For Christmas, my family likes to make gifts for each other. I love the idea, as do most of my brothers and sisters. Some years it is difficult to make the time needed to make a gift well, but other years you find both the time, and the inspiration you need. We draw names as well, as I have a large family, and it would be very hard to make everyone something of quality.
This year I drew my sister's boyfriends name. As they live in a different city, it was difficult at first to know what to make him. One of the things I DO know about him is that he has his undergraduate degree in Religious Studies, and was trying to get a job working for a church. So, I thought about what a guy like that could use. It seemed obvious to me he could use his own copy of the Ten Commandments. So I set out to make them.
So, early last year I started having a problem with my TV. The TV wasn't brand new, but I had only had it for about 5 years and was a nice HD flatscreen TV that I spent considerable money on, and it was a little frustrating. At first the TV wouldn't immediately turn on, it clicked twice before finally starting. After awhile, it took two sets of clicking before it would turn on. It seemed like it needed to cycle through something before turning on, and over time the number of cycles increased significantly. The day before it finally stopped entirely, it took 20 minutes of clicking before it turned on. Needless to say this was frustrating, and I didn't want to have to deal with this problem again when I went to get a new TV. So I went online to look to see which brands were the most reliable. Frustratingly, Samsung (the brand I owned) was one of the highest rated televisions. I chanced upon Youtube, with a video with some guy with clicking problems with his samsung TV as well.
The thing is, below that video I saw a video on Samsung TV Repair. I was interested. After all, I am pretty cheap, and don't like the idea of throwing something out. Replacing the TV would have cost $2000, fixing it would have cost $600 to $800, and I didn't really want to do it. The thing about the video that I liked the most was the fact that the guy doing the fixing had his little kid on the video, kinda making it seem less finicky, dangerous, or cumbersome. Besides, I figured - can't break something more than broken, right? Nothing to lose.
In 2009 I got married to my wife Jenn. One of the things about weddings is that there are a lot of decorations that get accumulated in the process of pulling off the big event. Once everything is said and done, something needs to be done with those decorations. Often, people store some of the decorations in their basement, disperse them amongst their friends and relatives, or find other ways to get rid of them. When our wedding was done, we had 18 centerpiece boxes left over. My cousin Darrell had made the boxes, and they were very nice pieces. During the reception they were filled with pink flowers and placed on each of the tables that the guests were sitting around.
This is the idea I had in mind.
This is what I had to start with. A picture of the centerpiece on one of the reception tables
This blog is intended to collect all the prior, current, new and upcoming projects that comes out of my Garage. I've been wanting a garage for years, and last year I finally was able to get one when I purchased my first house. That means that last year I started with a garage that was bare and empty - I'm starting my set-up from scratch. So, the different projects that I am and have been working on started simple and will (hopefully) get more complex as time wears on.
My projects are not of the car variety - I own two cars, but I don't know anything about cars or how to work on them. I might do it in the future, but not right now. What I DO know, is woodwork, and what I am interested in in making things. Different things, interesting things, useful things, unique things. I've got a good start, and I hope you'll find the projects I'm working on just as interesting as I do thinking about them.
