Another Year Almost Over! Merry Christmas

Greetings family and friends. I've have been very busy lately. This past weekend I did the PA announcing for eight basketball games and a hockey game and still managed to turn out these two Christmas projects. The patterns are from Artist and designer Sue Mey. She is wonderfully talented and extremely creative. I am planning to make a serious investment in more of her patterns. The ones I have made in the past have been very popular and all have sold well. I already have a couple of people at my day job interested in these as soon as I put them on my desk.

Speaking of my day job an incident there today as re-emphasised the fact that it must go. I must get rid of it . I hate it. The people I work with there make it bearable but the company makes it a miserable existence. I confess I'm a conservative but I can see where these "occupy" whatever nuts are coming from. I've got to stick it out at least another year. I've got the date circled on the calendar for giving them the Johnny Paycheck "take this job and SHOVE IT" treatment.

In the meantime this business has got to get going far more than it is now. Over the next year there must be expansion and innovation. It cannot survive on just woodcutting alone. If I worked 24 hours a day I couldn't produce enough to sustain it. So the challenge will be to find ways to build and sustain a scroll saw business. Starting today I have 375 days to do it. Game On!

Back in the Workshop

Cut out some ornaments and finished up some Christmas orders this weekend. The ones above will be placed on our office tree a work and offered for sale. We have a decorating contest for our various units. I'm proud to say we won it last year but that has caused the other units to really step up their game and the competition will be very stiff this year.
Not much going on around here this time of year. Did not participate in the so called Black Friday midnight madness sales. Don't get me started on that.
Weather today was very conducive to scroll sawing...cold...wet... dreary and no football game on tv that I cared to watch. My pro team played Thursday and gave their usual meaning to the term "Turkey Day". Over the next four weeks will be working on Christmas ornaments and decorations. Will post updates as time allows.

What Happened to this holiday?

Halloween hadn't even passed yet and Christmas decorations were appearing in stores. Some idiot radio programmers are already all Christmas music. Christmas ads began overwhelming TV programming. WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO THANKSGIVING? It seems to get worse every year, the commercial hype over Christmas and, of course, it has nothing to do with the birth of Our Lord and Savior. OOOOH I just brought religion into it! That's soooo unfashionable these days. I probably just offended a Muslim somewhere. How dare I. The Winter Solstice Festival Police will be knocking on my door any minute now.

OK. Whew! Rant over. I feel better now. What I really wanted to do was post this word art piece that I made and encourage everybody I know to pause for a moment next Thursday, put down your midnight madness sale flyers, and take a moment to give thanks to your Maker for all the blessings you enjoy. Thank God that you were born in this land. Thank Him for the generations of men and women who gave their lives to preserve it for us. Thank Him for the life and the love that surrounds you everywhere. Let us have Thanksgiving before we move on to the Christmas season and maybe that will help us to remember what Christmas really is.

Another Great Day!

We did another bazaar this weekend, this time in the great Michigan city of Frankenmuth. The show was held in the high school gymnasium. It was a bigger show than last week. More vendors and we were packed in like sardines. This one was virtually all crafters, unlike last weeks which featured some commercial enterprises.

As I was setting up my tables the vendor next to me was admiring some of my work. "It's very beautiful" she said. "Do you use a laser?"

"NO MAM" I immediately responded. "These were all cut by hand by me on a scroll saw. Laser

cutting is not crafting, it's manufacturing."

"But laser is acceptable." she replied"

"Not to me it isn't" I said.

It is a sore spot with me and most scroll sawyers. We work hard, our products take a lot longer to make and then we get to a craft show that supposedly has ONLY hand made items and there is a laser cutter there with his mass produced items selling for far less than we can afford to sell ours for. Most scollers won't go back to a show like that.

Anyway with that explained it's time to talk about this show. As I mentioned there were plenty of vendors. Only two other woodworkers that I saw. Most seem to have clothing type items and wreath decorations, a guy selling dog treats and some others I can't remember right now.

The crowds were really good and sales were excellent though not as good a last weeks. That kind of surprised me because I had low expectations for last weeks show and high for this one.

Last week, however, was so good that I drew down a lot of my stock and didn't have enough time to replenish it. Still I made a few things and they sold any way. Puzzles, ornaments, and word art were among the things that sold. I also sold a few letter openers I had made.

