# Another 52 Weeks



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*I'm doing it again*

As the year comes to a close I realized a lot of stuff has changed in my shop and the work I have been doing in the past 3 years since I posted my ""52 Weeks Blog"":http://lumberjocks.com/clieb91/blog/series/3490 in 2011. I also realized how much I enjoyed doing that blog and how it helped to encourage me in the shop.

So for 2015 I present "Another 52 Weeks" I have some trips planned throughout the coming year so a little bit of a challenge but hope to relate some of them to woodworking in some form or another. Besides those I will be spending January cleaning up the shop as usual and working on some fun personal projects before diving into the business projects. My daughter has already told me that she wants to be included in the blog if not help to write a portion of the blog at least once a month, which is great as she is having some challenges with writing at this time so be forewarned some of my entries might look like an 8 year old wrote them and she did  I am of course looking forward to spending time in the shop with her at least once a month.

I will be using LumberJocks to do my blog each month and then post a link to it on my FaceBook page for those of my friends that are interested. I look forward to having a lot of fun in the shop this year and also adding some new games and ideas to PortablePastimes I hope to also pass on some information regarding the craft fair arena as well as other selling venues.

As I did almost 4 years ago now, I plan to post a new entry each Sunday night. I hope you will join me on this next journey and wish you all a Great and Happy New Year both in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *I'm doing it again*
> 
> As the year comes to a close I realized a lot of stuff has changed in my shop and the work I have been doing in the past 3 years since I posted my ""52 Weeks Blog"":http://lumberjocks.com/clieb91/blog/series/3490 in 2011. I also realized how much I enjoyed doing that blog and how it helped to encourage me in the shop.
> 
> ...


Looking forward to the series. Love seeing how others function.


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Shows, Cleaning, and what is to come.*

Greetings all well as promised last week here I go again. Another year of blogging about time in the shop and other wood related items. My daughter is now 8 and still spends time with me in the shop and is looking forward to being a part of this as well. In the meantime though lets get started. 
I attended the Woodworking Show this weekend in Baltimore, a few good seminars, some great shopping and even better time hanging out with LumberJocks and plenty of other woodworkers. Besides some new knowledge I also came away with a fair amount of stuff.










The highlight is the Juice Proof Vacuum set up which is going to allow me to stabilize my own pen blanks. I am looking forward to putting this to use and will certainly be including my adventures with it here sometime in the next couple of months. Still need to get the vacuum pump. The kits you see will be a a lot of fun with Sophia and the 6 treasure chest kits will be for her Girl Scout group to do as a project. Also bought an intarsia kit for me to try out.

After spending two days at the show I decided today to get a fresh start in the shop. So I spent the day cleaning up the shop vacuuming out some of the tools and getting things in order.










Now it is ready for me to start in on some fun projects for the next month before turning my attention to Portable Pastimes inventory builds. I am in need of one more bookshelf/table for my office as well as a large corner wall shelf which will go above me electric fire place and provide a space to hold some of the projects I have made as well as those I have gotten from others. I have some ideas and it will be a simple build to match my Dimensional Furniture. The book case is going to be made out of reclaimed wood. I have already started pulling the screws out of it.

Going forward I think I am going to be shooting for the 2nd weekend of each month to be about projects Sophia are working on or have worked on. The 3rd weekend is going to be out the business as come May that is when we will be out at the craft market. So perhaps I will touch on some of the Etsy stuff or getting stuff together for the market including displays and such. Let me know if there are questions about any of these things or something particular you would like to see me discuss. I am looking forward to this year and any interaction is great.

Look forward to hearing from you and have a great week in and out of the Shop.

CtL


----------



## ralbuck (Mar 12, 2012)

clieb91 said:


> *Shows, Cleaning, and what is to come.*
> 
> Greetings all well as promised last week here I go again. Another year of blogging about time in the shop and other wood related items. My daughter is now 8 and still spends time with me in the shop and is looking forward to being a part of this as well. In the meantime though lets get started.
> I attended the Woodworking Show this weekend in Baltimore, a few good seminars, some great shopping and even better time hanging out with LumberJocks and plenty of other woodworkers. Besides some new knowledge I also came away with a fair amount of stuff.
> ...


