Wholesale 1.75” Hand Carved Soapstone Pink Hearts-Sold per dozen

What's in the Pack: 1 dozen pink hearts. Choose from 1 of 6 etched designs. Selling Strength: Small, detailed & inexpensive, make these hearts a strong impulse-buy and collectible item at the register. A best seller for gift shops, museum stores, garden centers, and home décor retailers. Handmade: If you look closely, no two carvings will be exactly alike, each starts from its own unique piece of rock. Each piece is handled separately and personally through every step in the process, from carving to the final polishing. No machinery, nothing electrical, just several pairs of hands. If you notice slight differences, that’s because it’s handmade! Product Details: • Case pack quantity: 12 • Minimum Order Quantity: 12 • Wholesale Price: $1.95 each • Case pack price: $23.40 • Material: Soapstone from the local quarries in Tabaka, Kenya • Design: Etched surface detail revealing the natural stone color • Size: 1.8"L x 1.3"W x 1.8"H • Colors: Pink • Origin: Handmade by a family-run co-op in Tabaka, Kisii County, Kenya The entire process, from quarrying to this finished product is completed by a co-op in Tabaka, Kenya. Tabaka, located in Kisii county is a small town built around the region’s soapstone quarries. The co-op consists of about 30 people and is headed by a father and his three sons. Charles, the father, prefers to carve while the sons take care of day to day operations and fill in where needed. Every carving or figurine starts out as a soapstone boulder. They are trucked to the co-op address where they are sawn into manageable sizes by a 2-man crosscut, just like the old lumberjacks used. The carvers using a handsaw then cut it into smaller square chunks depending on the size of each project. An outline is drawn onto one side of the block and carving begins. Carvers use two tools, an adze for the rough shape and knife for the finishing work. Remarkably all carvers seem to have a full count of fingers. After carving it moves on to the sanding process. The soapstone is wet sanded using water and sandpaper. It then sits outside to dry which normally takes a day but sometimes longer in the rainy season. The soapstone is then dyed if that’s what the order calls for. After that it is wax polished and goes onto the design team which using the sharp point of a knife etches a design through the dyed surface reveling the stone’s natural color. It’s then polished again and then each piece is individually wrapped in paper and packed ready for shipping.