I think that's gonna do it for craft shows for this year. I had really soured on them after some

poor sales in 2010 but things seem to turn around this year and I may try a few more next year.

We'll see how things go.

You Jsut Never Know!

Greetings all my friends and family. We did a craft show at Valley Lutheran High School yesterday (November 4th). Going in our expectations were low. It was a small show with not too many pure crafters. There were a lot of home party vendors (tupperware, pampered chef, ect.) and people re-selling things they had bought in lots; so we weren't expecting much. The show was very close to home and it was quite inexpensive so we purchased two spaces and figured "whatta we got to lose?".

Well I can say now that we finally hit the mother lode. All I've been hearing lately from crafters on line is that the economy sucks, no body is buying, crowds, are down, blah blah blah. The crowds were pretty good here yesterday and from my experience they were buying like crazy!

Our very first sale of the morning put us in the black as far as expenses go and it just kept getting better from there. I can't give you a total for the day because I haven't run the numbers

yet but let's just say it was a little shy of.... One Million Dollars!!! (actually way shy, like the distance from earth to the sun and back but that expression is a little semi private joke between me and my daughter who is probably roaring with laughter as she reads this. Think "Dr. Evil" from the Austin Powers series )

So what sold. Well, unlike past shows where only little things in the two to five dollar range sold, This time people were buying my bigger pieces that I put the most work into and am most proud of. Ornamental crosses and wall art sold very well. If you look at the bottom photo, almost everything on this table sold. The items on the peg board all ranged in price from $ 20 to $70 (and believe me, for the amount of time I had into them, that was CHEAP!). Today is Pastor Appreciation Sunday in the Lutheran Church and people were looking for gifts for their Pastor (I had no idea! That was a stroke of luck). Christmas tree ornaments also sold very well.

They always do. Word art was a little disappointing. "Faith, Hope, Love, sold well and a Faith, Family and Friends, sold but the cute ones, like "Manure Occurreth", "Dude Relax", and "No Coffee NO Workee" didn't move at all. People get a kick out of em but they don't buy them.

All in all it just goes to show ya...ya just never know!

Next Saturday, the Frankenmuth High School gymnasium. Expectations are high for this show. Frankenmuth is one of those communities that is big on Christmas so I am looking forward to selling a lot of ornaments and Christmas type decorations. But then again, YA JUST NEVER KNOW! I have to replenish stock so if you'll excuse me I got some serious scrollin to do!

Compound Cutting

Well I've playing around with a different cutting technique lately called Compound Cutting. I hope you can see from these photos that it gives the pieces a dimensional look instead of just a flat pieces of wood. The figures are cut from square blocks of wood about three to four inches long. The magazines that I subscribe to have had a lot of patterns for these compound cuts. I really have been enjoying cutting these which kind of explains the lack of posts in the last month. I have already sold a few of these at work and would like to sell more at bazaars in November. It's kind of funny...when I first started cutting these I spent some time sanding and prepping the surface of my block when it suddenly occurred to me "DUH! The image is coming out of the INSIDE of the block. you don't need to prep the outside SURFACE". These are really interesting and fun to cut and not really very hard at all. The pattern consists of two sides. One side is the profile that gives it dimension and the other is the main image that you see when you look at it front on. You attach the patterns to adjacent faces of the block and clamp the block between a couple of pieces of wood to give you more area for your hands to work. Then you cut out the smaller profile image on one face the block, take it out of the clamp block and put packing tape around it so the piece you cut will not fall out of the block or move around, then you cut the other side of the pattern and push it out of the block and viola! you have a three dimensional image. I have cut mainly small items so far but have seen patterns for goblets, candle sticks and more. I have also cut some very tiny ones as well that I'll show you in a future post.

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Perhaps it's a little bit early but with Labor Day coming up here is a little sentiment for the working folks out there.

You Wanna Talk About Paitence?

