For a long time, I've been throwing small reclaimed wood trimmings into a small bucket rather than throwing them away. They are mostly tiny, triangular pieces or small rectangular pieces cut from strips when making frames, quilt squares, etc. These are pieces that aren't big enough to consider "strips," like I used in the Easter Bunny post (check it out!).
And I never really knew why I kept these pieces...
But, like I said in my previous post, It's Spring cleaning time!
I got to thinking:
How can I use up these small pieces...?
Well, since I made an Easter Bunny using my wood scraps in the last post, why not stick with the Easter theme? How about an Easter egg?
Let's get to it!
First off, I sketched out an outline of an Easter egg onto a piece of backer board.
To the scroll saw!
The shape of the egg is a little irregular, but no big deal. Once I cut the wood and have the general shape, I can sand down the sides to make it more smooth and symmetrical.
Next was trying to fit and mock-up all the scrap pieces to fit on the surface of the backer board.
Like a mosaic or a really difficult game of Tetris!
I promise, there's an egg under there somewhere!
Now that every piece fits, it's time to attach them all to the backer board.
I won't be able to secure them in the same way as the Easter Bunny, which used screws. There's simply too many pieces, it's just not practical.
Instead, I used generous amounts of wood glue. I moved slowly, one piece at a time, and clamped the pieces down strategically. I worked from the outside-in on this one, making sure that the individual pieces didn't shift when gluing them on.
I let the wood glue fully dry for 24 hours before removing the clamps.
After removing the clamps the next morning, I gave the egg a little shake and tugged on the wood pieces to make sure they were on tight before using my scroll saw. If any pieces weren't on tight, I would like to know beforehand so the scroll saw doesn't rip pieces off and make this much harder for me...
Lucky for me, they were all stuck on tight!
I had to really take my time cutting out the egg shape with my scroll saw. Because of the different densities and thicknesses of wood, certain stretches would be easy, and others were really stubborn.
Next, the egg got a sanding with my belt sander to smooth out the curves and remove splinters...
At this point, I flipped it over and sanded down the edges of the backer board to make it safer.
I also toyed with the idea of adding some rustic knobs or drawer pulls on it to make it look more mismatched and patchwork-y, but I ultimately decided against it. I want the wood to be the star here!
I REALLY like how this egg came out! It's like a Picasso egg!
It's so unique, like some kind of mismatched piece of art with the grain going every which way. Different reclaimed wood sizes, thicknesses and types of wood. It's a beautiful mess.
AND, the best part of all, is that this used up almost all of my small scraps that I had when I started the project.
But...
Through trimming the excess off the egg and the Easter Bunny, I do have quite a few more small wood scraps that are too small to really do anything with. So, another one of these Picasso projects may be in the near future!
If you're interested in this piece, head on over to my "Store" tab and check out my Etsy store!
Until next time!
-Kevin
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