Productive Christmas Week

What a productive week it's been since Christmas! I took the week between Christmas and New Year's off. Whenever I've done that in the past, I've wanted to spend the time in my shop but never got the chance. Well, this year I finally did it!

The first thing I built was a ply-box for my workouts. It's 18x24x30 made from 3/4" plywood - a beast and it weighs a ton.

Next was a tool cart I've had my eye on for a while. Of course, I didn't get to use it for tools because I need it to make space in the basement. Sarah uses the TV and DVD player for her workouts and I use the receiver and speakers for mine. A good compromise and it's really easy to move around. I'm going to make at least one more so that I can use it as an out-feed table for my table saw. Now that I know how to do it, it'll come together quickly.

I made this table-top drafting table for Liz. She designed it and it came together pretty easily.

Last, I got a chance to do some cleaning, arranging, and general organizing in the shop. By putting up this magnet strip, I combined a bunch of loose tools that had been taking up bench space. So now I gained back almost 3 feet of space. Psych!

Handmade Christmas - 2015

This year was another good year of handmade gifts for family and friends.
For Helen, I made a small stationary kit. I didn't want to give her a big gift this year as I know she doesn't have a lot of space in her dorm room so this was perfect. I custom made the box for it, which I really enjoyed.

The box on the left is for Helen's kit and the one on the right is one I made for Sarah's gift tags. I really enjoyed these sub-projects and will definitely do it again!

I lined all my boxes with brown paper to give them a more finished look

One of my custom boxes under construction

This cutter was the best way to cut the chipboard for the boxes

For Elizabeth, I made a picture frame and printed out a bunch of photos that I thought she might like to put in it. This was a simple gift but well received.

Liz's picture frame

For Sarah, I made a bunch of reusable gift tags. I wrote a bit more about the project here.

I made a journal box for my sister in law, Hilary. I had fun with this one and it came out well.

The Journal box for Hilary

Plans for the journal box

Here are a couple other things I made to enhance the holidays this year.
A tree topper for the wooden Christmas tree I made for Sarah a couple years ago.

Here's our advent candle holder for 2015. I love working with gas "nipple" (a.k.a. pipe). It's quick and has a cool industrial look that I find attractive. I buy most of it at the Home Depot but this four-way junction had to be special ordered from a plumbing supply site.

Advent candles with greens

I made an arch for work to hold Christmas lights and to just generally be festive. Lots of people liked it at the office!
I really liked this project. I didn't spend a penny on it. The wood was scrap hemlock; the green paint was from one of Helen's theatre projects; and the whole thing was held together with that most awesome fastener in the world: Kregg pocket screws.

Handmade Christmas 2015 - Gift Tags

The first gift I worked on this year is a set of reusable gift tags for Sarah. A few years ago, we switched over to wrapping our Christmas gifts in reusable gift bags. We made a bunch of them and they're really quite pretty. So building on that theme, I decided to create a set of gift tags out of wood that we could use again and again rather than the paper tags we've been using.

I bought a bunch of wooden "N", "E", "S", and "H" letters from craftcuts.com. I bought 10 of each which I think should be enough. I painted them different Christmasy colors

I used 1/8" basswood for the tag part. I cut them on the table saw and my chop saw. I used a jig on the chopsaw to make them al consistent.

I also used a jig on the drill press to drill the hole in the top for the ribbon. I stacked 4 at a time to make it go a bit quicker.

I ended up with a bunch of tags ready to have their letters glued on.

After drilling I sanded each one by hand. I made sure all the edges were smooth, corners rounded, etc. This took a while but was kind of nice to just settle in to while I listened to the radio.

Getting the glueing right was tricky. I started with Testors wood glue right out of the tube but that just made a mess; then I switched to super glue but I couldn't apply enough to be reliable. So I switched back to the Testors and applied it with a brush. I had much better luck that way.

I sprayed them all with urethane to protect them and then boxed them up in a box I custom made to hold them. That was a fun little project, too.