Pretty proud of this one. Took me about three days cutting an hour or two at at time to finish this one. Took me almost an hour to locate a drill all the holes for the openings but in the end it was worth it...don't you think.
This isn't a particularly hard pattern to cut. It just takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. The patience comes in because, as you can see, There are a multitude of tiny holes to cut and each is shaped a little bit differently. So it is cut, detach the blade, thread the next hole, cut, and repeat for as long as it takes to finish.
Now the challenge is going to be framing it. I'll use black felt for a backer or I put a 1/8th inch backer board painted black behind the bird (it's a Peregrine Falcon). It's an odd size (7 1/2 wide by eight inches tall) so it won't fit a standard frame. I'll need to custom make one for it. Should have planned better on that one. This one is not for sale (the price I would have to charge for it you wouldn't want to pay). It's just for me! I don't make enough things for myself anymore so I'm gonna keep this one.

Amazing Grace by Gloria Chandler

This simple, yet time consuming and delicate pattern was taken from the fall 2011 issue of Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts. It was one of this years contest winners for the designer. I cut it from 1/4 inch baltic birch plywood and painted it black. It will hang in my office cube at work and see if I get any bites on it. Probably just nibbles when I tell them the price. It took 2 hrs and 45 minutes to cut so for this one I would have to ask about $25 to make it worth my while. If there is a lot of interest in it I could stack cut two or even three at a time and that would reduce the price. We'll see how it goes.

On another subject: the first page of my website is now on line. Here is the link:http://terrysscrollshoppe.com. Check it out and let me know what you think. In the future I will be adding more products, a link to this blog and maybe even some videos (if I ever break down and buy a camera)....

It's Only A Number

It is hotter than the Devil's pitchfork here this weekend and so there is only one place to be...In Terry's Scroll Shoppe. I feel very fortunate in that my scroll shoppe is in my nice cool basement. It's always 68 to 70 degrees down here. A lot of my on line scrolling friends have shops in their garage and during the summer it is just to hot to work out there. My sympathies.

The cursive number four shown above was done for another work friend of mine. She asked me if I could do her house number in cursive. I was a little hesitant because I was expecting four or five digits. She explained they lived in a very small subdivision and her house number was just four. So I tried out some cursive style fonts and came up with this design. She is going to paint it black.

More scrolling to come this week. It's gonna be way to hot to go outdoors.

Orca Puzzle

Just had to cut something from the latest issue of Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts. I didn't have a lot of time so I picked this Orca Puzzle by Matthew Jones. It was quick and easy to cut out and paint. The tail was a bit of a challenge but I managed it. I took this picture using my little Nikon and the new light box that I built. I draped a white background using some clips on the top of the box and portable lights on two of the sides and the top. I used some white curtain material that was being thrown out and I think the picture came out pretty good. The white material acts as a scrim to diffuse and soften the light. I am really determined to start taking better pictures of my work so I can post them on a website or online at a site like Etsy. A lot of crafters have been reporting success there. Got some more orders to crank out this weekend and I really want to get some new products on display at work so we'll see how it works out. I'll post more pictures and play around with different angles as well. See ya round the ole Scroll Shoppe.

A Token of Appreciation

I love reading David Baldacci novels and thought I'd read them all, so imagine my surprise when the husband of one of the gals I work with loaned me a couple of new ones. As a token of my appreciation I made this very simple little book mark. It has a couple of pendants with his initials on it linked with a little bit of ribbon. Everyone thought it was so clever but it took very little wood and very little time.
That's the really neat thing about scroll sawing. You can make very simple, yet really cool looking things to give as gifts and people will love them, because they are hand made IN AMERICA.
By the way, here is an update on the war on clutter continues as I try to determine what stays and what truly has to go in my office. Winning a little bit each day. When I get this done I'm going to tackle the shop.

IT'S INDEPENDENCE DAY!