Well good luck on the market thing!

Keep up the information! We do appreciate it. I am sure I am like the rest here; and read a lot more than I comment on.

I have tried craft shows, consignment, and even vendoring. I seem to ds as well just from a garage sale as from any of those.


----------



## johnlowell (Dec 22, 2012)

clieb91 said:


> *Shows, Cleaning, and what is to come.*
> 
> Greetings all well as promised last week here I go again. Another year of blogging about time in the shop and other wood related items. My daughter is now 8 and still spends time with me in the shop and is looking forward to being a part of this as well. In the meantime though lets get started.
> I attended the Woodworking Show this weekend in Baltimore, a few good seminars, some great shopping and even better time hanging out with LumberJocks and plenty of other woodworkers. Besides some new knowledge I also came away with a fair amount of stuff.
> ...


Great seeing you again, sounds like you picked up the vacuum canister, should open up a few more opportunities. I did install the remote on the dust collector and am working out the piping, all good. Of course, I am missing a few connectors again, just keeps changing.

Cheers!


----------



## daddywoofdawg (Feb 1, 2014)

clieb91 said:


> *Shows, Cleaning, and what is to come.*
> 
> Greetings all well as promised last week here I go again. Another year of blogging about time in the shop and other wood related items. My daughter is now 8 and still spends time with me in the shop and is looking forward to being a part of this as well. In the meantime though lets get started.
> I attended the Woodworking Show this weekend in Baltimore, a few good seminars, some great shopping and even better time hanging out with LumberJocks and plenty of other woodworkers. Besides some new knowledge I also came away with a fair amount of stuff.
> ...


hopefully you'll have photos you can click on to enlarge,this site make photos so small aging eyes have a hard time seeing what we're looking at.


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Shows, Cleaning, and what is to come.*
> 
> Greetings all well as promised last week here I go again. Another year of blogging about time in the shop and other wood related items. My daughter is now 8 and still spends time with me in the shop and is looking forward to being a part of this as well. In the meantime though lets get started.
> I attended the Woodworking Show this weekend in Baltimore, a few good seminars, some great shopping and even better time hanging out with LumberJocks and plenty of other woodworkers. Besides some new knowledge I also came away with a fair amount of stuff.
> ...


Thanks All, 
Ralbuck- We sold last year at the market and it went pretty well. I will keep you posted though.

John- I t was good to catch up to you as well, hope you were able to make it back out in Sunday.

daddywoofdog- I will see what I can do. Perhaps I will post them something like flickr in the future.

CtL


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Derby Season, Book Case underway and lathe time*

This week pasted rather quickly with some snow days included but the good news is I got some extra shop time to finish my cleaning and have already started pulling things apart again. Was able to almost complete an order of wine tilts for a customer but still waiting for the garage to get above 40 so I can spray lacquer them. Hopefully tomorrow. May have to spur it a bit with a heater. 
I am sure some of you are aware it is Pine Wood Derby Season again, I had a friend call and ask if her son could come over so I can help him cut out his car. They came over one of the snow days and I had the bandsaw set up and ready to go. He had a vague idea of what he wanted and I showed him out to cut it out on the saw then refine with my rasp and sandpaper. He left with a good design he needed to go and decorate. 
Do any of you open up your shop to help neighbors and friends with their cars? In this day of parents doing so much I think it is important for the boys to work on their own cars. I was actually able to dig mine out of a box….










No laughing… this would be very close to being one of my first woodworking projects. We owned very few tools at the time and my father was not the most handy person. I can't recall but I am guessing my grandfather helped me cut the shape with a coping saw. It wasn't pretty but it got a silver medal at least and back then you only got a medal if you won the race nothing else.

