A.S.A.P. Engraving was started in Calgary in the early 90's. My father in law works within the electrical division for industrial rig companies, and therefore, there has always been a demand for lamacoid tags. My mother in law was able to make these tags, part time from home while raising three boys and running a day home. They moved to Sherwood Park, and she continued to expand the business based on word of mouth with all three boys included in the labour force. Back then, the engraving was all done on an old manual rotary machine, meaning each letter of every word had to be hand picked, placed into the machine, and engraved individually. When my husband and I started dating, we spent many Sunday afternoons in his parents basement working all day on these tags.
Over the years, Mom no longer worked on the tags and the brothers were no longer involved, so it became the sole responsibility of my husband (with the help of myself and our delivery dog). When we moved into our new home, we renovated to include an office space for the engraving business. After purchasing all new digital equipment in 2009, we moved the business out of the parents basement...and into ours!
The purchase of this new equipment opened a world of opportunities for us with engraving, as now we could engrave just about anything as opposed to only plastic lamacoid. We quickly spread the word through our existing industrial customers! For me personally, there was a shift in interest. Suddenly the time consuming work of the manual rotary became fun exploring all the new things our machines could do. We were engraving wood, leather, glass and making fun things like wedding favors and signs for children's nurseries!
In June of 2010 we welcomed our first son into the world, and I went on my maternity leave from my full time career in the construction sector. This enabled me to focus some more on our home business and grow things further. I developed our page through Facebook, launched a website www.asapengraving.ca and continue to look for new opportunities and developments for our business all the time. We welcomed our second son this February, and so the family and business grew again!
What was once a small, one person show, has now grown to be a family business that enables me to work from home, while raising my two boys and allowing me to do work that uses my creativity everyday! I am very lucky and thankful to have such an opportunity! I can already see my two boys helping us in the years to come, and our dog continues to love joining me on deliveries! Who knows, maybe one of the boys will take over from us, and run from their own basement years from now.
Thanks for taking the time to read about us! I welcome ideas and inspiration all the time, and would love to hear from you!
Amanda
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