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.