On his first impression of custom designer vinyl: “I made fun of it. My friend Steve, who’s the one who kind of got me into it, had toys in his office. And he showed me this little piece by Michael Lau that was $70. And I was like, ‘That’s dumb.’ ”

On where he gets his ideas: “The patterns come from sketches I used to do when I worked at Best Buy, on my lunch break. I was trying to quit smoking, and I would sit down and draw these patterns on napkins.”

On the first piece he sold: “I put something up in my (online) store and two weeks later it sold for $300 and I was like, ‘Oh, crap.’ Because I didn’t see it coming. And then we paid a car payment with it.”

On the custom designer vinyl community: “It’s very loving. And it sounds weird saying that, but it’s a very kind community. I’ve only seen a couple people that aren’t somebody I’d hang out with.”

On inspiration: “I see stuff and I get inspired because of the quality, or what it looks like. But … I never want to (copy it). My stuff, I try to make it as different as I can from everybody else.”

On selling a piece: “I like when stuff sells, and it’s not a monetary issue. It’s just an issue of somebody wants to spend money on it. That’s kind of a nice feeling, you know?”

On doing this full time: “If I could do it full time, that would be great, but I really like my job. It’d be cool, but I worry about trends. It’s kind of hot right now, but who knows if it’s going to be hot in 10 years?”