The Rest of the Set

I decided I had a lot of scrap wood sitting around. So I decided to make more things for my desk. I made myself a monitor stand, a paperclip holder, a pencil and pen holder, a calculator riser and a foot rest.

It used up most of my scrap wood which made me happy. BUT, I learned that even if you have your brad nailer at a 90 degree angle and you have no knots of nails or other things in the way, it can and WILL take a 90 turn IN the wood and come out the side and find your thumb. OWIE! Luckily it didn't go all the way through the pad of my thumb. Did seem to go pretty far through it though. Cleaned it up and put a bandaide on there. I was even good enough to go get a tetnus shot even though I didn't think I needed it. Happy mom?! Anyway, its best to be careful and remember when using a 2 inch brad nail you have to keep your hands even farther away than before.

Back to the projects. I took some scrap wood and basically used my scroll saw to cut out the center of a few squares and then glue a back piece of wood. The use the router to round all the edges and give it all the usual stain and seal. If anyone wants details on any of these, I can of course share more details.

Life

Apparently its really hard to balance life and woodworking. I feel like I am always doing one too much and not the other. Then flipping and doing the other too much.

Sigh.

Since we last shared my monkey puzzle, I have only done a handful of projects. I buit a desk set for my new job. It started out innocently enough. I wanted to make a tissue box cover. I hate that generic corporate tissue box look. So I got a plan off of this blog I read called scrollsaw workshop. It was a pretty neat thing. There were little tabs and you glued it together to make the box.

The sides had 2 designs so if you doubled up the wood you could make the 2 matching sides at once so half the work. I chose this hummmingbird pattern.

Here is the raw design.




I glued it together which left the edges all funky. The tabs fit together, but the tabs stuck out. Then I realized this is why I have a flush trim bit. I trimmed all the edges and wa-la! I had a perfect square for the tissue box cover. I stained it and since I still didn't want to see the tissue box through the wood, I lined it with colored construction paper and now its perfect!

Blog Much?

So apparently I am super behind on this. Holidays happened. Family happened. I am going to get all my pictures together and post later this afternoon and fill you all in on my recent fun.

I have made a whole desk set for my work with scrap wood. Not super beautiful since its scrap wood and no patterns just freehand work, but they work. I particularly love my pen and pencil holder. I prefer to set my pens on the deks rather than in a cup or upright. With my holder I can have 1 pen, 1 pencil, 2 highlighters and my staple remover all contained and not rolling around and it makes me super happy. Almost as happy and my tissue box cover and monitor stand!

Okay, gotta run. I am going to make some Christmas presents on the scroll saw today for my MIL, but if the ice doens't thaw and we are stuck on our hill I am going to be able to update this blog this afternoon. WoohoO!