Valley Lutheran Craft Show Comments and Results

First Christmas Bazaar I've done this season.  Trying to concentrate on getting online sales going but need these shows occasionally for exposure.  This was a great show for me last year out earning any show I've done.  This year sales were down  but still made significantly more than the booth fee.  I don't know if sales were down because of the economy as everyone says or if last year was just exceptional.  I was a little disappointed but overall I deemed it a success and will likely do it again next year.  It is very close to home so can't beat it for convenience.  Table location wasn't the greatest but folks did find us ok and a great side benefit was that I made some good contacts that likely will be ordering more stuff.

Haven't been updating the blog and website lately because most of my days have been taken up with cutting projects in the wood shop.  That has been a serious handicap for me because the blog and web site need to be kept up so you will keep coming back to see what is new.  I've been using facebook a lot to post pictures of new things and direct you to the blog and website.  But there hasn't been a lot of new things lately. 

Got another show coming up in two weeks (Nov 17th) at Frankenmuth High School.  This was a great show last year as well and I have high hopes for success there.  If your in the area stop by and say hello. 

I'll be doing lots of cutting in the next couple of weeks and hope to get the website updated and a couple more blog posts in the meantime.  If you're on facebook send me a friend request.  I'll be happy to add you if you are not already on my list.

 

Newest Crosses

Love these to crosses.  I found the patterns on one of the on line forums I visited and contacted the designer.  Good ole Texas boy named Bobby Riggs.  He sent me both through email for a nominal price and I went right to work on them.  He also kindly gave me permission to sell them in Terry's Scroll Shoppe.
They both measure 6x8 inches.  The one on the right is very delicate.  I cut a smaller version of it and made the mistake of picking it up near the bottom and the swirls broke right off.  So I made the second version a little bigger and cut the swirls a little bit thicker but it is still extremely fragile.  Need to wrap it very special so who ever buys it at a bazaar will be able to get it home in one piece.
The one on the right is much stronger, as you can see, but still has a nice delicate look to it.  Used cherry wood for these and finished with boiled linseed oil and finished off with a coat of polyurethane.
Hope to launch online selling from my website terrysscrollshoppe.com soon. Working out details for
ordering and shipping now.  Goal is to have it done by early October.
Keep checking in.  More coming soon.

This years new ornaments

It's been a while since I've done some good ole fretwork and filagree so I cut these ornaments for my fall bazaars.  They will sell in the 7 to 10 dollar range.  These were desinged by Keith Fenton of Nova Scotia. 
Just finished some great looking crosses and am looking forward to showing them to you in the next post.
Keeping pretty busy in this retirement life.  Cutting scroll work, announcing football and hockey games. Sure is great to have the time to do the things I love.  Still need to find more time for blogging and website building though.

How Should I finish this?

Well it's Monday, but being retired it doesn't have nearly the same annoyance for me that it used to have.  Spent the weekend cutting some new projects and never really even left the house.  Today am adding some new photos to facebook and taking pictures of some recently finished projects.  I have a lot of things I am dying to show you but haven't found time lately to sit down and write.  Still working on the products page on the website. It is kind of tough to decide what to include and how to arrange it.  I have also decided to incorporate pay pal for orders.  I really don't want to take credit cards as the companies keep adding on new fees every time the government puts a new regulation on them.  It makes the politicians look good but we all get it in the end anyway. 

As for the piece in the picture above:  This is another Sue Mey pattern in a set of six that I am working on. They are all word art with a Christmas theme that uses one letter to create a scene.  It's an interesting concept and I like it very much.  The quandary I am having is how to finish them.  I am cutting them out of plain old pine and just leaving them unfinished so far.  Stain might be an option but choosing the shade has me conflicted and getting into the openings is a challenge.  Spray paint might be another option.  I did that with the "Snow" man one and then top it off with glitter blast and
it came out great, but would that work for a Christmas decoration.   I welcome any suggestions you might have and it would help me decide.

Got some new ornaments I've been working on that I can't wait to show you and couple of beautiful
cross patterns I just got from a fellow in Texas.  Those will be coming in the next couple of posts.
Keep checking in.  As for retirement...I highly recommend it!