July Fourth! Independence Day. And today I declared my independence from the clutter and mess that has been holding me hostage and keeping me from doing my much needed work. Now the war begins. Get rid of the mess, Get organized, throw out trash, keep only what is needed And start turning out work like the picture above. Did for another gal at work whose daughter graduated in June from Powers Catholic High School in Flint, Michigan. Got a couple of other special orders in the works as well. One is the house number I told you about yesterday and the other is a special book mark I am making for a friend who loaned me a couple of great novels to read. It's going to consist of a ribbon with his initials in the form of pendants at either end.
Today was just a perfect day weather wise here in Michigan. Mother and I spent most of the morning working on cleaning out our basement, but after lunch we just had to go outside and sit and relax in the beautiful Summer fresh air. Everybody in the neighborhood was gone it seemed. It was quiet and peaceful and a real joy. Later I took a bike ride through the neighborhood and it was just a picture of pure tranquility.
After the bike ride a sat down for an hour or so and watched the last three innings of a baseball game between the Cubs and the Nationals. Washington won in the bottom of the tenth when a runner scored from third on a wild pitch. Is that a lame way to win or what?
Grilled hot dogs and Hamburgers for supper and washed em down with beer and potato chips. Is that all American or what?
Sitting here now watching "A Capitol Fourth" on PBS. It's a perfect way to cap off an independence day. Mother and I are not big on fireworks. We'll here them booming away tonight as we drift off to sleep. Early wake up call tomorrow. The "day job" beckons. But the war on clutter and disorganization continues.

Back to posting regularly soon

Hi everyone. Seems like a year since my last post. First let me assure you that nothing is seriously wrong. Summer and new orders have been keeping me very busy. Mother and I have been working hard on the house and yard with some long overdue maintenance. We have also been taking some time on the weekends to do some biking which we really love. About three weeks ago we went on a beautiful trip to Macinac Island (pronounced mack-uh-naw for you non Michiganians) and bike around the Island twice. As far as the wood business goes, I haven't done any shows this spring or summer but have been doing a lot for friends at work. The angels you see in the photograph above are quite small and delicate and pretty quick and easy to cut out. A lady at work ordered fifty of them for her church group! Fortunately I could stack cut them and that saved a little time but it was still a lot.
Some other things I've sold recently are coat racks with a child's name scrolled on it,(those have been really big sellers), some various word art, and I have an open order out there. One Lady wants me to make a house number for her in cursive! Won't be as hard as it sounds though. Her house number is 4! That's right, just 4. Must be a very small neighborhood.
I am working on a different way to photograph my work. I have made a light box in which to place my projects to take pictures of them. To explain without a picture may be a little difficult but here goes. It is a box with the front side open and panels cut out on two sides and the top which are covered with white curtain fabric to let light pass through. I use three clip on lamps and it is supposed to diffuse the light enough to make for good product photos. We'll see. Lots of crafters swear by them for pictures for web sites and eBay. You will see the results very soon. Maybe even tomorrow. Hope to get back to posting and cutting out more work soon so please be patient with me. Thanks.
Terry.

Shadow Butterfly

Cut this beauty out this past weekend. The pattern is by Steve Good. I cut the butterfly and then mounted it on a 1/2 inch small piece of wood and added that to a plywood backer and a pine base. The neat thing about it are the shadows it casts depending on the angle of the light.
This one is a prototype for future efforts. I would like to make a variety of them in different

woods like cedar which has some great grain patterns, oak, or cherry. I also need to make a few at a time because the cutting time on the butterfly is about three hours and I need to get the cost per unit down where people can afford to buy them.

Butterflies symbolize different things to different people. Some see them as a symbol of renewal and rebirth since they begin as a pupa and hatch from a cocoon into something totally

changed and a thousand times more beautiful than they were before.

The woman who sits next to me at work told me the story of why butterflies are special to her. She said: When they got to the cemetery for her father's internment There were dozens of beautiful butterflies at the grave side and even though it was a sad occasion it sort of symbolized to her what he would now become. Something new and beautiful and reborn. Kind of touched me. Hope it does you too.

Finally! A New Post!

So where have I been for the last three weeks. Well the lack of posts here doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Quite the opposite, actually. Hadn't been in the shop for about 2 weeks because of illness and now am trying to catch up. I have so many projects I want to do but I keep getting orders from my wonderful co-workers. Made the above piece from a pattern in the latest edition of Creative Woodworks and Crafts and took it into work and got an instant order from the lady that sits next to me. Have also had a lot of orders for the "Live Laugh Love"

word art and orders for the simple coat racks I sold last winter. I got orders for five of them in one week! Needless to say, if I can find the time to spend in the shop it will translate into orders.

