Some of this year's Christmas projects

[Edgar]

I made a set of bottle stoppers for my daughter and SIL and a doll house for my granddaughter.

The front 3 stoppers are corian - made from blanks that I got from Alice Call (elody21) in her Red Cross fundraiser last Sep. The wooden stoppers L-R are black walnut, ERC, padauk & maple laminate and bloodwood. I tried to make the laminated stopper look like a hot air balloon.

I built this doll house for my daughter about 30 years ago. After she played with it about 10 years and sitting in storage for the last 20 years, it was in need of repair, repaint, refurbishment and remodeling. I also repaired some of the original furniture and added some new pieces (didn't build any of the furniture though).

 

[mikespenturningz]

My father went through a time of making doll houses too. His were very much like yours. Very nice on all.

 

[Fishinbo]

Very pretty stoppers, have cool shapes and awesome finish. The doll house still looks amazing after 30 years, a great family heirloom for sure. Excellent job!

 

[Edgar]

Thanks - I used 1/2" birch plywood and the structural integrity of the house is as good as when I first built it. The only repairs needed were to replace the pine trim pieces on the ends of the removable front panel & some new chimney caps. Some of the original shingles were broken, but I chose not to replace them because I figured any new replacements would clash with the originals and I wasn't about to peel them all off & redo them if I didn't absolutely have to. It does have new paint inside & out and new flooring and wallpaper throughout.

When I built it for my daughter, I ran right up to Christmas trying to complete it and didn't have time to put a door & windows in the front panel, so it was just an unpainted front panel with cutouts. I planned to finish it after giving it to her for Christmas, but she enjoyed playing with it so much as it was that I never got that part finished until this year.

I seem to have a problem completing projects sometimes...