Christmas Time is Here...

Christmas time WAS here, and I spent much of December finishing up gifts that I started back in September...not to mention trying to survive my last semester of College. Fortunately, I'm still around, all of the gifts were completed on time, and I am officially a College graduate!

That being said here is what my to do list looked like, along with the completed project.

Father Illig - Cigar Book/Box
After making my Dad the Pocket Humidor for his birthday I had to try to one up it for Christmas. I decided to try and carve out the middle of a book, and then frame it up, thus creating a 'Book Humidor.' To go along with it my girlfriend, once again, put her photoshop skills to the test and created a cover to go along with it. The end result turned out to be quite comical.










Mother Illig - Elvira's Quilting Services. (EQS) Elvirasquiltingservices.com
My Mom started her own Long Arm Quilting business at the start of 2010, and has recently turned my sisters room into her Quilt studio. I decided to try to make her a sign in order to make the move official.
What I came up with is this...

The quilt blocks took me a couple episodes of 'The Walking Dead' to complete. The different colored woods were purchased as a bundle at Woodcraft in Woodridge, IL.


The Oliver's - Whirligig
I had the idea for this whirligig last Christmas, but just didn't have the time to get too it. It was actually an episode of 'The New Yankee Workshop' where Norm makes a whirligig for his workshop, that got me excited to make this. It is essentially Mr. Oliver raking his leaves...My girlfriend was the one to paint the pieces...along with the grumpy smirk on his face. This is one project that I always tried doing as a kid, but was never quite able to make it work.
Here is a link of it in action...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp-cZaxAXyo


Fran - Wine Bottle Holder
For my sister I decided to make her a wine bottle holder out of a board of Zebrawood that I purchased earlier in the year. The one board ended up producing three holders. Quick and easy project that makes you look like you know what your doing. haha. Word of advice....Zebrawood may resemble the stripes of a Zebra, but I have a feeling it was named after the smell of Zebra instead...beware.