I started today on the last piece of my office furniture. I more book shelf that will hold my grandfathers toolbox on the top. This one is going to be interesting as I decided to build it out of some reclaimed pieces from my basement bedroom in my parent's house which my grandfather helped me to build more than 20 years ago. They recently demoed it due to water problems in the basement. I will have some pics soon.

Lastly this week I decided to make some new items to put on display at Carnival of Collectables a market that we are currently selling at in New Jersey. I wanted to something a little different than my usual….










A pen made from a reclaimed board of the Atlantic City Boardwalk, One from Jim Beam Barrel, a double dyed Palo Rio blank and the first Pizza & Beer set. Looking forward to getting all of these things in place. If you are in the South Jersey area and looking for a place to sell check them out as they are still taking vendors.

Next week I will have some pics from the display and go over some of the display and our plans for PortablePastimes this year.

Thanks All, Have a good week in and out of the shop.

ctL


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*1 table, 2 tables, No Tables!*

Greetings all, 
As I mentioned last week I wanted to take this 3rd week of the month and focus on selling products.
First a little background… My wife and I both enjoy making things, she in her sewing room and I in my shop, we decided about 4 years ago to participate in the local HOA craft fair in the fall. We decided to stick with one major theme for both of our stuff… Portable Pastimes.








We didn't even have enough items to fill one 6' table, we shared a space with my mother who makes burp towels, bibs and baby blankets.

Since then we have done about 6-8 holiday craft fairs each Fall and 2-3 in the Spring. Last year we found the Reston Market and decided to take on a monthly space. We chose the 3rd week of each month and only missed one due to foul weather. We also got a space during some of their special events which worked out nicely.










As you can see we are much fuller now. This was new experience for us as in the past we were making product throughout the year and storing it away for the Fall. Now we were selling product throughout the year and also taking orders for stuff. We made it through well and it taught us some lessons in batch processing. My items are a little easier to batch process then her's but the lessons are still coming and we are planning to do the market again this year. I will look forward to covering some of the batch processing later on in the blog.

Just before Christmas we were invited to a Craft Show in New Jersey at a brand new Antique and Handicraft gallery. Carnival of Collectables was holding a craft show to highlight its opening and also bring folks in. The craft show was pretty light, but we decided to open a mini storefront there in the form of a glass display case.










We have sold a few things and there are also more vendors coming in each week which is helping to bring in the business. I was up there again this weekend to rearrange the case and remove the few holiday themed items I had left behind. Here are a few of things we are trying out in this new type of space.



















The gift sets are fun way that we can combine something from both of us. I am also looking forward to putting a few of these together for next Fall's craft shows in a gift box.

There are some ideas here but I fear I have already rambled on long enough. So for the 3rd week of next month I think I will again focus on these ideas but on one particular part such as displays or something. Let me know if there is something you would like me to address.

Until then have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Tips & Tricks- Personalize It!!*

Ink Transfers- How I do it.










So a number of folks have asked me about the method I use to put images and lettering on my projects. I thought I would use today's blog as photo tutorial of sorts to answer this question. A few years back I ran across a Youtube video of a guy doing an ink transfer method using a laser printer and an iron, I have been working with this idea ever since. For this project I thought I would make a few bookmarks.










First thing you will need to do is create the image in whatever program it is that you like to use. I learned a long time ago how to do a lot of different things in PowerPoint and still use it today to manufacture pretty much all of my image, game boards and anything I use. When they are printed out remember that they need to be printed in reverse. This must be printed using a laser printer or else can be photocopied using a laser style copier, the trick is that the ink has to fused to the paper using heat. *An ink jet will not work for this method.*










For this project I cut a block of maple into thin strips on my bandsaw and then sanded them flat. Sanding I have found is big key to this. My game boards are sanded at my belt sander and I use at least 3 grits to get them as smooth as possible. You want the flattest surface possible to transfer to.










