Other Christmas Presents

This Christmas I had very little money to give gifts to my family. I made this wooden basket for my Mom. I used a 2x10 I got from the "call cart" at home depot. Everything in the cart has something wrong with it, So things were cheaper. The 2x10 I bought was only $2.00. I planed down the wood, sanded it, and cut out the weave design with the scroll saw. After shaping and sanding I glued the 5 layers of the basket together. while it was gluing I made the handle on the scroll saw as well and shaped it with a drum sander. I wrapped it up as is so my mom could decide what color she wanted it painted or stained. I also made her a Christmas ornament out of scrabble pieces that spelled out JOY.

Click the jump for the rest of the gifts I made.

Here is a flashdrive I made for kelly. Well I shaped and hollowed the wood pulled the parts from an existing drive I had. kelly has been borrowing my flashdrive for about a year now, and it was time for her to have her own.  It is an 8 gig sandisk drive wrapped with a scrap piece of hardwood laying around. I say hardwood because I'm not sure if it was cherry or oak. I made the light on the drive visible by drilling a hole into the wood before inserting the drive. then filled the hole with hot glue. When I sanded it before staining the hot glue smoothed out very nicely. I used this method with the clock I made and would really recommend it for any future projects it might be effective. The cap fits on very snug. It was too loose at first but I squeezed some more glue into the cap and used the soldering iron to coat the inside until it fit better. On the drive I wrote her a little Christmas note.

For my dad I made 4 coasters out of Popsicle sticks that look like pallets.  I originally wanted to make him a tape dispenser for all the tape in the garage but I ran out of time. I used really strong super glue I got at a hobby store. Cant remember the name of it at the moment though. After I finished gluing I brought the coasters out to the scroll saw and cut the ends of the sticks. The end result really did look like coasters. The idea for pallet coasters isn't original by any means though I have seen countless others do it all over the internet. I don't think he has quite finished giving up on that blue towel just yet.

For my niece and nephews I made these little wooden cards that I called adventure tickets. I basically promised that once a year they could individually ask to hangout with me and I would take them out to do something fun. They really seemed to like them. however now I will have to free up 5 random Saturdays a year for the rest of my life.