I built my daughter a bookcase a few years ago and then she moved away to college and didn’t have room for it. I stole it out of her bedroom and replaced it with my old tatty one. A few months ago she moved to Berkeley to start on her master’s (just had to give you that little detail-so proud) and unfortunately for me, she had room for her bookcase. I tried to convince her it would be better if she had one from IKEA to match everything else she bought but she said “no mom, I like being able to tell people you built it”...so what was I gonna do? I was going to build a duplicate for myself, but I really don’t like building the same thing twice, plus I had done it out of my head and couldn’t really remember how I had done it. So I started looking thru books looking for something I liked. I wanted to build something without a back and I found this in a book I have. It was smaller than what I wanted so I decided to just add a foot here and there and another shelf and make it the size I wanted. I had never done mortise and tennons before (the sides) so that was a challenge, but they turned out ok. The thru motises and the wedges probably took the longest. Those are on the top and bottom shelves only and are supposed to secure the whole thing. I wasn’t happy with the wiggle I got (I think I may have enlarged it a little too much) so I ended up putting brads in the ends of the other shelves just for stability. You can’t even see them. I’m a little worried about getting some bowing in the shelves once I load books on it but I am building an entertainment center next and I plan on having some shelving in it, so I can always transfer some of the books if it gets to be too much. So…probably more info than you needed but there you have it anyway. Comments welcome, but remember I am a novice, be gentle.

I made my grandson a rocking horse for his first birthday, but getting it to him was so expensive that I haven’t made him anything else. He is now 2 1/2 and he LOVES cars and trains so I found this plan for this train. I am going to visit my daughter in a couple weeks when she gives birth to my second grandson and we are celebrating a late Christmas then. This will be my gift for Jordan. It turned out “okay”, but I don’t think he will notice the flaws. There is a Disney movie that has cars in it and he loves them, my daughter bought all the cars for him and he is learning to say all of the names, so being the innovative grandma that I am, I decided to name all the train cars…you can’t see it in the picture, but I named them all after his two grandmas and his two aunts so he will learn how to say all of our names!! I am a smart one!

I made these clocks for my employees for Christmas. I think they liked them.

My daughter has loved to paint and draw since she was 3 years old. Every year for christmas she asks for an easel, I have priced them in the past and they are rediculously expensive. Don’t know why I never thought of it before but this year I thought…hey, I bet I could make one of those! So I did, and she loves it. I didn’t put a finish on it yet because I wanted to see what she wanted. The whole thing is made out of birch. Found the instructions on line, they weren’t real clear, but they worked.

This is a rocking horse I made for my grandson’s first birthday.

this is the first coffee table I have ever made. It’s the most recent thing I have done.