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.