| Project by Bill Butler | posted 121 days ago | 118 views | 1 time favorited | 6 comments |  |
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My niece, a very precocious 11 year old, is very hard to shop for in terms of gifts and such. While wandering a craft fair one late November last year we happened upon a gentleman selling doll furniture, and in particular a swing sized for the American Doll format. The magical statement from my better half was uttered, the statement I know we have all heard from time to time: “Honey, you should be able to build something like that.”
Of course I gave it my best shot and this is what I came up with using scraps of pine and oak and a half hour at the band saw. I stained the swing, and gave the entire thing several spray coats of MinWax satin. I thought the frame was kinda boring, so I asked my niece the names of the various dolls she had and proceeded to letter them on as an added interest.
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6 comments so far
cajunpen
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5291 posts in 471 days
posted 121 days ago
Nice piece. My 9 year old granddaughter is into the American Dolls too. Could you share the dimensions of your swing? Would love to give her a little surprise.
-- Bill - "Suit yourself and let the rest be pleased." http://www.cajunpen.com/
Scott Bryan
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8031 posts in 227 days
posted 121 days ago
Bill,
This is a very nice project and I am sure that your niece really appreciated it. It was made from “scraps”, you were able to give your niece a gift that she enjoyed, you confirmed your wife’s belief in your abilities and you got some shop time out of it. Sounds like a winner to me.
Thanks for the post.
-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.
Bill Butler
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72 posts in 168 days
posted 121 days ago
I will have to get back to you on the dimensions. The fact that I was even able to post this today was that I happened to be over her house for Easter and realized I never had any photos of this item. I will be up there again in the next month and will bring a measuring instrument.
Since I did it with scraps, I didn’t have a formal cut plan, all I had were two doll dimensions I used as reference. Height of doll from hips to head (the dolls don’t have articulated knees), and the shoulder width of the doll.
Mario
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696 posts in 457 days
posted 121 days ago
These are the kind of gifts that are worth so much more than one that you buy from a store, It says I took the time to build this for you, that is priceless.
-- Hope Never fails
Bradford
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552 posts in 228 days
posted 121 days ago
The added names give an exclusive effect to her collection.
-- so much wood, so little time. Bradford.
ND2ELK
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1955 posts in 179 days
posted 120 days ago
Great looking swing. I have a 2 year old granddaughter that will probably be getting into dolls one of these days. You did a very nice job on the swing . Thanks for posting.
God Bless
tom
-- Mc Bridge Cabinets, Iowa