Flatware Bracelets

 Okay for my crazy story.  At the beginning of the market season I was doing bad.  I wasn't getting anybody to really buy my stuff.  Well not enough to make it worth going every week.  The thing that really got me was that I there was lots of people coming and buying stuff but not my stuff.  So instead of giving up I looked at what people were buying.  Jewelry and there were lots of booths selling jewelry.  So I went home and thought about it.  what could I make that nobody else was that would get people to notice me.  Well I like my silverware coat hooks and silverware wind chimes so I thought flatware bracelets.  Went online and looked some up and came up with a design I could do.  So I made maybe fifteen and went back to the market. BOOM BABY that was it.  I sold almost all of them.  So I made more and once people looked at my bracelets they started to look at my other stuff.  I started to do good after that and it was all fun after that.  I now do necklaces and rings but didn't take any pictures once I get my stock built up I will take some photos.

 These are some of the first generation prototypes.  They are a better looking now and easier to make.

Windchimes

 So at the beginning of the summer I had a hard time getting people into my booth.  It got frustrating.  So I thought that if I had a wind chime that I could smack once and awhile and get people to notice me they would come check my stuff out.  Well it sort of work.  I made one for show.  Instead I had someone want to buy it.  So what do I do, Sell it of course.  Well then I made another and agian sold it.  So then it became another item.  They weren't the most popular but they were fun

 A muffin pan and silverware.  I did this one a couple of times it was a fan favorite.

I thought this one would sell fast but it didn't old wrenches.  I have modified it a little since this photo.  I think I might just keep it for myself.  Or just keep hanging it someone might get it someday.

Signs and Coat Racks

 Summer is now over and so is my stretch at the Gardeners Market.  I had so much fun at the market and got to meet some great people.  I got some fun stories I will share.  Most likely you won't care but they were good times for me.  To start off this was my main product so to speak.  I made so many of these coat racks and signs.  I didn't even take pictures of all of them, mostly because I made the same ones over and over.  If you are interested in any of these I can remake them in any color just as a to let you know.

 So my big seller was coat racks with birds on them.  Had to do with some TV show.  Well I got tired of doing so many birds I'd mix it up a bit and do some different things.  One of my favorite ones was this octopus.  I liked painting the one on Ethan's bed so I wanted to do it again.

 Besides the fact mustaches are the big thing right now who doesn't like a mustache coat rack. 

So everyone has a vinyl board in there house that is inspirational.  I wanted to do it but with style i guess.  So instead of vinyl that peels off I painted mine which means my are permanent.  Then I did a rustic technique I learned to make them my style.

 I had this lady come in to my booth and give me some knobs she said she had just laying around.  This is one of the coat racks I made with them.

 This is my sign.  I made so many of these.  People loved them.  I loved them.  I don't think that I ever brought one home after I made it.

 This was my bird design coat rack that sold the best.  I did it in so many colors and with so many different hooks and knobs.  These knobs were also donated by the same lady.

 Just mixin it up.

 I did this one a couple of times.  One guy traded me a box of produce for one.  There is acually a billboard in town with this quote on it.  Kelsie loved the quote so I thought it would be a good one for one of my signs.

 So Ethan got in this habbit this summer of going around and telling me " I can't".  Know matter what he said "I can't" drove me crazy.  I would tell him over and over how do you know you can't you havn't tried.  I saw this quote and had to do it.  I had it for a long time.  Then I got to trade it with this awesome guy I met at the market.  He made these belt buckles out out recyled bike parts and metal. 

 I got a lot of comments on this one.  I thought it was a fun design.

 Towards the end I was doing many different bird designs.  Can't complain if they are going to sell.  i liked this one a lot.  The more I do the more designs I want to try.  Next year is going to be even funner and I'm already working on my stock.

Cheesegrater Windchime

So this is one of my Gardeners Market projects.  I had someone tell me I should make a windchime to draw people in.  Well it did the first one I made sold way fast.  I forgot to take a picture of it because I acually didn't think someone would buy it.  I made it more for show.  people though love these flatware windchimes.  Here is one I really liked.

 So here it is all done I try and make them so they will last forever.

This one sounded pretty good compared to others that just look neat.

 I accually spend awhile looking for good flatware that makes a half decent sound when they clang together.

I found this pretty cool old cheesegrater at the thrift store.  I usually use metal bowls so this one got to be different.

The pole in the midle actually doesn't do as much as you think it might.  I just have some laying around and try to put it to use.

I wish I could find more cheesegraters like this I really liked this one.

Gardeners Market Stuff

A little story...

