Keepsake Box

While I was surfing on the Internet I found the following Keepsake box. I liked the closing system of this box and also found it quite simple to create a similar one. I did not want to make an exact copy of the original one, I wanted a bit higher one and to decorate the top with some carving.

Creating the dovetail sliding seemed very easy on the video, but I do not have a router table, so I had to figure out something else. Firstly I wanted to create this by cutting out the dovetail hole with a saw and clean out it wit chisels, but soon I realized that I didn't have enough manual skill to make it perfectly flat to allow the other part sliding smoothly in it. So I decided to make the top from 3 parts and glue them together. It also took a while to plane the parts of the top in the exact angle to fit well, but it was much easier and flattering than using chisels.

When I was ready with the top and the bottom, I created the corners and the remaining part of the dovetail from a different type of wood to have some pattern of the materials.

Finally I carved a small flower pattern to the top of the box and finished with varnish. With the carving on the top of the box has the following looking:

One more shot from a different angle:

Finally an opened view:

Jewelry Box

Since I have started working with wood my girlfriend was always pushing me to create a jewelry box for her, even if she does not have too much jewelries. I thought this is a compulsory task for every man who has started to do anything of wood.

I did not have any experience with box creating and joinery so I asked some help from an experienced one of my relatives and also had proper tools for cutting and planing. So he helped me to create the box.

When it was ready I just wanted to put some simple but nice carving on the top. I draw several patterns and borders and finally I chose this one:

I also covered the bottom of the box with some soft material:

And also the drawers:

Finally I put a hinge between the body and the top:

Salad Spoons

After my previous spoon and the paddle I realized that these kind of things are not really usable, at least nowadays, and I don't have place for them in my flat, because they are not really in harmony with the style of it. I wanted to make something more useful and usable thing.

My girlfriend is a vegetarian and she would be pleased with a pair of salad spoons, so I had the plan. I just needed some material to do it. I had only some soft wood for carving, but those were not good for everyday usage, I wanted some harder wood. I remembered that last year my parents, who are living on the countryside, had cut down some bigger branches from their nut tree and these branches are just drying under a roof and waiting to be burnt . So I thought some of them would be good for this task. Next time when I visited them, I checked these branches and I found a trunk which can provide me a pair of spoons. I cut into two pieces and draw the design of the spoons on the wood. With a jigsaw I cut the shape of the spoons following the lines and with knives I carved to the final shape. At the end I sanded them and covered with some paraffin oil.

Wooden Spoon

While I was surfing on the Internet I saw a lot of nicely carved wooden spoons. I decided to create one. I took a piece of alder wood and created a simple design.

Paddle

I am not a big folk fan, but a paddle could be a good task for practice. The material was shaped, I just had to do the carving. I searched a lot on the Internet for patterns and samples. When I had a larger collection of the patterns I tried to draw a composition of folk motives on the surface of the wood. This was the hardest part, the carving was much easier than I expected.

Finally I had this:

And the other side:

Glass Pads

After warming up with the wooden egg, my interest was focused on carving, so I started to collect some information about carving on the Internet (patterns, tools, etc.). Finally I found a local guy who prepares carving tools. I visited to this guy and bought some carving knifes. He was very kind and also sold me some pre-prepared material to start my activity. It was some lime tree and he told me that this is most suitable for a beginner.

So, I had the lumber and the tools. After some chip carving practice I decided to create some glass pads to our coffee table. I wanted a simple design of folk style and the result is the following: