Thursday, December 30, 2010

Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 4










Bjorn is the only male in the current Grandchild Spectrum, and he's all boy. He loves trucks and machinery and airplanes and rockets.

With one sister and four female cousins, I thought control might be an issue I could address with a gift for him.

Enter Bjorn's Master Control. The deck is about 14 x 16 inches, and none of the controls really does anything--by design. This is all about imagination and making the sounds yourself and he's good at that.

A lot of this flotsam I had in the shop and a trip to the Habitat for Humanity ReStore filled out the requirements. The obscure, enigmatic labels were scrounged from a large manifold evidently used in the brewing process somehow. They ended up getting close to this mark: Bjorn's dad is the operations manager at a resort water park--lots of valves, buttons and gauges.

Power on, Sir! Let me check the dials before I invert the chromdulating dyschortler!

Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 3





Maya, not present on The Day, collects Breyer horse books. And she needed a place to keep them. Just a bookcase, or bookbox, was hardly enough to justify her quests and her passion for this series.

I wouldn't call her a cowgirl, but I thought a little thematic stuff on the case would help make it special. And the top is big enough to rest her cowgirl hat, if she has a mind to get one.

Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 2






Lily is a princess, and Walt Disney had nothing to do with it. He just provides context. So the princess gets a Magic Imagination Box.

The container itself is pine. The coffered lid and the feet are figured maple.
Centered on the top is a "gold" coin, set in epoxy resin. Likewise in the bottom is the Special Key, set in quincunx fashion along with four costume jewelry pieces. Sprinkled throughout are some freshwater pearls.

What will be in there...the name of a handsome prince? The cell phone number of a magician who knows where the key goes? Magic stones?

Five Grandchildren, Five Projects, And a Pile o' Wrapping Paper: Part 1







First a disclaimer: Somehow we got into the dress up box before the Christmas unwrapping with three of the grandchildren. You'll see what I mean in the pictures.

Youngest is Emily, 14 months, who got the little rocker. I decided it wasn't going to be an animal, so I was thinking it would be swoopy like a bobsled, but it ended up being a self portrait, or so I'm told by many who see me much more than I see myself in the mirror. The rocker is a tour of woods often found in the shop: Quartersawn oak, big leaf maple, walnut, mahogany, hard rock maple, fir, birch and alder.

Next in age is Juni, who is a climber, especially since she escaped her spica cast (see an earlier post on this blog). I thought, as a card carrying grandpa, I should just make it easier for her to get up onto high things! The stepstool is all solid stock juniper with a waterborne polyurethane finish. She likes the place to put things--her stuff--which then becomes off limits to her sister Lily.

Continued...