This week I am concentrating on Easter things: Bunnies, chickies, eggs, and then there are the religious items as well. I have a number of beautiful crosses that I hope to sell and a really nice portrait of the cross and the scripture "Why seek ye the living among the dead. He is not here.

He is risen." Have had the pattern for a number of years and just haven't cut it.

I have also gotten a lot of good wood toy patterns lately, cars, trucks , farm implements. All very simple cuts from 2x4 stock but very popular. Will try to post some pictures when they are done.

The illness story. In the spring I have a tendency to get this upper respiratory virus and this year I got it worse than ever. For two weeks I was coughing hard enough to break my back (though I didn't). Had to stay out of the shop all that time. Got some antibiotics from my doctor and I am finally fighting my way out of it.

Spring has finally come to Michigan. It was almost 80 degrees today and yesterday was pretty nice as well. Pam and I went for our first bike ride of the spring on Saturday. I have a new bike and I really like it. And the way the price of gas is going I may be riding it to work soon. (I am serious about that).

Thanks for sticking with me. I have no idea who's reading this stuff, but keep checking back in.

Experimenting With Word Art

Been trying some different techniques with word art lately. I decided that cutting them from a board and leaving them unpainted looked a little boring so I've been trying a spray painting technique I eluded to in some prior post. I am less than pleased with the results.

To recap: I start by sanding and painting the board on both sides and then laying down blue painters tape on both sides. Then I attach the pattern and cut it out and before removing the pattern and the painters tape I spray paint the inside of the letters. Then remove the tape and pattern.

The first "Live Laugh Love" I did in black and gold came out great. I got three orders for it instantly. One wanted black and silver so I did one of those.

As I said, the first one came out great but subsequent ones not so much. Somehow I am getting a little leakage around the edges. I have tried touching them up with a paint pen but it looks pretty obvious if you look at it closely. Which brings me to my next point. When it sits on a shelf or desk the touch ups are not that noticeable. Still when I am asking folks to pay for something I want it to be perfect and it is not. I'll keep trying though until I find what works.

My friends at work have been keeping me pretty busy lately. I have filled three orders for the hearts with the couples names and wedding dates in them. I have a feeling that more will be coming. Have a couple of custom design projects as well. All this is keeping me from getting to some spring scroll saw projects I want to do. Butterflies are huge sellers and I have patterns for several variations. Just received another issue of "Creative Woodworks and Crafts" and they have some patterns for tiny little bird houses. Some people collect bird houses so those might go big.

I have done some more work on my website. I have the home page pretty much done and ready to publish. Lot of work to do on content yet. There will be a link to this blog and I hope to have a page to post some videos on as well. Need to book up on that first.

Sorry it's been so long between posts. Remember, lots of work, hockey season in playoffs, spring is almost here and I just bought a new bicycle. Time to start livin life again. Sounds like another word art possibility doesn't it?

Update: What's been goin on?

Been a couple of weeks since the last post. You probably remember this picture of the heart I made for my friend Andrew at work. Well after he showed it around a little I immediately got orders for two more and I finished and delivered them and got firm orders for two more and tentative orders for two more! At this rate I'll be running out of 3/8 inch oak pretty soon. The good part is I'll have money to buy more!

You may remember in our last visit I was bemoaning the fact that I ruined one piece when I over cut the letters in one of the names causing the middle of it to drop out. I called it designer firewood. Well, my wife saved it from the burn pile by suggesting I just cut out the heart shape around the name leaving an opening that you could fill with a picture. She always seems to see the angle that I miss. Now I have another way to sell this lovely heart.

My website plans have kind of stalled for now. I have a home page designed but not sure I like the look of it. I can't seem to get the pictures I want to use sized correctly. I have pictures of my saw and a few of my best cuttings to show off but can't get the photos down to a thumbnail size. I like to get them down to about 2x2 inches. If you know how to do that let me know in the comments section.

This weekend is free for me so far so I will be doing some cutting for sure but I really want to make some progress on the web site so I may spend most of it right here in my little office working on that. Hope to have something to show you soon.

