Yesterday was the broadcast debut of the Twirlywoo’s, a pre school, stop-motion series on Cbeebies.

A project I was privileged to work on whilst working for Mackinnon and Saunders, world renowned puppet makers.

Click on the image below to watch the first episode, if your eye is quick enough, you may catch my name on the credits.

I would say that sewing is my biggest weakness, furthermore sewing machines. Recently I have made a concious effort to try and change that. I had a bit of a play drawing with the sewing machine, using the embroidery foot.

Last August I was approached by a German magazine, Lunapark21. They were interested in featuring my ‘Butcher Pig’ sculpture on the front page of one of their issues. They also very kindly printed a small extract about me as a Modeller.

Some simple shapes, cut from reclaimed Oak.

I made these as part of gifts for people last year, to hang on their Christmas trees.

The Christmas countdown is finally official!

I made these stars from Walnut, I decided to not treat or colour the wood in any way.

I recently made a rustic, Walnut, serving platter. This could be used for cheese, butter, anything really!

The wood has been protected using a natural clear wax.

An old loaf tin can make a lovely, small plant pot.

The plaque was cut out of some scrap aluminium sheet,

then stamped and waxed before being riveted on.

Yes, lots more things made from pallets. I find that there is something very satisfying in making something useful, or even just pretty out of unwanted things.

This rustic crate I build from scratch, I used off-cuts of pallets that were left over  from other projects.
The wood was fairly new and pale, I wanted a very old, beaten up look; therefore, I used my power file to round off all the edges, then I battered it with a variety of hammers, pliers, and chains.
Next I layered up different shades of oils, sanding in between. I applied a healthy layer of clear wax over the whole chest to seal in my colour.

EDIT: I found a couple of photo’s of the crate during the making of.

One photo from just after it was assembled, still with the crisp hard edges.

The second from after I had softened the edges, just before colouring.

I built this table last summer from a mound of pallets and other reclaimed bits of wood.

The legs were made out of chopped up and flipped over Newel posts.