Happy New Year! We had lovely Christmas weeks visiting a lot of family in Michigan & Tennessee. We even saw a bit of snow in Michigan. I was getting worried that we’d go a whole year without seeing snow!
We were slightly less ambitious this year with our gifts and did not attempt to hand-make every single one of them (last year’s gifts here and here), but we still managed to keep ourselves quite busy with projects. First, the wooden selection:
For Ryder’s mama, a wooden pencil holder. This was cut on a band saw, with 11 pencil holes drilled through the top arc. The bottom is covered in cork for less slippage. We stained it “special walnut” and finished it with polyurethane. I wish I could tell you what kind of wood this is, but we bought it months ago and neither of us can remember anymore, although I think it might be cherry…
Next, a sudoku palace/temple refrigerator magnet, for Ryder’s dad to show off his completed level 4 sudokus (of which we expect many). Ryder laser-cut the design that I had mocked up in Photoshop, which was great for getting the details in the ribbon and wings. The cherubim and banner is a separate piece, glued to the temple frame. Ryder wood-burned the details into it, and finished it with polyacrylic. A plastic sleeve on the back holds the sudokus, and strips of magnets around the sides and base keep it on the fridge.
Honestly, sometimes I don’t know how we come up with this stuff – but I am glad we did. Both of these projects were fun and we are really happy with how they turned out.
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