Praying for Newton, Connecticut

Let it Snow Sled

Here's a another little sled I made from pallet wood and pine and then hand painted, you can see the first one here

It can be hung on a wall, or used on the table as a display.

The whole sled is red, and is distressed.  The top is hand painted with "Let it Snow" and three snowflakes.

Runners are 22" long, and the sled is 9 1/2" wide and comes with a white rope pull.

Available for sale.

Sharing at:
My Repurposed Life
French Country Cottage
Shabby Art Boutique
Funky Junk Interiors
Beyond the Picket Fence
Knick of Time
Cowgirl Up
The Chicken Chick
Sneaky Spoons

Merry Christmas Sled

Here's a little sled I made from pallet wood and pine and then hand painted:

It can be hung on a wall, or used on the table as a display.

The runners and cross pieces are red, the top is stained and painted with a red reindeer silhouette.

Runners are 22" long, and the sled is 9 1/2" wide and comes with a twine twisted rope pull.

Available through etsy here

Sharing at:
Coastal Charm
be colorful
Three Mango Seeds
My Repurposed Life
Homespun Happenings
Common Ground

Christmas Items - Direction signs

Here is something else I made with a Christmas theme.

These are copyrighted, please do not copy them for sale, as I am selling mine on etsy, thank you.

To give an idea of the size, the ELVES' WORKSHOP sign is 14" long and the whole item is 15 1/2" tall. 

You can purchase one of these by clicking here

Christmas Items - North Pole

I made a few things with a Christmas theme and will be posting them over the next few days.

These are copyrighted, please do not copy them for sale, as I am selling mine on etsy, thank you.

This North Pole sign © is 33" high from the base to the tip of the gold ball:

You can purchase one of these by clicking here

Sharing at:
My Repurposed Life

Routed out Serving Tray

I decided to use some of my wood stock to make some trays. The first one I made is a routed out serving tray.

I started with a piece of birch that I planed down and cut to the size of 25" long x  7 1/2" wide x 13/16" thick:

For 3" at each end, on the underside of the piece, I routed out a depth of  5/16" using a bowl bit:

(This was cleaned up afterwards with a sander.)

Here you can see the profile of the tray from the side:

I then drew out a rectangle 17 1/4" x 6 1/2" that I would route out inside the tray on the top side:

I proceeded to route out  3/8" deep

Once it was routed out I sanded, sanded and sanded some more:

I coated the whole board with mineral oil, let that soak in and then coated it again:

This tray will be available for sale here at my blog or through my website

follow your heart woodworking

and also at the upcoming 

Witty Artisan Christmas Craft Show

on Dec. 2, 2012 at the Portage Restaurant in North Bay, ON

Sharing at the following blogs:

Funky Junk Interiors

My Repurposed Life

Homespun Happenings

Coastal Charm

Elizabeth & Co.

No Minimalist Here

Great View!

This is the view tonight out of my kitchen, dining room and living room windows:

Hard to beat! (Thanks for the great camera, Jon)

Rudolph Again

This is a link back to an old post, one of the first I wrote and maybe not seen by many.
I just put Rudolph up again on my barn door for Christmas this year.

Here's the link to the old post Rudolph Lives Here! which shows how I made it.

Sharing at:
Funky Junk Interiors
Three Mango Seeds
DIY Showoff
Too Much Time on my Hands
My Repurposed Life
Shabby Art Boutique
Jennifer Rizzo
Elizabeth & Co.

Beyond the Picket Fence

Wedding Signs

Isn't this just a beautiful photo!

Photo provided by Expressions Photography

I was contacted by a local bride-to-be after she saw an online ad for my wedding signs.  She had some ideas in mind and said there were signs she saw online elsewhere and that she would like some made similar to those.  Imagine my surprise when, of all the blogs and online creative people, she chose signs made by Gail at My Repurposed Life!   Not only are the bride and myself in Northern Ontario, but Gail is my online friend and lives a long way away in Kentucky.

