Cherry off cuts

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I've been using a lot of cherry recently, and I'm really enjoying the colours that emerge from it. I wanted to do a small production run. I asked people that follow my Facebook and Instagram to pick from one of my designs and this is what they chose:  

Spoon carving video

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Spent some of my Easter weekend playing around with a video camera and iMovie. Hope you like it, if you do I might upload some instructional videos in the near future. 

Testing to Destruction

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For a while now I've wondered what stress a wooden spoon can take. I've had a spoon in my unfinished pile that I wasn't very happy with, so rather than making the small finishing touches, I thought I'd put heavier and heavier weights on it until it breaks!

Now this is a highly unscientific experiment, but a fun, illustrative one. I wasn't controlling for much, and the results are from a group size of one, but it did answer some questions for me.

Essex Wildlife Trust Woodland Management Day

Through the volunteering I do for the Essex Wildlife Trust , I ended up being invited along to their Woodland Management Day at Belfair's Woodland Centre. I'd quote forgotten about it until the email reminder I received on Tuesday saying they were looking forward to seeing me on Sunday. 

Last week was a bit of a busy one, as my day job had me traveling around the country quite a bit. It wasn't until Friday evening that I had the time to start preparing stuff for my stall.

Spoons I have lying around

Tool-roll: Mora (Frost) 106 Carving Knife

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Probably the best wood working knife out there at this price. 

London's Carving Workshops

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I recently held a couple of carving workshops in London. One near Old Street and another in Victoria Park. Both of them were great fun and they kind of surprised me with how eager people were to learn crafts.

Both of the workshops were a part of Keep Britain Tidy's Waste less, Live more Week. The week was themed 'Be Resourceful' with daily challenges. The first challenge was 'Make it' and that was where my workshops came in.

While I spend most of my time making spoons, butter spreaders are a better project to start with as they only need a knife and are less complicated objects to make.

Butter Spreaders

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When I'm not carving things or out in the woods, I'm usually found in an office in London working on Eco-Schools for the charity Keep Britain Tidy. Each year in September Keep Britain Tidy has a Waste Less Live More week. Last year the theme for the week was food and food waste. This year the week is running from 22 - 28 September and the theme is 'Be Resourceful'. 

To encourage people to be resourceful and to raise awareness that what's good for the environment is good for us, I decided to teach people how to carve wooden butter spreaders, a nice introduction to green woodworking.