It’s good to flex the brain and learn a new skill every now and again, bonus if it turns out you love it and have a ton of fun! 🙂
There’s a project I want to do in the future – with mosaics – and I was told I’d likely need to use a bandsaw to accomplish it. I don’t have one of those and hadn’t used one before – but noticed a local shop ( KJP Select Hardwoods ) was offering a class on how to make a bandsaw box.
Fine woodworking never grabbed my attention in the past. I’m more a functional wood stick-it-together-er type, not a maker of pretty wood things. I didn’t really care about making a box – even though it was cool looking in the promo picture. But figured the class would give me a chance to try a bandsaw, learn a bit and see if it was a tool I’d be comfortable using in the future.
Class day arrived and turned out we were only 2 students – both women, how neat is that! We had a super awesome teacher and with just 2 of us in the class we had the time to each make 2 boxes.
Turns out the bandsaw is way safer than I’d realized and is really neat to use! I absolutely loved making the boxes. They were each made from a single block of wood. It was such fun to cut them out, piece them together, see them come to life and the beauty of the grain when you put on a bit of wax at the end. I’m hooked. Not just on the bandsaw and it’s wonderful versatility but also on making these beautiful little boxes. Maybe some fine woodworking projects will be in my future after all. 😀
If you’re ever in the Ottawa, ON area, check out KJP Select Hardwoods. They’re great people and offer a ton of cool classes. They were amazing to me, not just in the class, but also in helping me figure out options for my future project. They gave me a ton of great tips and things to try that will make what I want to accomplish much better. My teacher for the class was Louis Boucher, super nice and a wonderful skilled instructor. He made everything easy to understand and created a great safe working environment. He teaches many places around the Ottawa area and has a couple of videos on YouTube about him (click here to see)
Here’s some pics from the fun day! Hope you all get a chance to learn something new soon too! 😀
Mercedes Mosaics 
I envy you, that’s it ! No less, no more
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😀 😀 😀 you made me giggle with that!! I envy that you wrote a book and published it!! 😀
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Beautiful boxes Mercedes and I can see you make mosaics on them in some way. You did say that you didn’t know what you wanted to do with them. Mosaic them on part of the box, the lid or the whole box and lid. I’m pretty sure that you will make beautiful boxes out of these with your artistic talents.
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Thank you Suzie!! Gosh I like your idea – to mosaic on part of the boxes – I’d not thought of that but will consider it for sure! Think it could be really really pretty!! 😀
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A customer of ours recognized our store name and passed along your blog post to us. I just wanted to sincerely thank you for taking the time to write such wonderful things about your experience at KJP! We are thrilled to hear that you enjoyed your experience. Hope to see you again at the store! (Karen from KJP)
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thank you so much for taking the time to comment! I truly loved my experience and was so happy to share with others about it, I will be back in the store again for sure! 😀
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Those are beautiful boxes. What a fun class and bonus that you got to make 2 boxes.
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thanks Diana! it was so cool to have been able to make 2, now just need to figure out something to do with them! 😀
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That is awesome and your boxes are gorgeous! Keep it up…
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thanks Laurie! I’ve been looking at bandsaws online ever since the class….think there may be a new tool coming in the house soon! 😀
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Amazing you could do something so nice in a single class. Nice work.
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thank you JM, it amazed me too that something so nice could come out of the one class!! 😀
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