Busy Week!

It’s been a busy week in the Studio.  I’ve had many prototype ideas going through my head for ages, and I finally had some time to experiment.  It’s always a bit tough for me to try out prototypes as I hate to waste the materials if it isn’t going to work out, and if they aren’t perfect, what to do with it?

First up was a production run of toy cameras.  Made from Walnut for the body, and maple for the lens, these were a copy of a prototype I made (and gave away to my daughter).  I love the simplicity of these, just the basics of a real camera, viewfinder-lens-shutter button.  They are finished with a light coat of mineral oil, and are for sale in my Etsy Store, as well as in Patisserie La Toque in Wakefield, Quebec.

Next up, a mid-century modern inspired chair.  Made from Baltic Birch plywood with padauk wedges in the through tenons.  I curved the back using bent lamination and the seat is covered with an upholstery grade corduroy.  I’d like to make these adult size, but for the prototype I decided to build it for a child so as to not use as much materials.  It’s now my daughters favourite chair!  After seeing me taking pictures of it, she yelled at me, “You’re not going to sell my chair are you???!!!”.  She’s hard to please, but I clearly won her over on this one.  These chairs will be custom order only as I don’t have the space to store finished chairs, and this will allow people to choose their upholstery colours.

Last up was a pyramid shaped macaron tower.  Requested by Patisserie La Toque, how hard could a pyramid be to make?  Turns out this was the hardest project of the week.  Lots of angles made this very tricky, but with some glue, and a ton of brad nails and filler, it got completed on time and made the customer very happy.  Might think twice before making another pyramid though…

Next week I’ve got some canoe paddles on the go as well as a few more prototypes to try out, stay tuned!

My First Autobahn

Gotta love simple but brilliant toys….  I was at the Conran Shop in Paris the other day when I came across My First Autobahn.  It’s a small car and a roll of tape that looks like a road.  You get to lay down the streets wherever you chose.  Absolutely brilliant, almost bought one to play with for myself.

 

More from Donkey Products

 

52 Create – Cardboard Doll Crib

 

 

 

 

52 Create, my weekly creative output for 2011…  Decided to take it up a notch after last week’s binoculars.  I’m trying to keep the projects simple enough that I don’t need to go buy tools, yet at least interesting and challenging at the same time.  The one thing you can count on in Paris is free cardboard.  You can almost always find some good quality cardboard lying against buildings or on top of garbage cans, and while it’s not as nice to work with as say plywood, it is free!  There’s also always lots of chip board, but since I only have an exacto knife, it isn’t really practical to use.

My daughter has been the proud owner of a doll for almost a month now.  Her Grandma made her doll some clothes, and so I felt I should step up and make her a little crib.  It’s made of double thick cardboard and fits together with slots (ie. no glue or tape).  It is easy to take apart and pack flat should we need to move, and it’s light enough that she can easily move it around our tiny apartment.  So far it’s been a hit, with “baby” often getting rocked to sleep.

My other 52 Create projects.

52 Create – Wooden Kids Book

52 Create, my weekly creative outlet for 2011…  My little (and only) niece is celebrating her first Easter, too young for chocolate, so how about her very own personalized book?  I’ve had this idea in the back of my head for about a year, and I even cut the wooden blanks out for the pages at least a month ago, but it wasn’t until the last couple of days that I designed the page in illustrator and printed them out on t-shirt transfer paper.  The wood is 1/8″ plywood and the designs are simply ironed on and covered with a thin coat of spray on lacquer (food safe of course!).
I think these could be a real hit on Etsy as once the design is done, it’s fairly quick to assemble, and I could put a personalized name on each book.  The only issue is I don’t feel the t-shirt transfer will be very durable.  I’ll be keeping an eye on this book to see how well it holds up.

My other 52 Create Projects

My Etsy Store.

Etsy – First Sale!

