After taking a little time(which is not to often there is any extra laying around) and measuring the radius's of the tools I determined that the mini spoons and bowls(salt cellars) needed to be a little larger. Both the length and spoon head are much easier to create and finish at this size. They may not be as cute but the price will be at $20 for a set. The bowls are about 2.50" wide and 3.75" long. The depth of the bowls vary from .75 "to 1.25".
Happy Birthday Tucker. Hope you like and use your bowl. Be sure to thank Roberta. It was her idea to make you a football bowl.

It looks like the Boss will be resigning from her position. Yep she's going to go back into the work force. Looks like trying to get her employee to get some work done was a little overwhelming. She also has her eye on a cheap purse.
Due to the cold weather and swinging a hammer(not having time to cut fresh wood) I rummaged around the shop for slabs of crotch and burl set aside for special projects. You already saw the walnut crotch so here is some nice cherry. The pestle has a pretty spot of burl on one end. Mortar and pestle are$40 and should have more made up from that tough hickory.











Friday night the boss had full control of the TV(free HBO and Cine. chick flic weekend). So it's in the shop to play. Last summer I really enjoyed hand carving little snake spoons at the Markets. They take about an hour to make. Cherry is the best to use because the grain is so tight and you can get pieces very thin with out breaking.

Crotch Walnut...... Pictures do not show the true beauty of the grain. This scoop was designed with a flat end to be able to scrape the bottom of the pot to get the last bit. It can serve a whooping 1o oz. of soup. Instead of ladling 3 times you can fill your bowl with just one scoop.

Well,,,, It happened yesterday. Started swinging the hammer doing some trim in an old 2 story garage. Nothing plum or level according to the law of physics. They have been waiting a year to get this done. This will take some time. Time that will be scarce. Exactly 3 weeks before a planned show in Brooksville FL. and the need to be making bowls. Remembering the stress at the age of 30 that was brought on by the urge to carve and the need to actually make money. Things are different now. Having a little more patience and a little more scheduling skills. Get into the shop early for a few hours then off to swinging. Actually that stress that I had then was intenseified by not having a market to sell my carvings. With out a marketable product to boot. Having quit construction and spending 3 days at Kiptopeke State Park to figure out what the heck is going on. Looking back it is amazing to see how doors were opened. On leaving the park the Ranger asked about my stay. When told about being a carver he invited me to come back in a month and sell carvings at a 2 day event(wow). Got back home went to Woodcraft to get supplies for bird carving and was asked to teach classes and work there part time(wow). These events could be veiwed as just happenings, but my expeirience was much more than happenings. Three days of pain, did that really have to happen to get to today? One day of life changing happenings, how about that. Spent three days of painfull prayer only asking what to do.

Made a vain attempt to carve 30 spreaders yesterday. 22 finished with 11 more almost there. In the middle of production had a tool breakdown. It never fails to happen right when your in your groove. Cranked up bluegrass blaring and fully focused on where my fingers are in relation to the grinder(that will give you a nasty rash very quickly). When you run a tool for
hundreds of hours under stress within a few months it's more than it can handle. The poor grinder got it's brushes replaced just 2 months ago! which should last a year. The disease "tool breakdown" in production work should always be added in the time per piece before you start your project if you do this for a living. I however, did not do this. Thinking oh, these can be done in a day. Needless to say it was a long 9am to 7pm $110 production day. Any body out there live on $110 a day?
You may notice that sets of 3,4,5 look quite similar. If you cut the top profile out of a thicker piece then slice off to the right thickness you can reduce your time cutting out each individual piece thus saving time. I still wound up with an average of 25 minutes per piece. Selling the spreaders for $5 each will not get momma a cheap purse.

Hey all, Having a happy New Year yet? Things have slowed down to a comfortable pace now. I feel like I can make some fun(different) stuff. Still have to get into production work but not right away. Some types of pieces Like this little cherry(5x8x1.5 $40) take more time to create which are nice but also take longer to sell and this poor boy has a hungry little mouth to feed plus momma needs another purse. Really, Lillie(dog) only weighs 8lbs. and momma just bought a cheap purse(for her vast collection). Last week was good for spoons and salt cellars. What do you think of the short handle ladle/scoop?








Carved up these large maples(18x12x5 $100 each) two weeks ago. Pretty sure they are ready to go. Each had a crack in the end grain which are now closed tight. They are also the last of the red maple from my back yard. Having received five maple trees from different areas over the years each look so distinct.

Hope everyone is having a Happy New Year so far. As you can see Daisey had a little to much hooch to drink.




I carved up this Carolina wren for a friends mother as a Christmas gift. It's been a few years since any bird carving has happened out in the shop. Really enjoyed making it and think I'll make some more of other birds sticking their heads out of a chunk of wood.