24th annual family and friends Christmas ornament

what a wonderful tradition and this guy is SOOOO cute!!!
well done.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Well done. I too think they are cute.

-- Jerry--A man can never have enough tools or clamps

Nice Elf, I would love to see your collection.

-- Carpenter assembles with hands, Designer builds with brains, Artist creates with heart!

Very cool! I hope you don’t mind if I borrow this idea.

Thanks

rooster
Borrow away, the hardest part of this tradition is coming up with an idea then trying to figure out how to make a dozen of them without spending all week working on them.

Dan, I gathered the entire collection and will take photos and post of them later.

-- Mark, www.mrhudon.com

Very fun

-- ~Just A Guy With A Hammer~

Hey Jag, ya tryin to frighten the little ones. LOL

-- Carpenter assembles with hands, Designer builds with brains, Artist creates with heart!

I just watched Rudolph and I sorry to inform you that you have indeed made a dozen dentists not elves. CH haa I kid I kid. These are cool. Can you give us a little talk through your build so we can crank out some of these also?

-- Wipe the blood stains from your blade before coming in.--

Here is the rest of the collection. http://picasaweb.google.com/mr.hudon/ChristmasOrnaments#
The years when I was pressed for time the ornaments tend to be much simpler, like last years yellow star. That was almost the end of the tradition, but last minute I was pressured into making something, I think the finish was still drying while on the tree.
The train years were fun, there used to be a wood parts supply place close by that sold seconds, I bought every wheel he had! Actually a lot of my ideas used to come from the little wood parts I could get there. I really miss that place. For some reason in 1997 I made 2 ornaments, not really sure why.
This year’s elf (dentist) was inspired by the snowman, the Santa, and the reindeer; I thought the elf made a nice addition to the set.
My wife found a clip art of an elf on the internet; I drew it out and looked around the shop for what to build it out of. I’ve been to the lumber yard a lot lately and they have this rack full of culled and damaged lumber for .50 cents a foot, needless to say I have a variety of different woods just perfect for these small projects. The cedar was perfect for the face and the green in the poplar was the perfect color for the hat. The brim of the hat turned out to be mahogany because of the small scraps I had just enough to make a dozen elves. The eyes are made from walnut that I cut into small squares and tapped into a round hole. I tried one with dowel eyes and they looked more like evil elves then happy little elves. Then nose is the end of the small wheel axles from the wood parts store, and the mouth is drawn with a sharpie.
Building them was simple; I planed all the wood to the same thickness approx 5/8”
I cut the poplar for the hat into squares and cut the mahogany rectangles for the brim then glued them together. Once dry I cut then to shape on the band saw, it was all free form and by eye. Then I made a template for the face and cut them out on the band saw glued the face to the hat, drilled the holes for the eyes and nose. Banged the eyes in sanded on edges with the belt sander glued the nose in drew the mouth, wiped them with an oil finish then added the screw eye.

-- Mark, www.mrhudon.com

What a wonderful collection you have made for your family and friends over the years.They are soooo lucky to have these memories.

-- Dustygirl..Hastings,Ontario.. How much wood can 1 gal chuck if 1 gal can't cut wood?