I contacted Gail asking her if it was okay to copy her and she graciously said to go ahead and make them and then she even supplied me with the font name.  Gail is the absolute best, thanks Gail! xoxo

So, Sarah decided on the wording for her signs which I made out of old barn boards and hand painted.

She also wanted a Bride and Groom sign for the backs of their chairs:

Photo provided by Expressions Photography

Photo provided by the bride - thanks Sarah

Photo provided by the bride

I am so happy to work with brides, they appreciate having something made just as they have pictured in their minds.  Brides have been so friendly to me, I work through emails back and forth with them figuring out sizes, fonts, wood types, etc. and they always are happy to see their signs come to life.

I provided Sarah with a little extra sign and was surprised to see in the wedding photos that it had even appeared at the reception

Photo provided by Expressions Photography

Thanks so much to  Sarah (and Darryl) for choosing me to make these special signs for their big day and to Tanya and Sean at Expressions Photography in North Bay, ON for sharing these photos with me so that I could show them to my blog readers.

Perhaps I can make a sign for you?  See more wedding signs at my website here.


I was featured at this great site:

Showing my signs at these parties:
My Repurposed Life
House of Hepworths
Homespun Happenings
Funky Junk Interiors
Too Much Time on my Hands

We interrupt this blog for... Tybee Island

from Mermaid Cottages

We drove down from our house in Northern Ontario to spend 4 days on Tybee Island, Georgia! We rented a Mermaid Cottage called "Made in the Shade."

A fabulous place... I'll blog about it later, but for now, I'm enjoying the sun and sand.

My Workshop - Part 6 - Paint and casings

My shop is divided into a front room that will be used for assembly and finishing and the larger workshop part at the back. Here’s a rough sketch of the layout:

Early in 2010 I painted all the OSB walls with 2 coats of Kilz original primer, this is the side wall:

The front room with insulation only:

and with the OSB:

I put two coats of primer on and then painted with white paint because I could still slightly see lines from the OSB through only one coat of primer:

The front window and door badly needed some casing:

First I made the window jambs, the bottom extends out and makes a sill: 
(these aren’t curved, it’s just poor photography on my part)

The casing is pine, covered with many coats of polyurethane:

The door has a matching casing style:

It looks so much nicer this way. The side windows have a matching casing style which I completed this year and already blogged about here with more detailed photos of each step.

A few more posts on the workshop and I'll be up to date...

My Workshop - Part 5 - Insulating and starting to paint

At this point, the building was up, it was winter (Nov. 2008) and time to insulate. Batts were placed in the attic walls between the studs at the end walls. Also we placed insulation between the ceiling joists, leaving an airspace at the top.

Here’s a view of the east side wall of my workshop before it was insulated:

Insulation started, this is the front of my workshop, you can see the front door and window and the electrical panel in the corner:

Excuse the mess, but here’s the stairs at the back of my workshop: 

In June of 2009, I got started on the painting on the garage side before all the OSB was up on my workshop side. I used Kilz Original and put on two coats. This was hard to do because you really have to push hard on the roller to get it in all the recesses in the OSB and my hand pain problem was not compatible with all that roller work. Anyway, I did do it, here is the back wall of the garage and the dividing wall with one coat:

I started moving my tools into the shop so I could work on some things while it was still being finished off.

At this point we stopped working on the garage and had to make wood sheds to hold the wood that would heat the garage/workshop and the house for the winter. The previous heating season we piled wood beside the outdoor furnace under tarps, which was not so much fun in -30C weather. We designed a shed for each side of the furnace that would each hold about 20 face cords.

Here they are finished with the steel roof on top and partially loaded:

Then in Sept. (2009) my husband put up the soffit and fascia around the outside of the garage/workshop so that no more animals or birds could get into the eaves, as we had birds nesting there in the spring:

... still more to come...
See WORKSHOP PART 6 here