A friend gave me some live oak a while back, and while I’ve use smaller pieces for a few things, I had a fairly large chunk that I figured would make a bowl. It had bark inclusions and a few checks, and was generally pretty gnarly, but I mixed up some epoxy and red dye (too much red dye, based on the finished result) and filled and solidified the fragile bits, then turned this bowl.

I made a pair of boxes to hold pens recently. They're made with local wood, though I used some citrus from Arizona for accents. Both will be given away by a local non-profit at their anniversary celebration in October.

I built a screen for our fireplace recently, and am fairly happy with the result. The screen is for times when we’re not using the fireplace, since it looks dirty, and when the wind gusts, sometimes the damper blows open, and then we get a cold wind into the living room. This also greatly reduces the noise from wind blowing across the top of the chimney.

I finished another cholla and resin lamp this morning. Started pouring the resin for this in March or April, so it went somewhat quicker than previous lamps.

I made another touch control nightlight over the course of the past few months. The body is cholla and resin. The base is birch, and the top is sapele. It’s a nice red glow at its brightest, and barely noticeable at its dimmest, but it will last for over 80 hours on a charge at that brightness.

I've been wanting to learn more about bookbinding for a while, so when a Surprise Swap came up on Craftisian, I decided part of the build would be a box built with some bookbinding techniques.

Recently, the remote fob for my truck cracked. The plastic case lasted about 14 years, and gave out pretty catastrophically. So I took it apart and looked at how the case was constructed and figured I could make one out of wood that would probably outlast the truck, which is getting some rust spots from its time in Minnesota.

Every month, the Santa Fe Reporter has a drawing with a prize or prizes given to Friends of the Santa Fe Reporter (those who donate to help keep the paper running). I donate regularly, and often enter the drawings, but haven’t been a winner so far. But I decided it would be nice to give something, so I emailed Julie Ann Grimm and asked if she’d be interested in a pen and pencil set for a future giveaway at the Reporter. She thought that would be a great idea, and we tentatively settled on next January for when they’ll be given away.

I spent part of August slowly carving a mouse. I wasn’t especially happy with it, but it was too good to throw away, so I gave the mouse a leather tail and stood him on a piece of cholla cane I mounted to a chunk of wood that I had quickly carved round-ish.

A friend of mine in Virginia sent me some wood recently, which included a blank of “definitely not mulberry,” which he had picked up somewhere. It had pretty grain, but he hasn’t been turning a lot of bowls lately, so he passed it along to me.