My Second Box

Cut this one out last weekend from a Steve Good pattern. The nifty thing about it is that the top is held in place by magnets and it swings open and shut from either end. I made just a tiny mistake in that I drilled one of the holes for the magnet in the top too deep and the one in the bottom not deep enough but it turns out to be okay because it pivots like a post now. This little box is 1 inch deep. It is made from 1/4 inch oak for the top and bottom an 1 inch thick maple for the walls. It can be used for any number of things, paper clips, push pins, change, wrapped candy (you wouldn't put loose candy in there because of the finish), jewelry, your watch, just use your imagination. I will use it as an "eye catcher" on my desk at work to draw attention to whatever else I may have there to sell. On my bazaar table this one will go for $20.00. I like these a lot and will be making some more out of different kinds of woods in the future. I picked up a number of different 1 inch thick boards the last time I visited my favorite wood store.

I'm actually sitting here kind of depressed tonight. I was working on a custom order I got from a friend at work and I got just barely into it and was trying to cut out some small letters in her name and slipped and ruined it. Now I have a nice chunk of what we in the scrolling community call "designer firewood" Fortunately I do have another board I can use and I will just have to start all over. Bummer though. That is why I decided to photograph one of my successes and post it here on the blog.

Things are gradually slowing down. The basketball and hockey seasons are winding down so pretty soon I will have a lot more time to devote to scroll sawing. There are so many things I want to cut and just have not had the time to devote to them. But this weekend looks free and clear so far and I hope to have a lot of great things to show you next week. Unless, of course, I make more designer firewood.

A Valentines Day Sentiment

Have had a lot of requests for this little piece of word art but never got around to designing a pattern and then the other day I thumbing through a 2009 issue of Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts and BAM! there it was. This pattern was designed by Toni Burghout. Thank you Toni. You saved me a lot of time and (no doubt) frustration.

For the painting of this piece I used a similar technique to what I did with "Hearts in Love".
I started with a piece of poplar and painted it a glossy black. Then I covered both sides with painters tape, attached the pattern and sawed it out. Then before removing the tape I spray painted the inside gold and there you have it.

This is one of the most popular phrases for word art. People like to have it around to remind them to Live life to the fullest, Laugh because it feels so good, and never take Love for granted.

Last week was another hectic week for me. I was busy every night last week and none of it had anything to do with scroll sawing. It was basketball, hockey and a particularly painful committee meeting. All of it related to announcing. While I'd like to be in the shop these evenings I need to make hay on the announcing business while the sun shines. This week looks a little better.

I delivered the fretwork heart with the names and wedding date to Andrew last Monday and by the time he was through showing it around I had three more orders for it plus an order for a
couple of key chains and a kids coat rack! Looks like I have my work to cut out for me (as opposed to having my work cut our for me).

I'm working on another fretwork box right now that I hope to have done this week although this week is almost as bad for non scroll saw events as last. Then I'll get to those orders.
Pictures coming. Stay tuned (just can't get away from broadcasting ).

An Enjoyable Project for a Friend

A friend of mine at work asked me to design something for his up coming marriage and this is the result. I took a pattern for the Holiday edition of Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts and

enlarged it so I could fit the names and wedding date on it and cut it from a 3/8 thick piece of

oak . The finished project measures about 11 inches across and about 10 inches high at the peak of the arcs. I dipped it in Watco Danish Oil and then put two coats of Watco spray lacquer on it to seal it. I'm confident he's going to like it and I'm sure I'll get orders for more. Where to find the wood is another matter. I got this one at Johnson's Workbench in Charlotte (pronounced shar LOTT for you non Michigan folks) which is about 100 miles from here. Needless to say at $3.20 a gallon for gas I don't go running down there very often.

Enlarging the pattern and cutting our the heart was pretty easy. Designing and cutting the names and dates was another matter. I use Inkscape to design word art. It is a vector drawing program and I am learning to use it for more and more things. I have cut many free standing words, names and sayings where the letters sit on a base. Cutting letters INTO a piece of wood

is quite a different matter. When you do this you quickly realize that anything with a closed loop (e,o,p,d ect) requires another design technique called bridges to keep the center of the letter from falling out . There is a way to do this in Inkscape and there are some excellent tutorials on line to help you out. Unfortunately I am a slow learner and after watching the video about 25 times I finally got the hang of it and now it is quite fun.

Well that is the story of the Andrew & Andrea plaque (can you spot the letters I had to modify?)

