into a full-time career.

Do you have a blog so that others can keep in touch with you?
Our blog is located at http://antiquitygamecrafters.blogspot.com