Creative Woodworks & crafts-125-2007-Holiday, страница 27

to serve as the eyes, nose, and mouth. We would hunt through everybody's yards for the perfect branches to use as arms. To dress him up, wc added a hat, scarf, and an old pair of mittens or gloves.

Sometimes the snow didn't cooperate because it was too dry to pack, and sometimes our hard work just melted away the next day. But it was great fun! The "project" combined creativity and teamwork, ard we were all eager to do it again the next time it snowed. Over the years. I enjoyed making lots and lots of snowmen—first as a child, then with my kids. I thoroughly enjoyed those memories as I made this scroll-sawn version.

The Mischievous Tree Trimmers Clock, with its trio of tree-decoratirg elf troublemakers, will put a smile on a lot of people's faces. The project is a little tricky to saw, and some areas arc a bit fragile, but it's well worth the effort. We used a piece of "greenish"-colored poplar for our project, expecting the color to be perfect for the Christmas tree Unfortunately, the wood had a tendency to splinter out easily when drilling the holes for blade threading,

especially the areas cround the elves' eyes, we also chose to run the wood grain horizontally to best represent the pine tree branches, but that created some weak areas near ihe Chrislmas light bulbs. One of the bulbs even broke off when we removed fhe pattern! While these problems may have been caused by those mischievous elves, you might want to select a different species of wood and run fhe wood grair vertically.

Both projects are fun to make, and here's how to make yours,

INSTRUCTIONS

Cutting

Step 1. Selecf a clear, flat piece ot solid hardwood for your project. We used red ock with a very distinctive grain pattern for the snowman clock. Although we used poplar for the elves clock, a different species of wood may provide better results. Finish sand the surfaces to your desired smoothness.

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27 ■ Creative Woodworks S. Crafts Holiday 2007