Got a very busy week and, unfortunately, none of it involves scroll sawing so it will probably be another week between posts. Check back in from time to time and be sure to add comments if you have any. I love to read them.

update from the scroll shoppe

Another good pattern from Steve Good. Bless his heart he keeps cranking out free patterns almost daily on his blog and I find I use about 85 to 90% of them. Keep up the good work buddy.

This little heart pendant measures about two inches high and 2 inches wide. Steve made his just a bit smaller. I enlarged it about 10% to accommodate a 1/16th drill bit for the tiny spaces.
This one is cut from 1/8th inch bloodwood. Bloodwood is pretty pricey but I got some scraps free from a friend a couple of years ago and have made projects with them sparingly. I'll probably make about 7 or eight of these and sell them for $5.00 each, If I can part with them. I tend to get attached to my projects and sometimes I hate to see them go. But I know they'll have good homes and the money will allow me to buy materials and supplies to make more.

Well the title of this post says it is to be an update on what's going on in the scroll shoppe so here goes:

Been very busy lately but not all in the shop. My other life keeps intruding and the past couple of weeks have been filled with a lot of announcing jobs (yes by day he's a humble mild mannered scroll saw artist working to turn out beautiful crafts for the community. He seems not unlike Gepetto hoping for one of his creations to come to life. THEN BY NIGHT HE DONS THE MANTLE OF HIS ALTER EGO AND BECOMES....ARENA SPORTS ANNOUNCER MAN. INSPIRING YOUNG ATHLETES TO GIVE CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCES WITH HIS ENTHUSIASTIC PRAISE FOR THEIR EFFORTS.) Have two hockey games this weekend and a couple of college basketball games coming up.

During the evenings I'm home I have been trying to work on the website with the website builder at Go Daddy. I find it a bit daunting especially when the directions offered in the start up manual don't work. Looks like I'll be going back to the support desk for help.

Working now on a project for a friend at work. It's going to be a plaque commemorating their wedding. It is a big fetwork heart wall hanging with their names and wedding date scrolled into it. Designed the pattern in Inkscape. Now it's just a matter of getting it onto the wood and cutting it out.

Well that's the post for now. As an old scroller once said: "Keep the dust blowin and the smiles showin"

The Website is Under Construction!

I am happy to announce I have taken the first steps toward getting a website online. Recently I registered the domain name terrysscrollshoppe.com and signed up with "Go Daddy" for hosting. I'm ready to start building some pages.

I spent some time last night with Go Daddy support. They are pretty good, I must say, and the thing that really sold me on them is that they keep all their technical support right here in the United States. I hate to sound jingoistic about this but far to many companies today farm out their call center jobs to foriegn countries where poorly trained people who barely speak English try to help you solve whatever problem you have. Yes..."Peggy" is real and he is just as hard to understand as it looks on tv.

One of the things I learned talking to Go Daddy Support is that I have a lot to lear. Fortunately they make it pretty easy for you. They offer a lot of templates to choose from and step by step instructions on how to go about it. I am pretty confident I can do this and have a pretty good looking website where you'll be able to view my work, purchase products and link to this blog as well.

First step is planning and putting together a really good home page. I'll probably use the image you see at the top of the page here as the banner and there will be some pictures of some projects I've done along with my saw and maybe a couple of me actually cutting something.

I'll be making a products page with picutres of projects you can order along with their prices and a link to an order form. Most likely will use Paypal for transactions.

Also hope to have an "about" page where I can post some videos of the scroll saw process. A lot of people don't really understand what goes into a scroll sawn piece and this will give them an idea.

There is a lot to do and it looks a bit daunting at first until I actually sit down to do it.
Hope to have the first pages up by the end of the month.

A Painting Option for "Hearts in Love".

After deciding that the "Hearts in Love" cutting just looked too plain in raw wood I was looking

for a way to paint it without losing the character of the wood so I went back to the magazine

article to see what the original designer did and came up with this creative option.

You notice the inside of the letters are painted and the outside wood is left natural. To accomplish this I started by covering both sides of a piece of poplar with blue painters tape and then affixing the pattern to that. I then cut out the piece and before removing the tape I spay painted the edges and inside the letters with a bright red. Then I took some gold paint and added just a light mist for accents. The gold paint came out a little gloppy but it still left a

very nice effect. After it dries you just peel the paint off and you see the end result.