So for a few years now I've wanted to do a booth at the local Gardeners Market.  Every year I think of stuff I should do bu it would be one large object or one small object and I didn't know how to mass produce.  Well last Fall I got my first dose of a craft fair.  I built about 12 garden benches and a mix match of granite candy boards.  I did horrible.  My benches were priced high and that was all I had so I only sold a couple.  But I got a feel for the craft show crowd.  Well I went through the winter thinking of waht else I should build.  Alot of the peolpe at the show told me I'd do good at the farmers amrket beacuase nobody made stuff like me.  Well as Spring got closer I started just building stuff.  I like large things so I built some assorted coffee tables benches and stuff like that.  Well I went to a meeting they have before the market starts to go over rules and stuff and I talk with a friend that has had a booth there for a while.  I told him what I had and asked him if he thought I'd do good.  He told me he thought I would sell my stuff but not fast enogh to make me coming every week worth wild.  He told me I needed to make some simple small projects to get people in my booth to look at my larger objects.  So I went home a little worried because I only had a week to make some small object that people would look at.  So I do what everybody does I looked on Etsy and Pintrest.  I saw many things of course but I wanted something that would really stick out.  Well I saw this picture of someone who turned old flatware into hooks.  Of course I thought of my wife and said thats it.  So I made up an assortment of coat hooks with flatware hooks on them.  Came up with a couple of other small ideas, stepp stools, apron hangers, and of course candy boards.  Well i was as ready  I could be.  I showed up set up and put on my Hot Topic personality.  My first day was a bomb.  I only sold one item and it was a personal order.    I went home disgruntled and down hearted.  Well the next week came and I did about the same but a little better.  So I needed something,  I had to look to see what was selling.  What I saw was jewlery was the hot item.  Of couse it was girls love jewlery and they like unique jewlery.  So I went back home to figure out what I could do fast and mass produce that girls would like.  I came back to the flatware.  So I looked up flatware jewlery and fould not only something simple but something that nobody else had. So I whipped out a couple handfulls of bracelets and went back.  They were it, they were what got people in my tent.  I sold almost everyone and got people to start buying my small objects as well.  I've gotten better at getting people in my tent and I've gotten a pretty goood stream of people who have started orderinnf from me.  So for a while I will problay just posting alot og the same thing but I will be posting.

This was my first day

Pallet Coffee Table

Heres one of my products for my Gardeners Market booth.  I like how easy it is to make but how fun it is as well.  As simple as it is I of course want it to last so I do wha tI do best and Martined it.

I of course did not take many picture I'm getting in a bad habit of doing that.  But first I found some pallets that matched each other.  I then got some beat up wheels I got from work that we were thoughing out(they worked great with this project seeing I was going with a very chunky rustic feel).  So first I attached the wheels using some also pretty beat up bolts laying around.

I was going to use a 4x4 for the legs but it looked funny because they were so new.  So I pulled out some old 2x4's I had laying in my fire wood pile that have been getting weathered for a while.  I then just made my own 4x4 legs as shown.  I think it just made it look better but what do I know.  I attached them with frame support angles I bought at Lowes.  There are 4 on each leg making it way sturdy.

This is it all done.  As I said it's pretty simlpe but fun.  I like it because you could put it in your house or outside.

Wooden Table with Granite Inlay

 So I come home from work a few weeks ago and my wife tells me the young ladies in our ward were going to hold a silent auction and wanted to know if I want to donate anything to there cause.  I do a lot of garden benches so I said I'd do one for it.  Well I've had this table idea bouncing around my head and I say to myself hey you should make that for them to.  So here it is.

I kept it simple so you could put it outside in the house or where ever.  First I made my granite piece so I had something to go off of.  All I did then was make a frame to go around it.  Slid the granite into frame and had a pretty neat table.

I then just added a border around the bottom of the frame so I could attach some legs.

Just another shot from a little farther back

Took it outside and painted it black

Brought it inside slid the granite back in.  Then I put a coat of polyurethane on it and called it good.  I plan on building more and now that I've done it once I will be able to do some more inter grate stuff next time.

Ethans Pirate Bed (the ship)

 I made to many entries for this bed because there are so many parts to it.  So there will probably be some duplicate photos through out my next few post.  I loved this idea for a bed a pirate ship.  My son's Ethans room is pirate themed a little less now he tears it up but pirate theme all the same.  I've wanted to make this bed for a while now and seeing his old bed was getting banged up because of the style I thought it was about time I made it.  i am horrible at remembering to take photos so there are gabs were it skips forward or alot at once.  Well I guess I'll start with my design. My kids room has a really slanted ceiling so I had to keep that in mind for the design.  Second I wanted it one solid bed so it had to be able to go up a flight of stairs and make a sharp tight corners into his room(fun story for the end).  So I made a bunch of measurements and set to work on looking up beds pirate ships and everything in between.  Now there are really awesome pirate beds out there and alot of things I wanted to add to just make this bed the best but my kids room is not the size of a master bedroom and I did not want him to just have a bed in his room so I had to make it practical.  So after I had an idea of what I was going to do I went and bought some lumber.  I had a few ideas on the shape but was having a hard time drawing it out for some reason.  So Captain Jack (Traves) came in and free handed the shape(thanks captain).  So we cut it out made a frame out of 2x6's(I  know a little extreme but as I said my kid tears up his room).  We then attaches the side panels then made the inner panels and attached them.  That leads us to where I remembered to start taking photos.  Now I put them in order like so: the back, the inside, and the side.  Hope you enjoy.

