Arts & Crafts

I am rather pleased how my 'Flower Table' has turned out.

The Raw Materials for the table.

Empty Coffee canisters, scrap lumber from pallets and some plywood from last year.



The finished product.



Next week or so I will get to the garden center and buy the flowers, still too cool here just yet. I'll post another photo when the flowers are in and the table is outside in the back yard.

I made a log lamp. My first attempt, so I screwed a few things up but it works. Always lessons to be learned the first time you attempt something.

The log is from a cutting off my pear tree, so it is pear tree wood.

The log is impeded in a resin base and then small wood blocks under the base to give it some cord clearance.

This one I left the bark on for that rustic look, the 2nd one I am working on I am removing the bark and just having a wood stand. It will be a cutting of a maple tree in my yard.

TL/DR I made a map of THEDAS coffee table.

Story:

There is a derelict house a few houses down from me (why it has not been demo'd and repurposed I have no idea.), I noticed a junked coffee table laying on it's side near the alley (cheap Walmart special table) it had two of it's legs kicked or broken off and there it lay.

I looked at it as I passed by a few days and thought, 'that top actually looks pretty solid I think I can do something with that.' But then again do I really need more junk wood? So I left it, finally a few days later as I was weed whacking near the back of my house I think, 'Screw it, if it is still there I am taking it.' So I walked down the alley and grabbed the table top and broken legs and brought them back to my garage/wood shop.

Now what to do with it, then I recalled thinking of making a map table top a few years ago so I chose a map of THEDAS. The existing top would not due for art work so I cut some 3/4 inch plywood the same shape as the top.

I then sanded it (as it was rough) and stained it to bring out the wood grain.

Next came the tough work, transposing a map onto it. I used the grid method for transposing a small map onto the large table top. (Same number of Grids on paper map I got from the internet and grid-lines drawn on the table top. Grid by grid I used a pencil to draw features and names and such.

Once that was done I used acrylic paints to paint over the pencil lines. Once all painting was done I gave it about 3 coats of a glossy protection varnish finish.

Just the table top:



Table top attached to table:

Studio Blue Ocean going even more insane than ever before. This is an astonishing masterpiece.

I put some stuff in the ground and it had the indecency to start growing. I have a tiny tiny tiny little (very small) bit of soil between buildings. 'Bout 2sq meters. Potato plants in back, green onions and garlic out front.

Something that I originally did not intend to take seriously has grown out of proportion. Aaaand I don't know a think about gardening. I've been throwing water and vague looks of astonishment at it and it seems to be working.

Any suggestions about what to do next or what I've done wrong would be appreciated.

I made a fibre optics log lamp.





The optics were moving around due to my air conditioner in the 2nd image thus the bit of blur. The fibres actually have about 6 colours that you can set them to or have them cycle through. It just so happens that in these photos it was on purple for both images.