Napkin Holder #1: Shop Reconstruction and Prototypes

My shop is a 2 car garage. But I only had corner of that floor space, the rest was devoted to my mother’s junk. My Dad was moving his stuff out of storage and I grabbed nearly all his tools and by the time I was done I had very limited space. However, my mom and I decided last weekend to go on a purging spree of the garage. Which included taking everything out and deciding weather to keep, trash, or good will. When it was all said and done I had almost tripled my shop. It’s taken me another week to get the shop to a workable shape and now I can start on a project. I’m starting small with a napkin holder for my mom. I had already made it once before out of 3/4 poplar. But she said it was too thick and I didn’t do so good on the glue joints so we’re calling that one a prototype and I’m starting over again.

I’m starting out with some nice 3/4 beetle kill pine and re sawing that to 3/8th on my dinky 10in craftsman band saw. The pine is soft and is only 2 inches tall so it can handle it. Next I’m going to use my bench top planer to get them to a equal thickness of 1/2. The sides of these boards aren’t flat either so after I i plane the thickness I’ll stack them together (maybe tape them together with some carpet tape) and send them through the planer on there sides. I don’t have a jointer so I have to be creative. And this way I will not only get a flat and square side, but I will also have a consistent width with all my boards. I’m excited to use my planner because this will be the first time i have ever used it for a project.

I would also like to get an opinion. Do you think it would be better to plan the sides and glue the boards together that i have to glue and then mill it to 1/2 thick? or should i just stick to the method stated above?

thanks for reading
~Pat