Crafts

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Welcome to another great week of Sew Darn crafty...another week of wonderful projects, ideas, recipes and so much more.As always, I want to thank everyone for sharing the links to their blogs...I couldn't do this without you!! I also want to thank all of you who visit the blogs that join in each week. Bloggers love sharing their ideas, but we love it more when friends stop by for a visit to see what we've been up to. Don't forget to leave a little comment when you visit the links below...they love to hear from you too!!Come on in and join the fun!!!PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OF THIS POST!! »

Another bird house, with a twist of sorts. The attached fence off to the side allows enough room to place a small 4” potted plant or flower, or some sort of bird treat. Or I guess it could be a nesting platform if the occupants decide they would rather rough it outside versus living indoors. heh. Took a 5/4 rough sawn board and zipped off a boodle of slightly larger than 3/8” strips. The base, front, and rear walls are made from the same 5/4 board stock. A few small holes to allow for drainage and air flow.

I don’t think I’m alone in holding onto those precious off cuts that are just too special to toss out. You can bet where I am going with this …So this year I decided that my stored lumber piles are completely off limits until I make a dent in the small stock that I have been storing for most of my woodworking career. It seemed logical to make boxes. I’m up to twenty boxes so far and things were going pretty well until I decided to dig into the really special stuff. I have some 12 year old Cuban mahogany burl that were in chunks leftover from my carving days. The average size was 10/4 by 4” by 4”. I’ve now spent four hours milling these blocks into manageable pieces. Then off to the resaw bandsaw to thickness most of them to 3/8” and about 25% of them to 3/4” thick. Next I took a sheet of 3/4” ply cut 24” by 24” and cut strips of carpet tape to hold my little piece of wood in place and made a layer of those to be run through my drum sander. I had enough wood to do this four times. Once all the wood had a fresh face, I put them in piles according to color and grain. My objective is to make a mahogany burl mosaic. This is my plan: I have pieces of cherry that had been resawn to 1/4” awhile back and they needed a job. Those pieces are 16” long and 6” to 8” wide. I’m going to use them as a backer board for my mahogany mosaic. First I have to edge join my pieces three at a time to give them some more width. Remember most pieces aren’t longer than 3” or 4”. Once I have my triads, I’ll laminate them to cherry of the same length. I plan to continue this process until all those pieces have a cherry backing. With that accomplished, I’ll clean up the edges and add those laminates to a larger piece of cherry to create a three layered laminate of the 3/4” thickness necessary for my box sides and lids. This might take a few days and I will photograph the process. Just giving you a heads up. I think this could be fun. Have any of you LJ’s tried this before?Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

Had this idea for a Suiseki with a cloud and came up with this rock from ayard sale and a piece of Paduak and a piece of Walnut I shaped withfiles and a Shinto rasp. Sealed with a couple coats of Shellac and the project is finished. It was a fun project and I’ll build another one from another rock fromthe same yard sale.

The comments on last night’s post spurred me on into action! I set about looking for a royalty-free image on istockphoto that would make a good cover. As you see, I succeeded. I am pleased with the results, but I have two versions. I would appreciate feedback via the comments. A simple I like the first one, or the second one made me want to stab myself in the eyes with a pointy halibut, you know, that sort of thing. Also, I’m looking for beta readers. I’d like people (adult people) who are willing to read it and then force one of their children to do the same. Okay, maybe force was the wrong word to use. Strongly imply that Santa will never visit them again if they don’t read your middle-aged and bitter, social media friend’s book…yes, that is more the tone I was going for. (I will be ordering about a dozen proofs to send out, after I get it back from my uber cool editor Erin) Also, I would like the adults to agree to give an honest review and, if they felt it was warranted, include a comment from their progeny. Something along the lines, “Little Betty-Mae, said she enjoyed the book so much that she felt her love for mommy had grown because of the opportunity to give it a read and that only bad parents wouldn’t immediately order a copy for their children…only really bad parents.” Something subtle is what I’m looking for there. Not that I’m trying to write the review for you. Let me know.

We needed a clock in the large living room and we have all Mission-Style of Arts & Crafts furniture throughout the house. I made this little clock to match the “Rainbow coming out of the house” project I had done earlier. I truly think on the best tools in my shop are the Veritas Set-Up blocks. I use them for EVERYTHING. You can see where I rabbeted the “back” of the front for the glass, and then glued the deeply rabbeted “box” that holds the clock face and the little motor (which also holds the glass in. Those Set-Up blocks really made all this easy. White Oak with Waterlox Original semi-satin. Best………… Bruce

My wife took this photo of our house (it was still under construction) when she saw all the rainbows down in the valley. She didn’t even realize she had taken a pix of the rainbow coming in (or out of) the new house. (We only moved a couple of blocks. She just put all the photos in her screen-saver file, and every once in a while it would pop up and I would say to myself……….”that photo is deserving of attention”. So I had it carefully resized and then build the frame out of white oak finished with Waterlox Original semi gloss. (And no, the photo is not “fixed-up” or photo-shopped in any way). We really like it. Best…………. Bruce.

I finally did it! I have been wanting to build this for quit a while & I got it done. I learned a lot from this project & even with some of the mistakes, it still came out good.

I decided to rebuild my side and outfeed tables on my saw, I also added a small fold down table for a little extra space when I need it. I made up a couple of fold down/telescoping legs that fit into a couple slots at the base of the cabinet. It folds up and down easily.