Hello.

My name is Tom Pratt and I have a passion for sign carving and woodworking. I have been woodworking for over 30 years and sign carving for the past few years. My wife Trish and I have made hundreds of wood and craft items over the years, mostly as gifts and decorations for our home. This has only been a hobby up until recently when I decided to design and carve signs and plaques as a new venture.

My professional background has been in the computer industry. I have been self-employed since college starting my first company, a computer company in 1983.  I then started a second company, an internet company in 1990. The internet business started as a small family oriented bulletin board service and grew into a full-service internet provider and web-hosting business. I really enjoyed the design work and graphics work in creating a bulletin board.  Although I do not consider myself very artistic, the design work was the most rewarding part of the business to me. Once all the design work was done on the Internet service, I found that I did not have as much interest in the business anymore and finally sold the company after 10 years of hard work. I continued to run the computer company mostly because of the relationship I had developed with my customers. I have always been a hands-on type of person and as the computer business grew I was more involved in the management and less with the systems and the customers. After running the business for 22 years, I finally sold that company and semi-retired in January 2003. I continued consulting for a few customers that I have worked with for the past 25 years but soon realized I needed to do something more rewarding.

That is how Signs of Inspiration came to be. I have always had a home shop with all the woodworking tools as one of my many hobbies. In 2002 I purchased a computer-controlled router (CNC) and finally combined the things I love, computers and woodworking. Carving signs and plaques began as a hobby, but soon I was receiving requests from friends and family to make signs. I made hundreds of signs and plaques and everyone loved them so I decided to start selling them. I took a booth at a nice consignment shop, The Handcrafters Barn in North Conway, NH and signs started selling immediately. I made a large variety of different signs and plaques mostly one-of-a-kind. As with most businesses, things evolve in ways that are not always planned. I have decided to focus on signs and plaques which are inspirational or spiritual. These types of signs offer the most satisfaction to me in designing them and knowing that they have special meaning to the person receiving them.

That is a short story of how this all began. I hope you enjoy my website and my signs and plaques. If you have any questions or would like to contact me, please visit our Contact Us page.

If you actually read this, Thanks.