More Christmas Projects

Here are a couple of Christmas projects I cut last week.  They are from a set of six patterns designed by Sue Mey.  Will be cutting more soon.  These stand about ten inches high and twelve inches long.
Planning to sell for $15.00 each. Will be posting more pictures soon as fall bazaars are coming up soon.

Free to Saw At Last!

Well the day job is finally history!  I retired last week and now I am ready to get back into the scroll
saw business.  Actually I've been doing quite a bit of cutting since my last post but have not kept up with the blog and the website.   The above pictures are some examples of what I've been doing. 
I got interested in making wooden boxes a while back and found severeal good patterns.  Have some wood I bought specifically for that purpose.  Two of the three boxes above are from patterns designed by Steve good and the five corner box with the pretty fretwork design is from Sheila Landry. 
The fretwork buttterflies are ornament size and I made several of those.  They are from a pattern by Keith Fenton.  I konw the designers are probably not of interest to a lot of you but they are important to other scrollers and since I use patterns created by other people I do fell an obligation to credit them;
Been cutting a lot of very fancy Christmas ornamets that I will be posting here for you to view soo,
Also working on getting the website set up to sell product.  I'm not a web designer so it's a long and tedious process for me.  I'm using Go Daddy and their Website Tonight page designer.  I spend a lot of time on the phone with support.  They are very helpful.
Working on stuff for November Craft shows right now.  Will be posting more pictures soon.

Wedding Cross

Made this one for a friend at the day job.  She has a family wedding coming up in May and wanted this as a gift for the happy couple.  About 31/2 hours in this one.  It measures 10 x 14.  Good size to hang on a wall. 
The pattern for this cross is from Sue May of Pretoria, South Africa.  Her website scrollsawartist.com is a treasure trove of terrific patterns.  She has many cross patterns such as this one covering all kinds of events and professions.  Another one I have found to be very popular and a good seller at craft shows is the Nativity Cross depicting the birth of Jesus.
The really nice thing about Sue's patterns is that you don't have to wait for them to arrive in the mail you can down load them right from her site.
Thanks for checking in.  Come back often.

Eye Catcher!

Finished this one a couple of days ago.  It is one of my favorites.  Arguably the most important verse in the New Testament, the promise of salvation.  This is what I call an eye catcher when displayed at craft shows.  It draws a lot of "oohs and ahhs" and always sparks the question "How long did that take you to cut."  Well the total time for this project is about seven hours.  I work on it over the course of a week cutting about an hour and a half at a time. Just drilling all the holes for the letters takes about an hour.  Don't sell man of these because the of the price but I have sold everyone I've made.  The current price on this one is $65 which doesn't even come close to covering my time but the eye catching appeal usually draws people in to look at my other work and generally leads to other sales.  I won't let it go for less than that and I often have people try to talk me down on it.  Whenever I do sell one I need to make another right away. 

On the website front, another page has been added to terrysscrollshoppe.com which details the scroll
saw process.  The next step now in the works is to compile a products page with prices and then an order form. I'm going to see how it goes for a while taking individual orders before investing in Paypal or a shopping cart feature.  The challenge is going to be continually adding fresh content to keep people coming back.  Will probably do that by adding new products to the home page.  I've looked at some other websites that I like and will try to pattern my after them.  The challenge is always going to be time.  Still have the day job and a really lousy shift on that right now, but at least my mornings are free to do this stuff.  Plus, the weather is finally getting nicer so biking, golf, and fishing have to be worked in as well.

Thanks for looking in,  Check back again soon.

Confirmaton Present

Special order from a lady at the day job. The cross is for her son's confirmation. She wanted something for him to hang on his wall. This one was designed by Dirk Boleman and was meant to be a Christmas tree ornament or pendant. I doubled the size of the patter and it came out to be about 8" by 10". The wood is Cherry finished in Danish oil . It will darken over time. I like the way it turned out. Think I'll make a few more of these.

A Place to Hang Your Hat

This is a simple little project that I have had a lot of demand for. People love things made for their kids and if you add their names to the project they love it even more. I've made dozens of these for people at my day job. When I finish one and bring it in I usually get about five more orders!

It is made from a 3/4 by 4 inch piece of clear pine cut to a length of 24 inches and then the 3 1/2

inch shaker pegs are added and a couple of holes drilled at the ends for hanging purposes. Buttons cover the holes. The child's name is added at the top, cut from the same piece of lumber.

