We haven’t had a craft post in a while, and I know some of you are still waiting for your horses (they’ll come). I do have a larger work in progress that I can hopefully show you soon, but for most of this year I hit a creative dry spell with just being too exhausted after work.
Well, I got holidays and I used them for a little fun project. I wanted to do something with wood again and if you hit youtube, you’ll find dozens of “secret wood” tutorials (though why they’re called “secret wood” is a mystery to me, it’s quite obvious, isn’t it?), but I wanted to do something a little different:
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
© Giliell, all rights reserved
For these I used an old stick that was lying around and cut off some pieces. The bark had already withered away so I only cleaned them up lightly, leaving all the natural signs of withering in place. I then drilled a hole down the middle, starting with a size 5 drill and then going up to 10 over 8. After that I started to make the cuts with my little Dremel tool. In the green one I first tried to make two parallel cuts and then take out the wood in between, but that didn’t work that well, so I just make the cuts as wide as possible and then used other tools to define them. I think it will take a few more goes before I really get the hang of this.
Though this project showed again that my BFF J and I are actually one person leading two lives. I showed here these and said “I’ll need to ask your husband a favour” and she replied “you want to used some thicker wood and have him drill out the middle so you can insert some lights”, which is exactly what I’m planning to do.
And here’s one more thing, a leftover mermaid:
© Giliell, all rights reserved
I still had some green and blue resin left, so I made a pretty pendant. One of the easiest things to do with resin is to print out stuff on a transparency (got to be a laser printer, though) and then insert the result into the resin. Because my resin was starting to cure I couldn’t get the bubbles out, but for once I think they’re actually adding to the whole thing.
Very nice and I thought the bubbles were deliberate.
The last secret wood work looks so sweet (almost as if the resin were melted sugar).
The bubbles and the gradient are lovely for the mermaid.
The “print on film, embed in resin” trick is super clever!
When I see those guys on youtube, spinning big burls on a lathe, I want to scream and hide. I suppose it’s fairly safe but I wouldn’t trust wood at that speed. Hand tools, I approve of.
Brilliant. They’re totally charming and interesting, a bit like signposts to a carnival. I can’t wait to see them lit from inside.
Me, I’m just jealous. I suffer from “tool envy” in general, but woodturning is something I’d specifically want to try.
Oooh, I was already missing your resin projects! These are all lovely.