Well, after a long day of home renos, I opened up my email to find that I had made my first Etsy sale.  The wooden Leica toy camera that I made for 52 Create is heading to a buyer in New York!  I even accomodated their request to add “M9” on the camera.  I was a bit torn as it’s supposed to be modelled after a film Leica, and the M9 actually has a slightly different shape, but the customer is always right!

I’ve put two of the toy wooden cell phones up for sale as well as a Parisian Market picture (holga).  I’ll be getting the helicopters up in the next week or so, still waiting to find some time to do the last coat of finish on them.

My Etsy Shop.

52 Create – Helicopters

Toys toys and more toys…. This week, a fleet of helicopters.  Is it a fleet or a flock? Perhaps a squadron, who knows….  52 Create is my year long project of creating something myself each week for the entire year.  The majority of the items are out of wood, however last week we branched out into film.  Check out the projects so far.

As I said above, this week I made 3 toy helicopters.  Once you make one, you might as well make a few, and I’m hoping this one will be a big seller on my Etsy shop.  The helicopter is made of Douglas Fir (dark wood) and the rest is maple dowels except for the baltic birch plywood rotor.  They haven’t been finished yet as the weather is too cold but they will be getting a coat of polyurethane to help keep them in pristine shape.

 

I’ve also at long last put the two toy rangefinder cameras up for sale on my Etsy Shop.  I finished them in shellac which is a food safe finish that is even used on some candies (sweets), so it’s a very safe finish for kids who may be keen to take a bite out of them…

52 Create – Toy Wooden Stroller

Oh boy, I’ve had the idea for this one for months now.  When I first dreamt it up, I had no workshop/tools, but little did I know how much trouble this little beauty was going to cause me!!!  For those of you just joining in, this is week 3 in my 52 Create where I create 52 projects over 52 weeks.

 

First, let me tell you, wheels are not easy to come by.  When I was a kid, my dad and I built a soap box car.  We went to our local Canadian Tire and picked up some cheap wheels and by the end of the day I was ripping down the hill behind the Parliament buildings.  Fast forward 20 years and things are no longer so simple.  After visiting several stores, the best I could do were some snow blower wheels which were too heavy, and $10/wheel!!!!  You can buy a toy stroller in Paris for $7.  I should have bought one before we left and just ripped the wheels off…  Anyways, after some ebay searching I ended up ordering 4 scooter wheels from the states.  Total cost was $25 including shipping which still seems like a lot for what they are being used for, but in the end I’m happy how they turned out. My daughter loves strollers and at playgroup always finds one to tear around the room with.

 

The stroller is made out of Baltic Birch plywood, the dowels are from an old laundry hamper that a roomate broke/left behind.  I had my wife sew up the seat from some corduroy fabric (she also made the doll in the picture below).  In search of a safe kid friendly finish, I ended up using shellac.  It was a bit of a pain as the Lee Valley sells the flakes, but not the alcohol.  They also failed to tell me that although it recommends using Ethanol, that isn’t available in Alberta and so you need to use Methyl Hydrate instead.  If I had known this at the beginning, I might have saved myself a lot of driving around.  Shellac is of course food safe (used to coat M&M’s) and so is a great finish for kids objects. It’s also nice that it has no real smell to it, so I could apply the finish indoors.

 

52 Create – Toy Camera

Week two of 52 Create and I decided on a couple of toy cameras.  My daughter loves playing with our real camera, so why not make her a little wooden version?  I went for a rangefinder style (whom am I kidding, it’s supposed to be a Leica)  They are scaled down from a full sized camera as they’re meant for a 16 month old.

Both cameras are made from maple (and in Canada, making them an M 4-2 I guess…) and the lenses are from a dowel I had lying around the garage (not sure what type of wood).  The lines are done with a wood burning pen, the lens and dark part of the one camera are done using a propane torch.  There are no moving parts and I plan to finish them with shellac to make them kid safe (it’s -15 here right now so no finishing in the unheated garage for a while).

I’ll be putting the dark one up on Etsy, the lighter one would likely get me sued and my daughter seems to like it…