The Making of Stuff

  The problem with making a few items as gifts for Christmas is that you need to be careful when writing about those items in case the one who is suppose to receive that particular gift reads your blog.  If that happens they will know what is under the tree.     So I wanted to show a picture of the pile of saw dust generated over the past week just to let everyone know that I'm working on this year's gift from Santa.                                                                                                                                                        
    This week I wanted to just show a few of the things that I have been working on or creating that are small in detail, but does consume a little time in the making.

   This project is pretty basic and I have done a few of these in the past - more so when I had a job - a real job. (Definition of a real job:   work that generates a pay check.)

  This is suppose to be a computer monitor stand.   It was made for a buddy of mine (who has a real job).    He does survey work and at his desk he works with two monitors.   So the purpose of this little stand was to hold his monitor at the exact height of his other monitor.   He gave me the dimensions and I just built it for him out of some of the scrap plywood that I had laying around.    There is no hardware or nails in this project.  I did not have to finish it.   He just painted it black and today it is in his office.   He did show me a picture he had taken and it looks like it is working great.

 
   This project was simple enough for the old guy.   It has a little history.  This Christmas tree is over 50 years old.    A church had installed stained glass windows back in the 1960's and somebody's mother had saved pieces of cast-off stain glass and created this Christmas tree.   Over time, the mother had passed away, the little tree had gotten put into storage and almost forgotten about.   Several pieces of the stain glass were loose or had fallen away from the backing and the original base was lost.    I had taken a cast-off piece of walnut and made a small block base with a slit in it to support the tree.  I used an oil base wipe on it which really made the walnut pop out.   I then used epoxy glue to re-glue the loose pieces and the fallen off pieces of stain glass back on to the see-through background of the tree.   It was a little bit of a guessing game as to where some of the pieces were suppose to go and with my lack of artistic abilities they may not have ended up like they should have.   Regardless, this tree is back up for display and is in a church about 150 miles from my shop.

"I will not go so low as to beg for one of those treat things."
"I will just stare him down." 

   I have to apologize for this next project.   I was to make two small coat racks and stain them to match the current coat racks that are presently in my son's house.    The plan was for their current rack to be the one the adults would use for their coats and these two would be the one's that the kids would use.   These are two boards made out of alder wood that I had found in my scrap pile and sanded them down to nice finished boards.  The problem is that this is the only picture that I took.   I did stain and varnish the boards and I thought they turned out well, but I guess I forgot to pull the camera out.

    All the above projects were made with scrap that I have in my secret pile.    It continues to be my goal to keep working that scrap wood pile down in size.

    As I stated last week, I will continue to post a picture of the cat every week in Dec.    This is not easy for me to do, but I have received threats that some readers will abandon my blog site if I don't show pictures of the cat and attendance is already down.       So the message I would like to end up with in this week's writing is that all the above projects were made out of scrap or free wood.     I just want everyone to know - those little Greenies in the picture --  they cost money.    Is it really worth it?

Updates:    1.  Current bid on my project at the silent auction - $85.00.   Sale ends Saturday.
                  2.  There are only 11 days of shop time until Christmas day.