Cut out your patterns, be sure to leave only those lines you want on the wood.










I use standard blue painter's tape to attach the pattern to the wood. Here you can also see the iron I use. I had a much older one with a steel sole that seemed to work better but it died a few months ago. I had to buy few different ones to try out as they no longer make ones like the old one. I found the Teflon coated one did not work very well for some reason. As you can see here I use a towel to protect my bench and also to help keep things from sliding around.










Let the iron heat up to its highest setting. Then apply to the piece. You want to move over the piece for a good few minutes the time depends on how much is to be transferred, most of my games take about 2-3 minutes of ironing time. I usually use the music playing in my shop to time my ironing of those, one song and it is generally good. These guys took closer to a minute each.










Once you think you are good keep your iron just in front of where you are going to start to pull the pattern off. By doing this you can usually put the pattern back down and iron it a little more in certain spots if needed. You also need to keep the paper hot as you peel it off otherwise the ink may stick.










I will generally give things a minimum of about 10 minutes or so to cool down. If you have a lot of colors or ink on something you may want to let it sit overnight. Most of my items are then sprayed with Lacquer, 3 coats. This will put a nice seal over the ink.










As I mentioned none wanted lines, even the smallest will show up. Here you see two bookmarks that I left just a bit of the outside line on.

The great thing about doing the transfers this way is that you can do pretty much anything you want. I do customized Wine Tilts and Bottle Openers and can put anything the customer wants on the piece. Below are just a few of the projects that I have done using this method.







When I am turning the process is pretty much the same, but since this is already a pretty long blog I think I will cover that next week. I hope this helps and gives you all some great ideas. Love to hear some feedback or questions. 
Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL

Almost forgot I have to thank my daughter for helping with this. She took the pictures of me using the iron and did a great job.


----------



## doubleDD (Oct 21, 2012)

clieb91 said:


> *Tips & Tricks- Personalize It!!*
> 
> Ink Transfers- How I do it.
> 
> ...


Hi Chris. Great tutorial about this transferring method. This is something that I keep thinking about but haven't tried yet. Like you said, gives it a personnel touch. Gonna get to it soon. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to share with you.


----------



## tyvekboy (Feb 24, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *Tips & Tricks- Personalize It!!*
> 
> Ink Transfers- How I do it.
> 
> ...


Good tutorial.


----------



## johnhutchinson (Dec 9, 2013)

clieb91 said:


> *Tips & Tricks- Personalize It!!*
> 
> Ink Transfers- How I do it.
> 
> ...


Great tips !!! Thanks for sharing.


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

clieb91 said:


> *Tips & Tricks- Personalize It!!*
> 
> Ink Transfers- How I do it.
> 
> ...


Thanks all, hope you can put the concept to good use.

CtL


----------



## Grumpymike (Jan 23, 2012)

clieb91 said:


> *Tips & Tricks- Personalize It!!*
> 
> Ink Transfers- How I do it.
> 
> ...


Thanks for this tutorial Chris … Your timing is perfect as I have a project on my bench right now that I want to use this method on.


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Tips & Tricks- Personalize It!! Part 2 On the Lathe*

Evening All, 
Going to do something a little different tonight and let the pictures speak. Hope they all make sense. Also please let me know if you like this idea and if I should use it again.






















































































































In case you have trouble with the pics here is a link to my Flickr Album where I stored copies. 
How to Transfer

Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Preparing...*

*Sanding
Oh Sanding how I loathe it
Grit after grit 
With the grain. Against the grain
My shop fills with dust, where will it set
With the papers I sit
But the project must be finished, or all my work is for vane.*

Sanding is not one of the funnest things we have to do in the shop. No matter how you sand. Though since I have taken up turning I have learned even more so how important it is. I go there today because I spent about 45 minutes in the shop this afternoon working on this pile…










I spent that time running all of this over my belt sander at 100 grit. I still have 2 more grits to go before I will start doing transfers to these pieces. Now I now using the bench top belt sander is not he most tedious way to do sanding. but after the first 10 or 20 pieces it can become a bit monotonous. Have to keep an eye on what you are doing though otherwise who knows where the piece could zip off to. Thankfully I did not lose any pieces today but it has happened. When I first started doing transfers I made the mistake of a bad sanding job.



