We made 4 different cutting boards for our immediate family this last year for Christmas. We were very pleased with the way two of them turned out and a little less pleased with the other two.
The first two we did we followed the project directions to the letter and ended up with very large twists. We glued them up in sections and then glued the three sections together. Then we had to build a router sled to flatten them. So it ended up that we learned more than if we would have made them perfectly the first time and they ended up weighing less (aka a little skinny) than the other two.
On the last two we glued them up in one piece and used a couple Bowclamps (not affiliated with Craig, just very happy with his product and will do a review on them at another time) to clamp it all together.
For the finish we did a beeswax and mineral oil finish, which I liked. On the first board I just put the melted mix of beeswax and oil on the board, not what I wanted, so on the next 3 I soaked the board first in MO and then applied the beeswax and oil as a last coat, much better.
Things we learned:
1. Just because it says to do it one way, take your abilities into account.
2. You need a lot of clamps
3. Pick your own wood up, our friend picked up the wood for us and we ended up using some beautiful curly maple, cherry from our own stock and some mahogany, even though we wanted walnut.
4. A non-woodworker will think the board is worth about $100 or more even though you only have about $20 into it.
5. It is really enjoyable to be working on a project with the LOYL for people that you love.
6. One uncomplicated project can spawn many others, in this case a router sled and a cross cut sled.

This is the first furniture piece that the LOML designed and built. He did most of this at our friends shop as it was pre-jointer and planer era for us. It is approximately 4’X2’x2’. There are many things that we would do differently like the panels and the top and being more picky about the wood we pick out and more careful with the glue, but it serves it’s purpose well and will make a nice blanket chest after it is done being a toybox. At that point in time we will line it with cedar. But it has a few more years of its current use.