My test market ladies a worked loved it. I sold one immediately and may have some more orders soon. One of my friends suggested to try some other color combinations such as purple and silver or navy blue and gold. I like the idea and may try it out with some other word art.

People really seem to like the word art. Certain phrases touch certain chords in their lives and some of it makes them laugh. It seems to sell better than anything else I am currently doing.

It is also something I can design myself with my Inkscape vector drawing program. Soooo if you

happen to think of any two to four word sayings of phrases post them in the comments section and we'll see what happens.

Fretwork Hearts

These lovely fretwok hearts were designed by Allison Tanner of Sarasota, Florida. They weren't hard to cut by they took a long time, about an hour and a half each including preparation.
I cut them from 1/4 inch Baltic birch plywood and they measure 5 1/4 inches at their widest by
31/2 inches.

I was looking for some way to add color to these without painting them when my wife came up with the idea of threading red ribbons through them. It seems to work pretty well.

Price point for these will be in the neighborhood of $10 each. Allison has several more patterns of these in the current issue of Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts. Will be trying a couple more before Valentines Day. Right now have just these four in stock.

To Paint or Not to Paint--That is the questions

Whether tis better to add a splash of color or leave well enough alone and let the customer add their own unique touch of flair.

This lovely little bit of word art is actually a statement. Can you tell what it says. "Hearts in love" is it's simple statement. It is a pattern by toni burghout and Sue Chrestensen published in a June 2008 edition of "Creative Woodworks and Crafts" magazine. In their design they painted just the outside edges or cut edges of the pattern in a bright red accented with gold.
Looking at their results I might try it. I'll post my results as well. It requires some elaborate masking but I think it can be done.

Another idea I had was to paint the hearts red or pink and spray the rest white. Several options
to try. Gotta get busy.

My First Box

Back in the Summer I bought a few one inch thick boards with the idea of trying some small boxes. I kept waiting for a pattern I couldn't resist and finally this month my scroll saw friend Steve Good posted this free pattern on his blog site.

The top and bottom of the box are pieces of quarter inch cherry and the walls are made from a single piece of one inch soft maple.

This one is a prototype I won't sell but now that I have attempted it and learned a few things in

doing it I am going to make a few more to sell.

By far, the most time consuming part is the fretwork in the lid. The walls and bottom took only minutes to cut out.

The glue up is a bit tricky. You must get the inner walls in exactly the right place or the top and bottom won't line up properly when you put it together. I used E-6000 glue. It's kind of like

super glue. It sets quickly and is pretty strong.

Getting the outer walls to fit over the inner walls is a bit tricky also. Sometimes it is necessary to sand the inside of the outer walls with a drum sander on the drill press.

The finish is a coating of Danish Oil and a sealing finish of spray lacquer on top of that.

I like this little box and I'm looking forward to making more in the near future. Obviously this is a Valentines Day project so I need to get going on it.

I see this box selling for between ten and fifteen dollars.

More Valentines Day Projects to come.

Happy New Year, Terry's Scroll Shoppe is Back

The blog has returned. You are looking at the theme for the new year "Create Your Dream". Time to take the Scroll Shoppe to the next level, "on-line" sales. A top priority for this year will be building and maintaining a top notch website for the business. It should be a neat trick because I know NOTHING about website design and creation. I know what I want, just not how to go about putting it together and putting it on line.

I had a freind's brother design my voiceover website. It was quite simple but it took him four months to do it and I don't have that long to get it up and going. So I need to look for a designer around here that can do one for a reasonable amount of money. Or I may look at Go Daddy and see if it is possible to do it myself.

Here's what the site will have. A home page with pictures and information about what I do here. Tabs along the side with categories of projects. Pages on those tabs with pictures and prices for the various projects. Shopping cart capability for ease of ordering. Payment probably using pay pal.

Some sites I have looked at that I admire and would like to emulate include Tuliptree Crafts,

Sheila Landry Designs, 8x10 woodworking, and Scroll Saw Goodies.

This has been a dream for a long time and today is January 1st so it's time to get going and

"Create Your Dream".