Working Wednesday: The Making of a Vase

Scott has gotten a lot of questions from people interested in how he made the purpleheart and holly vase that was custom ordered from our Etsy store:

Scott has gotten a lot of questions from people interested in how he made this purpleheart and holly vase that was custom ordered through our Etsy store.

You may remember having seen some photos of it as a work in progress here and here. (At the time, it was being bought as a gift for someone who follows our blog, so I had to be very careful not to give too many hints about it!

Here is Scott's description of how his custom design was crafted:

A few people have asked about how the Purpleheart and Holly vase was made. These (below) are a few of the 'spare' parts. Often I'll make 'spare' parts, especially if I suspect that the alignment is a bit tight and that the cuts may not all be perfect, or if there are flaws in the wood that may or may not end up in the final piece. Then later I can select the best parts for the final assembly.

 The circle at the bottom is the first step, cut from a solid board with a hole saw. The size was carefully measured and a forsner bit used to cut a matching semi-circle into the side of a holly board. There is a picture elsewhere of all of the circles being glued and clamped into place. The holly board is run through the tablesaw thrice, once to cut the Purpleheart circles flush with the top of the holly, once to cut the holly/purpleheart into a loose stick, and a final time to arrive at segments with matching purpleheart semi-circles attached to holly in right trapezoidal segments (shown in the middle).

The ring at the top is what was left of the stick that the segments came out of... just a nick of the purpleheart circle attached to the waste piece of holly. I'm going to have to come up with a project to put that one in, even if I usually figure out a ring as part of a bowl, not a bowl that will hold a specific ring. Aviva has already claimed the result as hers. :)

Be sure to look at the links above to see some of the photos when Scott was in process on the feature ring.

Working Wednesday

I have launched into making another batch of fanciful flowers that will ultimately become brooches and hair candy.

Even though I've done this many, many times, it still amazes me how the flat circles of organza, satin and other fabrics turn into ruffly edged, three dimensional petals.

I generally do these in small batches, unless I have a custom order for a particular color that I need to finish asap.

I start out like this:

And eventually, I end up with a mountain of this:

The next step, of course, will be to layer petals together and sew them into a flower, which will get a felt backing that's mounted on various forms of hardware.

And that's what I'm working on this Wednesday. How about you?

Photo Friday: How I Work

I do almost all my crafting in our family room, usually sitting on the couch with my feet up. I have this tray with a vintage Coca-Cola ad on it that I bought a million years ago at a garage sale, never imagining it would become my crafting station. (Heck, back then, I never expected to be crafty.)

Since I've been playing with beading, that's what was left out on my tray. I'm using the pink silicone pad that's intended for using underneath a hot glue gun because it helps keep the beads from rolling away from me.

In the upper left corner are my bifocals, which are helpful while beading but absolutely, completely necessary for threading a beading needle. (Sigh. When did I turn middle aged?) Also some Nymo beading thread. The tubes and baggies of beads are pretty self evident, as is the scissors. The funny looking metal circles are a half-ball cover button kit (in case I'm not the only one who had never seen one before).

So there you go -- a peek into how/where I'm working. :)