Tuesday, January 5, 2010

My Husband's Woodwork Creations


Yes, my husband is very talented too.  He likes working with wood.  When we met, he mostly was making jewelery pieces. Nowadays he carves into the wood with his favorite tool, the Dremel, and makes wall hangings.  For Christmas this year, he even made some jewelery boxes, for my sister and niece.  My dad also got a box to put his wallet, cell phone and change in at night.  For me he is making a cedar chest.  It's not done, so I wonder how long it will take him to complete?  He likes mixing different wood types together, like oak, walnut, cherry or cedar.  He also works with ash.  So here are a few of the gifts he made for Christmas this year.  Enjoy!


This is a pub sign he made for my brother in law to hang up in his basement over his bar when they finish the basement.


A side view.  The letters are all part of the same piece of wood.  He carved around them to make them pop out.  Lots of hard work.  this is also the first time he painted on anything he has made.  He prefers to see the natural grain of the wood.  I think he did a great job on this though.  It would not have the same effect if it was all the color of wood.  Some day I hope to get him to use colored stains, like green, white red, blue etc.... one thing at a time.



Another close up.




This is a jewelery box he made for my sister.  The heart design he found online, at angle, and kept it the same instead of straightening it out.  It presents a unique effect.  I drew the swirly frame and he carved it out.  So I can say it was part my design as well.


The inside.
  

I made inserts to fit inside of the box to make it more elegant.  My husband would not let me put anything permanenet into it, so I came up with the insert.  Small pieces of jewelery or money can be hidden beneath.


I think it turned out great.  Cardboard (recycled no less!), fabric,  double stick tape, and a hot glue gun.



Here is the jewelery box for my niece.



Inside.

 
Inside with insert.



Insert.

I made my sister and niece aprons out of the same fabric as their inserts, but I forgot to take pics.

 
Here is a baseball bat my husband made for my nephew.  He even engraved his name into it, and my husband does not have the greatest of hand writing, but he did an excellent job on this!

 
This is a wolf carving he made for his oldest sister.  It has a mirror behind it.



Up close.



And this is a carving of a moose he made for his second older sister.



Close up.  Sorry there was a lot of dust that the flash has captured.  On these two carvings, he carved on the side that would sit against the mirror so that when a person looked at the carving they could see both sides of the animal.  clever!

 
Here is the box he carved for my dad.



Close up.



 Side view.  It is held together with glue and dowel rods.  Looks like in laid wood.



Lid off.  He later attached the lid with a hinge.  This box turned out so well, my husband wanted to keep it for himself.  First time I ever heard him say that. 

Need less to say, he has been very busy making these for Christmas this year.  I wonder what he'll do next year?

Enjoy!












My 35th Birthday!

Yesterday, January 4th was my 35th birthday.  Since my husband has been on night shift it was a very quiet day.  Also all of my family live far away.  A friend and her two boys stopped by and brought me some cupcakes and hand made  cards.  Then we went to Starbucks and got some blended strawberry lemonade drinks and took the boys over to McDonalds so that they could play on the indoor playground.  They had a blast!  We had an almost nice visit.  The boys got to hollering so it was hard to hear at times.  When I got back, my husband was awake and had taken the night off of work to be with me.  So we went to Applebees for a nice dinner.  We were going to try a new place in town, but heard some not good reports, so we will wait awhile before trying them, let them work out the kinks.  After dinner we went over to his parents house since they had a gift for me.  And spent the rest of evening visiting with them.

Even though my friend brought me some cupcakes, I still wanted a birthday cake since I did not get one last year.  I also wanted to see what 35 candles looked like on a cake.  (Pathetic?)  So I made the cake, even though it was after midnight by the time it baked, cooled and was frosted.  I put on the candles and brought it down to my husband who lit the candles with a fire starter that was on too high and melted the candles before they got lit.  Oh well.  Then he sang happy birthday to me and I blew them out!  I had to relight them in order to get pics of them, cause I was not thinking ahead.  The candles were really melted by then, but they cooled completely while I was busy taking pictures and they came out wax and all.  The only wax drippings still on the cake were from my husband lighting some of the candles with another candle.  I frosted the cake with pink frosting, cause I like pink and my mom always frosted my cakes with pink frosting.  So here is the birthday cake I made myself.


 
 35 Candles



Pretty daisy print candles




4 of the 7 cupcakes we received



 Tie dye wax? I just thought it looked pretty!



No more wax on 35 holes!