JD Creations Offers Customized Items

By Misty Cryer

The Prell family is well known in Carlsbad, with David serving as pastor of Blodgett Street Baptist Church for 23 of his almost 40 years in ministry and Jody teaching at Monterrey Elementary for 14 years before retiring. The couple also managed to stay active in the art community while providing custom artwork through JD Creations. Less well known is the fact that they purchased JoAnn’s Trophies a few years ago, which added to the selection of customized and personalized items they offer.

About the previous owners of JoAnn’s Trophies, David referred to the late JoAnn Perry and her husband, Jesse, as amazing people. He said, “I know the people in this community really loved them, and they did a lot of work over the years. We are really proud to have had the ability to take it over from them.”

About the equipment and supplies accumulated from the trophy shop, David said, “We have added to that with the more modern engraving styles with the lasers.”

Also added to the mix is a new ultraviolet printer that adds dimension and depth, producing two-and-a-half dimensions, said David.

“It will print on anything,” said Jody. “You name it, we can probably print on it,” she said.

“We can do those challenge coins in color, or we can do them on the laser and cut them out of brass and do the same two-and-a-half dimension so you have a raised surface,” said David, providing an example, “It is really, really beautiful given that depth and feel,” he said.

“We can do everything from a shotgun to a trophy for basketball or soccer,” said David. With four different lasers, they can perform all types of laser engraving on various materials, including stone, wood, metal, glass, and acrylic, he said.

Jody said they can also add color to logos for customized business-related items and gifts and provide vinyl lettering for electric boxes, for instance.

As an artist, Jody said she does pen and ink, colored pencils, and acrylic. “David is a licensed gemologist. He does jewelry, woodworking, stonecutting, and lapidary,” she said.

“We do a lot of southwestern artwork,” said David. “Jody, in her graphics, she really specializes in some very unique southwestern graphics in a style that I had never seen before until she did it, and now you see some people doing something similar,” he said, adding that he and Jody often collaborate.

“We do custom woodworking, which includes the plaques and custom pens like you see down at the gallery,” said David. “I do custom game calls out of wood or acrylic.”

David said they can make anything that can be turned on a lathe, like bowls and toys, including spinning tops and kaleidoscopes. “Every year, when the mayor does the energy summit, we do personalized, custom gifts for that,” he said.

Working in the jewelry business since 1975, when he opened his first shop, David said he had a shop in Alamogordo that was purchased by the Zales Corporation, and he went to work for them and relocated to Louisiana.

David said he does jewelry from start to finish using sterling silver, gold, and platinum. For custom jewelry, a rough can be picked, like an opal for instance, “We can cut it into a particular shape or size and make it into something,” he said.

The couple has access to nine mines from which they can extract minerals, with three of them being turquoise mines, said David. He shared that 70% of gemstones can be found in New Mexico. “It’s really unusual being in a place like the southwest where we can actually go dig some of our own stones,” he said.

“We sell gemstones—cut and polished or the raw material,” said David.

“We also do rocks, minerals, and fossils,” said Jody.

For keepsakes, Jody provided an example of taking a grandmother’s handwritten recipe and integrating it into a chopping block or cutting board. David said that he custom-engraved a shotgun that a man bought for his wife after the couple started skeet shooting. The dimensional engraving, almost 2 mm, he said, “It really makes it beautiful.”

The slogan of JD Creations is “From the Creator to the Craftsman to You,” said Jody. A simple text or phone call to Jody at 575-706-4488 is the best way to get an order started for customized or personalized trophies, plaques, corporate gifts with logos, keepsakes, vinyl lettering, or the wide array of artwork, handmade jewelry, rocks, minerals, fossils, or gemstones that David and Jody offer through JD Creations.

A lot of their work can be seen and purchased locally at The Artist Gallery or at the Carlsbad Museum. On Facebook, they can be found under JD Creations by Prell.