So I was going to make the back panel higher so he could stand on the step and steer but it just looked funny so I made it short.  I should have made the step a hidden cubby but wasn't thinking of it and it was to late by the time I did think of it.

I wanted the decorative arch on top to hide the helm if you looked at it from the front.  I loved how it made the bed look  I actually busted the first one I made.  It wasn't up to par with the stand up to my kid idea so I made this much tougher one. 

I was going to do alot more painting on the back but I thought it a waste as the helm covers alot of it.  I'm still trying to come up with a name for the ship and once I do I'm going to paint or get a vinyl sticker and put it across the bottom of the step.  I liked how it turned out though and Ethan love steering his boat into dock each night before bed.

So as you can see the decorative piece did not quite hide the helm on my second attempt I didn't have as much wood.  I again had a couple of ideas hos I wanted it to look but this one fit this ship the best.

this is the inside.  This just fits his toddler bed mattress.  He doesn't have enough room in his room for a full mattress and pirate bed so he will only get to use this bed for a couple years. 

Just showing the inside steps of painting it.

This is the inside complete.  Didn't know how to hide the steering support without making the back thicker. 

Alright the bed.  So As I said earlier I spent alot of time looking at different pirate bed and pirate ships.  I saw lots of things I liked.  One thing I liked was a trim  boarder.  First it protects the bed edge from getting as hammered and it adds to the look.

Here it is all attached.  

At this stage I have it all built I'm just getting ready to fill all the holes and cracks.

All filled and sanded.  Propped up the port holes to just give me an idea of what they were going to look like.

 OK so picking a paint scheme. I thought a lot about it.  Funny seeing I'm color blind.  I thought about staining it, painting it solid black, painting waves on the bottom.  I looked at a lot of pictures, models, toys of pirate ships trying to figure it out.  I then stumbled across a pirate ship that just looked awesome.  It's bold and stands out over your average pirate ship.  I passed it off with Kelsie ( she gets say when it comes to colors as she can see them) and went and got paint.

Well now painting that's a project in its self.  I wanted it to look amazing so I had to picture it first. I started with the red first.

I then taped it off and painted the black.  I also added the insignia it will be in another post.

The back was looking a little plain so I added some windows.  I was going the cut out some frames and attach but at this point I was ready to be getting done not adding more time.  I just taped off a window frame and painted it.

 Sorry the photos dusty that's what we get in a wood shop.  Here it is though with all the black done.

This was a project in it self but as I have said I'm horrible with taking photos.  You can not have a pirate ship with out a cannon.  I just took a 4x4 blank and turned this on my lathe.  Ethan carried it around my shop the whole time blasting everything.

Just another photo of the cannon I think this is every bodies favorite part of the ship.  the design is simple and you can remove it and attach something else.  I have not made anything else to add yet.

After the black I went back and taped off for the white section. 

Here it is all done in my shop.  I was so happy it was done it took me about a month to build..  That was me only building when I could on the weekends and sometimes through the week.  Ethan asked me everyday from the time I started til it was in his room when his bed would be done. 

          At this point I needed to get it in his room.  So in the beginning I took all kinds of measurements so I knew how big it could be.  Right before I started I was in my shop talking to The Captain and said " I don't know if this will fit up the stairs and into his room".  At which point he goes into my house.  I assumed that he was checking as he came out about five minutes later and said it would.  Fast forward to going up the stairs.  Shawn(another friend of mine) was at the top and I was at the bottom carring the bed and he was telling me there was no way it was going in.  Traves was standing at the bottom and says to me " didn't you check before you made it?".  I then blunder at him how I thought he had checked before we started he then tells me" no I was going to the bathroom and getting some water".  So we come back done and set it in my kitchen.  You know when your mad but the fact that you can't believe what you heard its funny that's where I was right then.  So I go up the stairs and down about 6 times measuring and looking at the bed. I was sure I could get it in.  So we took it up a different way and had to shimmy it in but we got it in.  Of course The Captain says to me after "I told you it would fit".  

After we got it in I then made it and put all his pirate buddy's on his bed.  He was waiting out on the stairs for me to let him in.  He loved it he played with it for a couple hours after it was in.  He still talks to me about his pirate bed when ever I put him to bed.  I'm glad he likes it and I'm excited to build my nephews themed bed next.