Workshop Classes

 I am starting up classes again.  I am running these a little differently,  It is not a 14 week class but a couple of ours.  Right now I am only having 2 people at a time because I have two work spaces for separation.  My first two classes were for kids 1-3rd grade.  We made a name plaque and a tow truck.  They painted and put them together.  Sorry I forgot to take pictures of the tow truck.  Each class was about an hour long.  I will be working up to larger projects but I also want to include projects for the younger kids also.  Overall, I think the kids had fun.  It is easier for me to let other kids do projects than let my kids do it on their own.  These classes are promoted through facebook groups and the next door app.

Color experimenting

 I am working on putting together workshops for kids to learn and make some things out of wood.  My struggle has been the painting.  Young kids really like painting and coloring there stuff so I need to come up with a solution.  

Here are the things I have thought about:

• 
  Markers - may not be very messy but also not very affordable.  Wood and markers also don't go together well because wood is more abrasive than paper and will wear down the tips quickly.  On the positive side they do not make a mess and they will clean up with water.  They also dry fast.
• Acrylic paint - It is a lot more messy, stains clothes, and takes forever to dry because kids layer it on pretty thick.  It is also uses more stuff because brushes need to be cleaned and rinsed with water.  On the plus side it is cheap and one bottle can be used multiple times.
• Paint pens - are not affordable and have chemicals that I don't want kids using.
• Food dyes - are thin and dry quickly.  They are too liquid for me to have kids use.  
• Water color pallets - They are about a $1 a piece on amazon so they are affordable if they are reusable.  Mixing colors and contamination is very likely when kids use them

I tried making my own.  I tried two things: drying out acrylic paint and drying out food coloring.  These were dried on parchment paper because that is what I had.  I put aluminum foil under the food dies because I was not sure if it would bleed through.  It did not. Here are some of the key observations that I made.

 Acrylic paint comes in many colors and food dyes typically come in four so I did have to make some of my own colors and I did not have black or white.

• The yellow dye looks a lot like orange
• The acrylic paint dried in about 24 hours.  The dyes did not seen to dry after 72 hours
• The dyes stain my hands while the paint washed of with soap, water and a little scrubbing.
• The acrylic paint rehydrated with some water and a paint brush.  it did stake some work and the colors were translucent and not opaque.

The next step is to see how the parchment paper holds up to kids and painting.  The other nice thing that was nice with the paint was the viscosity.  I could put the paint down and put another piece of parchment on top.  Pat it down a little bit and peel the two sheets apart.  I now had two painting papers.

Puzzle Ornaments

 This is another pattern that I found on the web.  Thought it looked interesting and I had some scrap that I could try them out on.  I like the idea.  My execution and final assembly was not good.  My hole for the ribbon was too big.  I drilled it at 1/4" and I should have made it closer to 1/8".  I think the patterns could have used a little work also.  Not all the pieces lock together.  It is a pet peeve of mine if they don't.  Painting them was not difficult and added a nice touch.  I don't know if I will do these again, but I might actually take the idea to some line art in the web.  I also might consider making them bigger and changing some of the lines.  Again, I liked the idea and the concept is good.  I fault myself on the execution and look.

This Year’s Christmas Ornament

This was a crazy year for me.  I had the nativity ornament already picked out.  The wood choice for the family ornament is poplar.  There is not much special about poplar.  It is considered a hard wood even though it is pretty soft.  This wood is always in stock in my shop because it is what I use to make the toys that I designed for the first time.  It is also what I make most of my toys I donate.  It paints very well and is inexpensive.  Poplar will always have a place in my shop. 

It came clear in April that another ornament would need to be made.  I found a couple designs and saying on Etsy about this pandemic.  The ornaments I found were laser engraved.  I took them and cut out then used paint pens to paint the designs in paint pens.  The lesson learned from this project is that carbon paper does not wipe off with a little bit of water.  It is my first-time using carbon paper where I was not going to sand it off.  I wanted to copy the lettering, but it was not going to work out.  I used my own handwriting than a decorative lettering.  I will not be offering these to the public because I took the design from someone else.  These are going to family and coworkers.  When I started these, the coworkers were not very many so they were made out of solid wood.  I had a team of four and a couple of others in the office.  I was let go due to the pandemic.  After a short time, I was rehired by the parent company of the company I worked for in California.  This made my coworker pool increased a lot.  I took some ¼” plywood and painted one side white.  I then cut out and painted them.  I actually like the white painted ones better then wood ones I made.

That is this year's ornament.