The name is then glued to the top of the board.

I leave them unpainted and unfinished, so the customer can finish them anyway they choose.

On another note: I have added a second page to my website http://terrysscrollshoppe.com. It is called "The Scroll Saw Process". Many times people have asked me "How do you do that?" This page describes the process in some detail and pictures are provided.

Next step for the website is a products page and a contact form for ordering.

Due to a shift change at work, I have been working on the website in the morning hours. Hope to have a lot of additions in the near future so keep checking in there often. I will also be putting a link to this blog there as well.

HERE COME THE IRISH!

Yes my friends it's just a week a way from that magical day when we'll drink green beer, sing those old Irish ballads, and wear green. Yes the tears will be flowing down the cheeks of some inebriated mick, as he slurs the words to "Danny Boy" and just barely makes it to the bathroom in time to see that green beer again!

So I thought I'd make this shamrock puzzle from a pattern I found on line. The creator of the pattern is unknown. I like the way the pain job turned out. I basically suck at painting but using the different shades of green worked out real nice for this one.

Been working on a lot of things lately. One thing keeping me busy is learning the basics of Corel Draw for drawing scroll saw patterns. Soon you should be seeing some Terry's Scroll Shoppe originals on this blogspot. I have the tremendous aide of scroll saw guru Steve Good. Steve has been posting scroll saw pattern tutorials using Corel Draw. I am having a lot of fun following them and creating some simple patterns. The more complex ones will come later.

Another thing I have been working on this week is the http://terrysscrollshoppe.com website!

Yes! After letting it sit idle for more than a year I am working on adding some pages. The current one is about the scroll saw process and takes you through the steps I use to create a project.

Also planning a products page with items for sale and a contact page for ordering. I am finally motivated to do something with it and I hope to have those pages up soon. Having said that, I also have some orders to fill for some of my wonderful customers right here in town.

Gotta go to work. Look for more later here on the blogspot.

Unlocking Scroller's Block

Was sitting around last weekend wanting to cut something but didn't know what. I wasn't real thrilled with the latest offerings in Woodworiking and Crafts magazine so I began looking around the shop for some wood and found a half inch thick piece of wood about 7 inches square and a quarter inch piece of bloodwood. Valentines day was coming up and I seemed to remember Steve Good had a pattern for a heart shaped basket and so I went to his on line catalog containing hundreds of free patterns for the downloading and I found this little beauty.

About two hours of cutting and another one sanding, gluing and finishing and there you have it.

I went back to Steve's catalog and looked for some more fun things to cut and there were several to choose from, but what caught my eye this time was a neat little stand he designed for the I-pad computer. Well I don't have an I pad but I do have the Kindle Fire and this project works real well for that too as you can see.

Found some other things I hope to cut in the near future when I get some time. Right now I have a couple of orders to fill. More on that in a future post.

It is Winter

It is winter and we are finally starting to get some significant snow here. Want to make time for a little cross country skiing but a recent bout with cold and flu have kept me off the trails and out of the shop. Been battling a bad cough for the past week and afraid it may have something to do with dust in the shop. I work too often without a dust mask. That is going to have to change.
I suppose I should explain the picture of the tulips with the caption "This is Winter". Well it is kind of a reminder that when the sun returns with some warmth about mid April to early May,
those tulips that you worked so hard to plant and nourish last fall will start emerging and filling your yards and gardens with beauty.
These little beauties are the result of last weekend's work in the shop (which may have contributed to this nagging cough I've had for the past week. They are made from pieces of 2x2 and are a result of compound cutting. The pattern was designed by Diane Thompson. I am very pleased with the way the picture came out. I received a photographers light box specially designed for taking photos of small projects and it gives the pictures a nice professional quality. I am a little less pleased with the paint job. That is something I am still trying to master and so far it is pretty amateurish. I must say though, that I think they look fairly good compared to some other projects I've tried to paint. They kind of give me the inclination to go to Holland, Michigan this spring for a weekend at the tulip festival. If you've never been there for it put it on your bucket list. It is quite amazing to see and ocean of multicolored tulips as far as the eye can see. Oh, they also have an excellent craft fair that weekend too. Might just have to look into that.