Gift-giving is a true art form.
We’re here to help you perfect it.
We’re Jen and Chris, the husband-and-wife artist team behind Forged Flare®. We make one-of-a-kind handcrafted ornaments for people who believe that great gift-giving is a true art form. We’ve been a team for more than 20 years, from collaborating on class projects back in our college days to turning our Tesla into Toothless the dragon. Now, we’re putting a fresh spark into our relationship (literally!) with our newest adventure: Forged Flare®.
It all started with a birthday gift.
Chris knew he wanted to give his mom something special and truly one of a kind for her upcoming birthday. Something handmade, from the heart, that really said, “Mom, you mean the world to me.”
We’d bought our very first laser cutter during the early COVID-19 days and we were itching to try it out. Chris’s mom adores angels — in fact, she has a whole collection of them. So Chris designed an angel with a beautiful stained glass–style calla lily at its center. We used our new laser cutter to bring it to life. (Full disclosure: I stood over Chris with a fire extinguisher in hand the first time he tested out the laser cutter. Ya know, juuust in case it blew up or something.)
The final product gave us goosebumps. We knew Chris’s mom would like it, but we never could have imagined just how happy it would make her.
Cue the choir of angels … that moment of immense gratitude and joy sparked the idea for Forged Flare® and inspired our first and most popular product line: Mother’s Angels®.
Each Mother’s Angels® ornament has a unique significance, as does every other keepsake we design. They’re meant to commemorate a meaningful moment, memory, or milestone, whether it’s a birthday, holiday, or showing some love to our healthcare workers.
Our process
Our process is structured, scientific, and empirical. Just like Sheldon and Amy from the Big Bang Theory. Kidding — it’s actually the opposite.
Usually, we’re swimming in our pool or driving around when an idea for a design hits one of us. Then we bounce the idea off the other, build on it, and decide who does what.
While our creative process is pretty relaxed, our commitment to delivering you the most high-quality quality is anything but. We most definitely channel our inner Sheldon when it comes to just about everything that represents the Forged Flare® brand, from sourcing the best materials for our handmade products to going above and beyond making them.
Whether you’re shopping for yourself or someone else, receiving a perfectly packaged creation from Forged Flare® is a true experience.
Our materials
We are obsessed with quality, both in the materials we use and the way our product is presented. That’s why we tested out A LOT of frogs before finding our royal lineup of premium, artist-approved materials, from sapele plywood to top-of-the-line acrylics for that dances-in-the-sunlight stained glass look and feel.
💖 Our story 💖
We’ve been joined at the hip for a long time. Allllll the way back to our days in college. It was touch and go at first, what with Jen judging Chris for being late to class and Chris secretly judging Jen for baking him cherry-flavored cupcakes on Valentine’s Day. (Chris HATES cherry-flavored anything.) But just like Ross and Rachel, we eventually realized we were meant to be and have been there for each other ever since.
Chris
Chris is a full-time animator (he’s worked on a whole gamut of styles from fluffy and friendly animated feature films to gory demon-slaying video games). You’ve seen his work on films including X-Men: First Class and Life of Pi and video games like DOOM Eternal. He even has his own page on IMDB!
Jen
Jen is a web and graphic designer who’s worked for some of the world’s biggest brands, from eBay to LEGO. She ventured out on her own a couple years ago and founded Jen Street, LLC (the parent company of Forged Flare®). She has never looked back (except to binge-watch Friends reruns of course).
Meaningful moments + memories
That time we won FREE tickets to the Friends reunion in L.A.
We’ve gone on more than 8 Disney cruises (and we can’t wait to go back!).
At one point, Chris’s job was to design pizza boxes.
We moved to Florida (in hopes of working at Disney) the same year they canceled their animation department (womp, womp).
When Jen was a kid, she had to buy her own Nintendo by making money painting tulips.
We go all out for Halloween. Like, ALL OUT. We even dress our Tesla up.
We are obsessed with Disney, Friends, Colin Firth (well, Jen is anyway), and Tesla.
Giving back
We love giving back to our community and collaborated with a local charity to design and offer our popular Paw Print for Charity Mother’s Angels® ornament. Every time someone buys the Paw Print for Charity ornament, we donate 30% to HOME Rescue.