Where it began

As far back as we can remember, we have always spent time sharing with our congregation in whatever ways we could, whether that was handmade gifts, original games we created from scratch for family gatherings, encouragement cards we put together for friends, stocking the congregation fridge for the pioneers, or little surprises tucked into the hands of brothers and sisters we cared about.

Then, in 2017 when our family was living in New Mexico, one of us came to the others and said,

And that's when the idea of JW Printables was born.

We realized that collectively we had many wonderful skills we had built over the years through our secular work, like business management, graphic design, and web development. We were already pouring those skills into our congregation in small ways. What if we used them on a bigger scale, for the whole worldwide brotherhood? What if we built a website where we could give useful and encouraging things away to our brothers and sisters? We decided, without much hesitation, that we wanted to.

We prayed about it

We took our time, talked it through, weighed the pros and cons, prayed about it together. Because we wanted to be sure this was something good.

In the end, the conclusion felt obvious. Doing good for others is always a good idea. And doing it for our worldwide spiritual family felt like one of the best ways we could show our love for Jehovah and for the brothers and sisters who make up this organization we call family.

What we saw

We decided to look around at what was already out there, but we saw something we could not shake.

Brothers and sisters were making beautiful things for each other. Handmade items that were encouraging, and full of love. But almost everything was being sold. There were marketplaces and shops and price tags. There was almost nowhere a brother or sister could just go and find something free.

That bothered us. The brotherhood deserved a place where the spirit of generosity was the whole point. Not the exception. We knew right from the beginning that our website was going to be free, but this only spurred us on even more.

Our first printable

In February 2017, our first printable went live!

And nothing happened.

Nobody came. Nobody downloaded. The site sat there quiet for weeks.

But we kept making things. We kept uploading. We kept believing that what we were doing mattered, even if nobody had found us yet.

Then, finally, a trickle started. A few people found us. Then a few more. They started sharing the site with their friends and sharing things from the website with people they cared about. The trickle became a stream, and the stream became something we never quite imagined when we started.

Bigger than one family

Over the years, the site has grown beyond what four people could ever do alone.

Today there is a small team of brothers and sisters helping us, people who love what this site stands for and want to be part of it.

We also added Supporter memberships somewhere along the way. We did not want to, at first. But the truth is, a website like this is expensive to keep running, and the JW Creators who contribute to it deserve to be paid for their work. So we built a model where Supporters could help us keep the lights on and pay the people who make everything you love.

The free printables that started it all are still here. They always will be. That has not changed and it will not change.

What we hope for

We have been doing this for nearly ten years now. And it has been a real joy. The love and fine works it inspires, the messages we get from brothers and sisters who found exactly what they needed for a baptism gift, a pioneer encouragement, or for family worship night, those things are what make us the happiest.

We hope we can keep doing this for a long time. For as long as Jehovah allows.