We are family owned and operated woodworking business based in Northwest Arkansas. We strive to create beautiful & creative handcrafted wood products of the highest quality.
My name is Jeff Blecher.
I started NWA Wood Design as a fun side project to create handmade Christmas gifts for relatives. They were a hit! They began asking if I could make more so they could give them to their friends.
I started selling popular designs on eBay, where products would sell almost immediately. I challenged myself to create more intricate designs. Many of the more complex designs require several cuts and create a lot of scrap.
Instead of throwing the scrap away, I designed a toy wooden train set. The trains have also become very popular. Our creations can now be found in galleries in Bentonville, as well as through our very active Etsy store.
All my products are created with the highest of standards and are rigorously inspected before listing for sale. And I price all my products reasonably, so everyone can enjoy my high quality items. I handpick all the wood to ensure I create high quality items that will last for many years. Most of my wood is sourced locally here in Northwest Arkansas.
One of the things I love doing is mentoring high school students in woodworking. Mentoring allows me to pass on my knowledge and skills to the next generation.
I currently have three young men working with me.
Jared
Jared started working with me in 2021 when he was 16 years old. He has assisted in some portion of the creation process on almost every finished product. His attention to detail and very high standards with all our pieces makes him very valuable.
One of his specialties is building our train sets and he helps with train building clinics we put on throughout the year. He also runs the CNC (computer controlled router) machine that helps produce things like coasters, animals for the trains, and epoxy inlay designs. He has also designed some of our newer items, like the charcuterie serving bowls.
Chris
Chris was my first teenager hired in 2020. He is one of my neighbors and was only 15 when he started working a couple days a week after school. He will be a senior this fall at Bentonville West High School. In addition to maintaining a better than perfect 4.1 GPA, he also plays football and runs track for Bentonville West. He has been with me for about a year and a half.
He works on all stages of the design and finishing processes and really shows his creativity with his epoxy designs. His work can be seen on charcuterie wave boards and the whale tail design, as well as the scenes he creates through embedding objects in our popular epoxy serving trays.
