My feel good project

8/28/2008

I have already made this dog before and it sits out front of my dads house in front with flowers sitting on it at his doorway. The other day I was looking over some of my old patterns when I saw this pattern again, so I decided to make another one for our new front porch. Having some old and not very nice pieces of pine laying around and only a very limited amount of paint, mainly black and white, it did not take me long after cutting it out I might as well make it to look like my dog "Buick" a Border Collie/Australian Shepherd mix .He has one brown eye and one blue eye. I wish I would have come up with this thought process a little earlier as I would have tried to make the ears different. My Buick does not have long ears LOL!!!

The pattern itself is a dog water and feeding bowl. It is up to you to decide how long you want the inside piece. It is that piece that you are to cut out two holes and place your dogs bowls into. My "Buick" and "Nala" are much too big of dogs to make this into that for him. So I just decided to make it real long and put sides on it and fill it with bird/chipmunk food.It is now sitting on our new built front porch. This is one of those things I make just to have some fun. I am not particular at all in even trying to make it perfect. It is just one of my feel good projects.I did however use it as a learning project. I have been wanting to learn how to put things together with dowels. Since the inner piece was/is so long, my husband suggested this be the project to use to learn how to use dowels. I don't normally make projects that use dowels (or so I thought). I have now found out there are a lot of my projects that could benefit from using them.I am really glad I tried it and I was happy with the sturdiness of this dog due to the dowels. So not only was it a feel good project, it ended up being a learning one, and I really enjoyed doing the dowel thing.

And when I come upon the dog from behind , he always makes me smile!

My Lumberjocks Link

Scrolled Wolf Wind Chimes

8/21/2008

This wolf pattern came from the March 2007 issue of Creative Woodworks and Crafts magazine and the pattern was designed by Jacob Fowler. The pattern called for it to sit atop something. I chose to turn it into a wind chime for in the house and I hang it by an open window.

Scrolled Wolf Wind Chimes

This is the same pattern but when I found this really colorful piece of cedar I just had to make one more. The pattern calls for it to be free standing with a base. I was going to but our house is to small so I decided to make it another chime and hang it and I am glad I did. I think it came out nice.I have tons of different beads of all shapes and sizes and so I used those and I have a set of these iron trees and I used it and the chimes? Well just some copper tubing I cut up. And ya know I have made a ton of chimes long before I even messed around with wood and I swear the nicest sounding chime is copper tubing!!!

Free standing scrolled wolf

This wolf was made out of a very colorful piece of cedar. It is just a stand alone item that I refer to as "Dust Collector". Matter of fact I actually was going to name my wood items "Dust Collectors" until I decided on the name "Wood Alley." The backer is just a piece of paneling that I spray painted black.

Scrolled Horses - "Clash of the Titans"

8/15/2008

These pictures of the horses are named the "Clash of the Titans." The pattern was found in the January issue of Creative Woodworks and Crafts, a name you have and will see over and over again in this blog as this magazine is one of my favorites if not my favorite woodworking magazine.

Intarsia is my preferred way of working with wood by far, however when someone comes to my home and sees my projects, most inevitably, ask me which piece of work is my personal favorite, and without hesitation I always (and suspect I always will) point to this one. First of all there is the wood. It came to our house in the back of our pick-up truck destined for our splitter and then our wood shed when my "hubby" noticed all the colors in it. Of course that was not noticed until after this piece met with the splitter. Since it had already been "mauled"( no pun intended), (Yea right !) there was not a whole lot to salvage, however my "hubby" pulled it off for me and was able to get me about 4 decent pieces from it. Also I don't think if I had designed the piece of wood myself to fit this pattern could I have made it more perfect.

There's just something about the clouds and the rising sun that they (the horses) are standing on that makes me wonder if the wood was made for the pattern or the pattern was made for the wood!

And last but definitely not least is the background. It came from a tree at my sons apartment complex in Tustin, Ca. I was told that the nick-name to this tree is "paper tree" yet no one I spoke with knew what the real name was. The bark of the tree literally peels off. By sight it looks like a piece of leather but by feel it is just like a butterfly or moth's wing. It just turns into a fine dust in your hands. This stuff is WAAAY cool! It also became quite the adventure trying to get these few pieces back home. We were visiting my family and the drive back is 700 miles and I had no clue what to do with it to keep it from disintegrating, but most of it made it here and I did learn to spray some clear on it or oil and it holds up better. Sooo anyway this is my story about the one item that I would no doubt call my personal favorite!

Intarsia - Blue Heron

Image via Wikipedia

I did not have a specific pattern for this rather I used several and kind of drew from them. That makes this project one of my favorites, as truth is I cannot even draw a stick man correctly.The piece of pine I used for the main portion of this had a hint of blue in it so I thought it appropriate to use for my blue heron. Gee I must have been a genius to figure out that one huh? Seriously though I have been told that this kind of pine is called blue pine, and I have always wondered if that were accurate . So if anyone could tell me I would be interested in knowing. I also used Black Walnut and Cedar for the legs.

 

Scrollsaw and Intarsia Patterns for sale soon.