So now I do this in batches. and make sure everything gets a nice smooth finish before getting a transfer applied. This nice thing about making my games is I can batch process a lot of the steps. I did not take a any pictures of the cutting down of these pieces. But I cut almost all of them at the same time. The pine is what I use primarily for my games and games are one of two widths and a couple of lengths. so out of a few 1×8s I can make a number of boards.

I will spending the next few nights doing some additional sanding of these pieces as well as working on some pens that I can not post until next month as they are for the IAP Birthday Bash. In fact got to work with Sophia yesterday and finished her entry into the Youth Category.

In the meantime though thanks to a new Facebook Group, Component Pen Challenge I was challenged this week to make my first closed end pen.










Well that is all I have for this week, I know not much.. but I'll see what I can come up with for next week. In the meantime take a look at my last two entries and make something special for that valentine of yours.

Have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## putty (Jan 1, 2014)

clieb91 said:


> *Preparing...*
> 
> *Sanding
> Oh Sanding how I loathe it
> ...


Oh just suck it up and do it…LOL

Growing up in the 60's My Dad Had wooden Chris Crafts. Every winter there was sanding, varnishing and painting. My Dad had me do all of the sanding, for hours on end I would sand, he would then varnish and paint.

He also had a shop set up in the basement at home. He would build things then leave them to me to sand. I guess I was earning my keep.

Now when I sand things I just suck it up and do it, but I always think of Dad.


----------



## doubleDD (Oct 21, 2012)

clieb91 said:


> *Preparing...*
> 
> *Sanding
> Oh Sanding how I loathe it
> ...


If this is suppose to give me inspiration about sanding, it's not working. ha ha. I know how important sanding any project is and at least you seem to go at it with a positive attitude. I guess we should do as you did, a little at a time and just make it part of the build.


----------



## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

clieb91 said:


> *Preparing...*
> 
> *Sanding
> Oh Sanding how I loathe it
> ...


I used to really hate sanding. But now it's part of the challenge. Keep trying to get closer to the perfect finish.


----------



## johnlowell (Dec 22, 2012)

clieb91 said:


> *Preparing...*
> 
> *Sanding
> Oh Sanding how I loathe it
> ...


Love the pen, very creative. Now as for sanding…...


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Getting a lot done but not finishing anything*

I know I missed last week. Too much weather and not enough time. But here I am back again, the week turned out to be pretty good even with all the bad weather. Wound up having an extra day off and wife and daughter were away this weekend so in between dealing with the weather I was able to spend a lot of time in the shop and I got a lot done just didn't finish much.. sounds strange right well here is what I mean.

I got 32 pen blanks cut, drilled and tubes glued into them..










These will be for the upcoming craft fair season and will be turned as needed to fill stock. It's nice to have these all ready to go that way when I want to I can just go grab a set and make a pen or two.

I also got a good chunk of my game boards prepped to the point of they have been lacquered…










now they will have to be drilled out. Got tip somewhere a few years back about spraying them first then drilling that way the hole size does not change, works really well. A quick hit with some sandpaper and they are ready to go after drilling. I used to peg them but now I just carry a large bags of pegs with us and peg them at the show when needed, makes the storage and transport a lot easier. 
You can also see in that pic a few Wine Tilts I got a chance to cut last week they to still have some work to be done.

Oh one good part of the week is with school being out Sophia got into the shop and finished up another seam ripper.










She will be selling these along with some pens and a few other turned items at our regular market days in order to raise some spending money for her summer adventures.

Well that you have a lot got done but only my daughter got something finished in the shop this week.

Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## doubleDD (Oct 21, 2012)

clieb91 said:


> *Getting a lot done but not finishing anything*
> 
> I know I missed last week. Too much weather and not enough time. But here I am back again, the week turned out to be pretty good even with all the bad weather. Wound up having an extra day off and wife and daughter were away this weekend so in between dealing with the weather I was able to spend a lot of time in the shop and I got a lot done just didn't finish much.. sounds strange right well here is what I mean.
> 
> ...


Chris, you may not have finished anything , but at least you are doing it in volume. It all looks good. Maybe you will have to take some tips from your daughter.


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Why I didn't post on Sunday*

Yes, Yes I know it is now Tuesday. The problem is I was not home on Sunday night this week and did not have access to my PC. As I am sure many of you are sick of this winter that does not seem to quit I too am sick of it, I have been wearing a minimum of 4 layers to work everyday for the past 3 months now. So I decided it would be good to head somewhere warm. A rainy Saturday spent in a park run by a mouse though not the best thing sure beat a cold snowy Saturday spent working in a park.










Now don't get em wrong working where I do is pretty sometimes even with the snow. As you can see here and it has it's perks. I get a lot of wood to work with.

But a break is needed every so often. So here is the question I pose tonight. When you take that break… Do you find yourself looking at the area where you are differently as a woodworker? I have been going to the Disney Parks for a very long time, I have always loved what they do as far as architecture, technology, customer service and so on. I am though not a big fan of crowds so that has always been a challenge.

But since I have started working on my woodworking I also look through a different set of eyes. I am always on the look out for some wooden thing to add to my collection. I have found pens of which I have bought a few in the distant past, but now that I know how to make pens I find myself studying what not only they are selling but other retails and finding it harder to convince myself I should buy it. I look for things that are more complex, on a previous trip I found myself looking in a store in the Morocco area which I have never paid much attention to. But a collection of boxes caught my eye.










I found myself appreciating the woods and the assembly. The best part was they seemed to be a puzzle box. I started collecting Japanese Puzzle boxes at the park a number of years ago and decided this would be my newest.










Even more than those small wooden things I find I am more interested in the trees around and also the wood used in building a particular thing whether it is a whole building or just a piece of something.

Am I alone in this and just strange or do all woodworkers appreciate things a bit more and scrutinize them a little bit harder?

Have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*Games, Show, Furniture, Gramps*

So the good news is I got all the games, wine tilts and most of the turning done for the show that we had yesterday.










I was also able to complete the 9th piece in my Dimensional Office Furniture set and get it put into place.










I did also post this as a project but let me just take a minute to expand upon the story a little more. the bookshelf matches the other two and was built specifically to hold the tool chest you see sitting on top of it. I have talked about my grandfather here before and the fact that he was a master machinist. This was his tool chest. I am not entirely sure how many years he used this particular one at work but it was the hone he was using at home since he had retired, it has certainly been well used but well kept. The drawers are still full of a number of items I may never have a need for and most of them will stay there, I do still plan however to go through and clean it out some rainy day.

The bookshelf is a bit rougher than my previous pieces and this is due to two things. One I was in a rush just to finally get it finished and put in place so I could get the tool chest on something other that a tv tray. Two it is made from scrap lumber that was removed from my parent's house. It has several screw holes and some bad spots in it. The lumber came from my old basement bedroom, over 20 years ago by grandparents came up to visit and my grandfather helped me and taught me how to do the work to build the bedroom. Due to water problems in the basement we had to tear it out last year. I still have a few more scrap pieces of the wood and will plan to do some other projects with them. Perhaps it will help to build the 10th piece in my office which will be some type of corner shelves above my fireplace. Still trying to figure that one out.

Now we have started to expand the dimensioned furniture into other rooms of the house. for Christmas I gave Sophia a mostly built desk and a gift card so she could help me to finish it. I am happy to report that on the Thursday snow day it finally made its way to her bedroom.

She choose a purple colored stain and had started it in early January.










