OakenArk: From Natural Home Goods to Handmade Felt

OakenArk began before there was a product collection, a workshop routine, or even a clear idea of what the brand would eventually become. It began with two people thinking more carefully about the kind of life they wanted to build—and about the objects they wanted to live with.

For Oakley and Rae, one of the ideas that stayed with them came from Shu Ting’s poem To the Oak Tree: two people standing firmly as individuals while growing beside one another. That image became part of the meaning behind OakenArk and part of the way they approached building something together.

The Roots: A Poem, a Partnership, and a Change of Pace

“Oaken” connects Oakley’s name with the oak tree—a symbol that came to represent resilience, sincerity, and quiet strength. “Ark” became the idea of a vessel: something that carries what is worth protecting and bringing forward.

At first, those ideas had less to do with building a brand than with changing daily life. Oakley had spent years working in a screen-based, technical world. Together, he and Rae eventually left city life for a quieter countryside setting and began paying closer attention to materials, making, food, animals, and the rhythms of work outside an office.

If you want the longer version of that transition, read From Code to Coconuts: The Story of Our Quiet Life.

When Concern Became Something Practical

Another moment stayed with them: seeing a sea turtle struggling because of discarded plastic. It was a reminder that concern for nature can remain abstract unless it changes the way we make choices.

That did not lead to the idea that one product, material, or purchase could solve an environmental problem. Instead, it helped shape a more practical question: could everyday objects be made and chosen with more attention to material, use, longevity, and waste?

OakenArk’s earliest collections grew from that question.

The Early OakenArk: Wood, Coconut Shell, Cotton, and Home Goods

The first stage of OakenArk looked very different from the character-filled world the brand has become today.

Early products explored materials such as wood, coconut shell, cotton, woven fibers, and reusable household tools. Bowls, chopsticks, storage pieces, and kitchen items were part of a period when Oakley and Rae were learning how natural materials behaved in everyday use.

Those early pieces are still important to the story because they established several ideas that continue to guide OakenArk:

• Let the material remain visible. Wood grain, coconut-shell curves, woven texture, and wool fibers do not need to look perfectly uniform.
• Design for a specific use. Material alone does not determine whether an object is suitable for food, storage, decoration, or another purpose.
• Value care and maintenance. A product that is looked after appropriately has a better chance of remaining useful.
• Avoid perfection as a marketing claim. Natural and handmade materials have limitations as well as advantages.

A Brand That Changed as the Making Changed

OakenArk did not remain only a home-goods brand.

As Oakley and Rae began working more deeply with wool felt, the direction gradually changed. Needle felting allowed a very different kind of expression: instead of focusing primarily on bowls, storage, and practical household pieces, wool could be shaped into faces, gestures, clothing, animals, seasonal characters, and small stories.

That shift eventually became central to OakenArk.

A handful of wool could become a curious mouse, a grumpy cat, a woodland animal, a wedding keepsake, or a tiny character built around an emotion or memory. Small variations in expression and shape became part of the appeal rather than something that needed to be removed.

From Two People to a Small Making Community

OakenArk is still guided by Oakley and Rae, but the work today is larger than two people making every object themselves.

Oakley guides the making side of the brand: materials, construction, techniques, workshop standards, samples, and the process of turning an idea into a finished piece.

Rae develops the visual and emotional side around the work through product direction, photography, storytelling, collections, customer communication, and the way each character is presented.

As the felt collection grew, OakenArk also began working with a small community of makers. The aim is not to erase individual handwork in the name of scale, but to develop repeatable standards while keeping the character and variation that come with handmade production.

What “Handmade” Means to OakenArk

Handmade is not a guarantee that an object is automatically safer, more sustainable, more durable, or better than every machine-made alternative.

For OakenArk, the useful meaning is more specific. Handmade production allows the maker to respond to shape, texture, expression, and small design details individually.

In needle felting, that means two figurines based on the same design may still have slight differences in facial expression, proportions, wool texture, or accessory placement. In coconut shell or woven materials, it may mean differences in grain, curve, color, or weave.

Those variations are part of the process, provided the finished piece still meets its intended construction and quality standard.

What Sustainability Means Here

The word “sustainable” is easy to make too large.

OakenArk does not believe that buying one natural-material product creates a sustainable lifestyle, or that natural materials are automatically environmentally superior in every situation.

The approach is more practical: use materials thoughtfully, reduce unnecessary waste where possible, avoid replacing useful objects simply for the sake of replacing them, care for products according to their material, and create pieces that people have a reason to keep.

Some OakenArk products use coconut shell. Others use wool, cotton, grass, paper rope, wood, or mixed constructions. Each product should be described according to what it actually contains rather than being placed under one broad environmental claim.

What OakenArk Has Become Today

The natural home goods that shaped the beginning of OakenArk are still part of the brand’s history, but handmade wool felt has become the heart of the world Oakley and Rae are building today.

The collection now includes original animal characters, seasonal figurines, ornaments, wedding keepsakes, felt flowers, gifts, and collectible decorative pieces designed for shelves, desks, celebrations, and personal displays.

The common thread is no longer one particular material. It is the idea that an object can carry character—through its material, the handwork behind it, or the story someone attaches to it.

You can read the fuller current brand history on the Our Story page.

Explore OakenArk Today

If you first discovered OakenArk through coconut bowls, wooden home goods, or woven storage, those early materials remain part of the story. If you are discovering the brand now, you are more likely to meet OakenArk through one of its wool characters.

Browse the OakenArk Handcrafted Gifts collection to explore the felt figurines, ornaments, keepsakes, and other handcrafted pieces that represent the brand today.

OakenArk has changed since its earliest days, and that is part of the point. The ark was never meant to carry only one type of product. It carries the things Oakley, Rae, and the makers around them believe are worth continuing to explore: craftsmanship, material, imagination, character, and the stories people attach to the objects they keep.