Week 29: Wood workshop, bear cake, giant sugar cookie

This has been a few weeks in the making. Margie's neighbor Howard is an amazing sculptor. For a long while he has said that whenever I wanted to learn how to use his machines he would be happy to do it. So, while we were house sitting in late June/ early July I decided to take him up on it.
We decided to make bracelets as they are basically the simplest thing I could learn how to make.
I figured there would be a lot of steps but had no idea how many steps there were actually were.

First you need to pick your wood and measure 4x4 in squares

Then cut it into 4x4 squares
You then have to use the sanding machine (I have no idea what things are actually called) to level the wood. ( I don't have a picture of this step)

Than you have to glue all the wood together, in alternating grain directions for extra strength

Then you put it in this contraption and let the wood dry for at least 24 hours.
After it dries you are ready to draw out the bracelet

Than the cutting begins. In this picture Howard is showing me how to cut the outside of the bracelet on a solid piece of wood.

You then drill in a hole so you can use the previous machine to cut the inside of the bracelet.

You then cut out the inside of the bracelet

Than there are multiple steps to sanding the bracelet

First is the machine with the round attachment to sand the inside of the bracelet (this picture is just to show the machine)

Then you go back to the first sanding machine to even out the top and bottom, then you use the rounded side to get the details on the outside of the bracelet. After that you sand it by hand with 4 different levels of sand paper. Starting at a grade 150 and going all the way up to a 220 (I have no idea what that means).

This is a picture of my first bracelet before any of the staining

After that comes staining, 5 coats of it, and sanding with a level 400 sand paper between each coat after coat 2 with the drying time of up to 48 hrs between each coat.
While Howard and Jane were on vacation and Justin and I were staying with Georgia while Margie, Peter and the kids were at Disney I worked on a couple other bracelets as well.

(sorry the pictures are blurry, I'll try to get some better ones soon)

Baking Experiment of the week: Cookie cake
In my last order from Wilton I got a cookie cake pan. I decided to make a sugar cookie (as I had promised my students I would make cookies to bring to class). I decided to decorate it with royal icing. Unfortunately, I thinned out the icing too much so it ran a little. Overall, I am happy with how it turned out.
My other experiment was making a cake to match a kid's drawing.
It gave me a reason to buy a new pan and it was fun to do, it's also exciting that I got to sell another cake.
Thanks for reading!