We then put a plywood top on it so that she could right or carve into to it as she sees fit. My plan is to be fore she moves out to put a good coat of poly over the whole top to preserve all of the stuff she does to it over the years. It's already in her bedroom and has become part of the standard.










I am sure it will be well used in the coming years. We may think about adding a hutch to it in the future.

So got a good amount done this week and evena few things to show for it. Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*I missed another week. But prepping for camp!*

Well I missed another week of posting this time though it was not due to pleasure. My aunt passed on Monday and I was with my Uncle most of this week. She has had kidney problems for several years now and 2 weeks ago things started to get bad. I visited last weekend and on Sunday she was having a good day. By Monday morning everything had changed though. My Uncle is doing as well as can be expected.

While I spent a large portion of the week away from work and my shop I did some brain storming for summer camp projects. A few of you may recall that where I work we run several camp weeks during the summer. I get involved by teaching a woodworking project to the kids. It is a real blast!
Last year they made small boxes and then built a fairy garden in them. The year before they did bookshelves which were a huge hit.










The younger kids, Kindergarten and first grade have done string Art projects the past few years. I find it is an easy project for them they get to put all the nails in then color and string up as they wish.










This year I was trying to come up with something different for all three age groups we will be having. while looking around my sister's store I found 2 hand drills.










She is going to ask the vendors if they have any more. I would like at least 6. As you can see I drew the arrows on them to make sure the kids know which way to turn them. I saw this in the book " Woodshop for Kids" by Jack McKee. With a small arsenal of these and the tools we have already collected, we are going to head down a new path and the youngest kids will be building a key/jewelry holder and the older ones a coat rack. The older ones will get to use the handsaws to cut the board to the final length before decorating and installing the hooks. The younger ones will just predrill the holes for the cup hooks. The is a much older adventure group this year that I may need to do something even more interesting with, maybe a 5 board stool.

As I said this is a great part of my summer work schedule. I love the looks on the kids faces when they are holding the project that they built on their own. I hope you get a chance to get a kid excited about woodworking.

Everyone have a great week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------



## GregInMaryland (Mar 11, 2010)

clieb91 said:


> *I missed another week. But prepping for camp!*
> 
> Well I missed another week of posting this time though it was not due to pleasure. My aunt passed on Monday and I was with my Uncle most of this week. She has had kidney problems for several years now and 2 weeks ago things started to get bad. I visited last weekend and on Sunday she was having a good day. By Monday morning everything had changed though. My Uncle is doing as well as can be expected.
> 
> ...


Sorry about your aunt. It's nice you got to visit with her on a good day.

The summer camp idea sounds like a lot of fun. Hopefully you will be able to blog about it.

Thanks for sharing.

Greg


----------



## clieb91 (Aug 17, 2007)

*I got lost... *

I got way off of track on this series and I wish I could say it was for a good reason. It really is not, I just realized I was not doing anything overly exciting in my shop. I have been in there lately working on some of my sale items and most of you have seen those. I really do not do many large scale projects, my hats off to all that do them on a regular basis.

This past week I finished off several batches of pens and some new necklaces that are heading to the park.




























I also took the time Friday morning to do a little clean up in the office, I still have a lot to do…. 
Friday morning my Office Worktable looked like this..










Not bad but just way too much on it, about 30 minutes and a few scrap pieces and screws later…










Nice thing about building more utilitarian furniture is that I can modify when the need arises. I put two hanger screws into the side of the table in order to stow my pen press and rack that I have been sitting on the floor lately. Planning to add a few to the other side for my paper cutter I use for tags and such.

Found a new really fast project this evening that I will tackle this week for the office. If all goes as planned I will post pics of it later in the week. Going to try to get back into the swing of this blog and posting I do it enjoy but kind of feel like I am stuck in a rut. All the other vlogs and blogs I have been watching and reading lately I am sure don't help as they are just chock full of content and seemingly excitement.

Hope you all have a good week in and out of the shop.

CtL


----------

