Arrow for a wedding reception

A young woman in our ward is getting married and her reception is in a recreation area.  She wanted a big arrow with lights to direct people to the reception.  They had a picture of how they wanted it to look.

It was actually quite fun figuring out how to put it together and how to do the lights.  Got the frame put together pretty easily.  Cut some 1/4 inch plywood for the middle part, put sheetrock mud on it for texturing and then drilled holes for the lights to go in.

I read the box wrong and thought there were 40 lights, so I drilled 40 holes.  After I got everything painted and lights installed, I realized it was 40 watt and had only 25 lights.  I thought at first I could do another string of lights and drill 10 more holes.  Decided that would be too many lights, so I redid the middle part of the arrow, did the texturing and let it dry while I was in Illinois.

Last night, drilled 24 holes, painted the middle part of the arrow and installed the lights.  Also put hooks on the arrow for them to hang it.

It turned out being about 39 inches long and about 24 inches wide, at the widest part.  Wedding is Thursday and I delivered it last night.

Another Illinois trip

Last week went to Illinois to help my sister.  Had lots of jobs to do around the house and got all of them done. Woo hoo!!!

One thing that needed fixing was the stairs on the back deck.  Needed to add a railing.  The weather did not cooperate, so I had to run in and hide from the lighting, thunder and massive rain storms, but we got the railings done and got a coat of poly on them to protect from the rain.

Got the kitchen faucett replaced, it was dripping, got the dog to the vet and the groomer, did some touch up painting in the kitchen, weeded the flower beds and restack the brick.  The flower bed had to be redone next time.  Ran out of time.  Need to do a better job on the brick, but the weeds and uglies are out of the flower bed

Great trip.  Got lots done and had fun visiting.

Davis Bradley Mann's blessing

Sunday, October 14th was Davis' blessing.  Jacob and Becca live in Lehi.  Davis was 3 months when he was blessed and beautiful Bailey is about 2 1/2.  Such beautiful kids and a great little family.

Jacob gave a beautiful blessing for Davis.

Remodel the shop

The woodshop is in constant change; remodel to make more stuff fit, move stuff around, use space more effeciently, on and on and on.

This past weekend, I put cabinets up on the east wall to increase storage space.

Priced the cabinets at Home Depot, Lowes and IKEA.  IKEA was $20 cheaper per cabinet.  After I put them together and hung them, I would buy a ton of cabinets from IKEA.  Their methods and how they go together was incredible. 

I put five cabinets between the window and then end wall.  Doing three more cabinets between the door and the window.  Eight cabinets total and lots of storage.  I have several tools on wheels and I like having them mobile so when I am working on long pieces of wood, I can move them around.  This allows me to park the tools under the cabinets on that east wall, but still have lots of storage space.

Little Tweeks on Beesley's Flag Case

A few weeks ago, I called Trooper Aaron Beesley's wife to see if she needed help getting the flag case set up with Aaron's medals.  She said she had gotten that set up fine, but the flag was too bulky to fit in the case and the door would not stay closed.  I used rare earth magnets to hold the door closed, but that was not doing it.

She also said that all his badges and medals were making the satin covered foam, sag in the case and asked if I could fix that.

My new miracle cure for what ails me is Industrial Strength Velcro.  Put velcro on the back of the foam and on the back inside of the cabinet to help hold up all the medals, pins, etc.

Bought some brass clasps and mounted those on the side of the cabinet to help hold the door closed.

All in all, the cabinet looks really good.

BYU Football

Utah State University  was playing BYU in Provo.  A few months ago, I invited all the kids to go to a football game.  Musingi's came down for the weekend, Jacob went and Louise went with us.  Mariah and her family went to Disneyland that weekend, so they could not come with us.

The kids had a ball.  The band was great.  The crowd the great.  The weather was a bit chilly, but  light coats felt good.  The game....well it was not that exciting.  I had hoped for more scoring and more excitement for the kids, but they had fun.

Slaying dragons!!

I have had a list of projects to get done and luckily I have been able to get alot of them completed.  The arrow above is for a wedding reception for a young woman in our ward.  She wants to be able to mount some small lights on the arrow and use it some how in her reception decoration.  I still need to put the wood through the middle so they have some where to attach the lights, but wanted to make sure the size was what they wanted.  This means 49 inches long.

This is a stand for an iPad.  Scott has a co-worker who's daughter was involved in a car accident several years ago and it has left the daughter bed ridden.  The daughter loves to use the iPad, but it moves around on her table.  Made this out of walnut.  The biggest unknown on this was at what angle she needed the iPod to sit, so the block behind the main board is one of three that I made.  The leading edges on the blocks are cut at three different angles.  The blocks are attached to the base with industrial strength velcro.  As the iPad is put on the stand, it will be held at whatever angle they decide.  The wood is walnut,with hand rubbed Watco Danish Oil.

Last week I finished cutting all the wood for the Relief Society craft meeting.  I cut about 20  of the turkey/sucker holders.  They are in a previous post.  I also cut three of these witches boots for a neighbor.  I really liked the pattern, so I cut enough so we had a pair at all of our grandkids houses.  Musingi's were down this weekend, so we painted witches boots during conference.  Painting with kids is always an adventure, but we had fun. 

Shop Time!!!

Been busy in the shop lately.  I do the missionary plaques for our ward.  I buy the rough cut walnut, make all kinds of saw dust, glue them together, route the edges and then sand the heck out of them.  Once they have alot of oil on them, I take the plaques to an engraving shop and they engrave the map of the country where the missionary is going, as well as their favorite scripture.

We have had four young men in our ward get their missionary callings, so I did a bunch of plaques.  Those are done and ready to go.

The Relief Society is getting ready for their fall craft meeting and asked me to cut some things out of wood.  The turkey's are small, probalby only about 4 or 5 inches across.  They asked for five, I did ten and then found out last night I need to do five more.  Just when you think you are ahead???

Then they asked me to do some witches boots.  I really liked these.  Got the RS ones done and made a bunch for the grand kids.

These could work for witches boots or elf shoes, depending on how they are painted.  Have to get some paint and now I have a project for the grandkids to paint.  They like helping!!