8/14/2008

I am excited to say I will be having scroll saw patterns, and a few intarsia patterns for sale starting in the next couple days. I got myself  hooked up with pay pal today and I jusy have to learn exactly how to do all this. I am assuming I will receive money from the buyer and then I will promptly send the patterns in the mail. Until I learn any different I guess this will be how it is done. I am hoping to somehow learn to possibly be able to e-mail them to the buyer immediatelly or perhaps faxthem? If anyone happens to be reading this I am totally up for any suggestions one may have . I figure me doing the Pay pal thing is going to make it easier on me as far as not having to cash checks etc. But I would just as much like to make it quicker and easier on the buyer also. So again any thoughts will be appreciated! Thanks Allison

Scrolled Horse and Dog

8/12/2008

This is my second attempt at stack cutting. I actually forgot I had started these. I think I started them in November, anyway it drives me nuts to have things unfinished so today this is what I did. Finish cut ting them out. The top two are made from the back of old paneling, and the last one is cedar paneling. Since the top two were the same I stained the top one and I hate it. So half the day was trying to get that color off, which I eventually did. But then I did something I always knew someday I would do, and that was I had spray painted a backer board for one of them black and a few minutes later I was preparing to spray another coat of clear on them all AND, (you probably guessed it.) I picked up the black spray paint and lo and behold I proceeded to spray quite a bit of black on (you probably guessed again)the one that took half the day to get the stain off of, that I hated! So the rest of the time was getting the black paint off. It is so thin to begin with I can not believe that I even have any of this piece left!!!

Well I actually managed to finish the middle one this evening, and when I get the other two done I will post them. I added some intarsia type pieces for grass in front of the horse and I cut out some old green poplar I had laying around and added it to the back of the horse. The frame I did not make. It was one I had along with the glass. Considering what a SHITTY day I had in the shop I am rather happy about the outcome of this one following these words!

Well it is 2 in the morning and I am laying my ass down and praying for a more "normal" day in the shop tomorrow! Good night and never forget

PEACE!!! Allison

originally Posted 2-16-08

Scrolled- Intarsia, Cougar

8/11/2008

This cougar holds a special place in my heart, mainly 1st of all I just fell in love with the pattern which came from Creative Wood works and crafts. It seems as if most of the patterns for scrolled work asks for you to use Baltic birch plywood and I had never used it before.I made the cougar but I wanted something different for the "frame." She got put away and about a year later when I had since fallen in love with doing intarsia I found a way of making the original pattern with a little intarsia added. This is the outcome.I did however use paint for the back. This is all mainly made with pine and green poplar. Yes without a doubt she is one of my favorites!!!
   I would like to add that the Green Poplar on this particular project came from a wood pallet of all items. I can not express how many times I have found beautiful wood from a wood pallet. By the time a person sees one of those pallets they are usually pretty thrashed and thrashed looking, usually hard to even identify the wood, but a planer and/or a sander can result in finding yourself pleasantly pleased. I always look at wood pallets whenever I see them in a different way.

Running Horse Mirror

8/02/2008

This is a slice off of a slab of mahogany that a very generous neighbor of ours gave me. Since I did not want to cut it, I just needed to figure out something I could do with it so that I could just leave it as is and this is what I did. I am always making what I call my "extras", little singular items with no intent (at the time) with any particular pattern or plan for them. So I gathered these three horse's, 2 are made out of black walnut, the other is my "mystery wood." The cactus is made out of green poplar, the sun is a piece of pine . I read an article on how to stain wood with food coloring so I gave this a try with this sun. I just didn't have any yellowish or orange wood laying around this size. I am not thrilled with my attempt at orange, yellow, however the concept of staining with food coloring I think could be a cool thing to try, for instance use red on a piece of pine and make the birds cardinals. The wood does show through so you can see the grain etc. Sooo I think for the fun of it I am going to try a few things out. A bluebird or blue moon perhaps?

 

Scrolled Wooden Flower Trivets

This crocus flower trivet pattern was designed by Jacob Fowler and can be found in the April 2007 edition of Creative Woodworks and Crafts.

For my first try I used one piece of cedar paneling of which I placed on top of a 1/2 inch piece of pine with a couple pieces of two sided carpet tape in between to hold them together securely. Then I placed these two on a piece of "mystery" wood paneling and secured that together with the same method.

I then put clear tape all over the top piece and a little down the sides (for more security). And finally I placed the pattern on the top using spray adhesive.



I then drilled my starter holes and started cutting away. Actually it's a whole different experience. First you have to make sure your table is level and then you have to be positive that your table is squared. I have said this before and I know I will say it again, it is amazing how bad you can screw something up if your table and blade are not squared. a 1/16th off and it's pretty incredible the damage you can do.
As you can see I cut out a piece of wood the size or close to anyway as it is not really finished, and painted it black to see what it would look like behind these different pieces I made . But truth be told I now have 3 pieces of wood cut out with a picture of crocus's scrolled out of them and not one clue what to do with these.



So as in other projects I am experimenting with, I will probably have them hang around the shop for a year or two till I decide what to do with them. As far as making them a trivet as the pattern called for, I just do not care to burn something with a hot pan that I have made!