My Woodies

My niece used these tree truck cuttings as the base for charmingly rustic center pieces for her wedding reception.  She had Ball jars on them, some filled with wildflowers, some with candles.  After the wedding, her father, my brother-in-law, was packing them into the back of his truck with no other plans for them other than to burn them as firewood in the winter.  He agreed to give me as many as I could take - four was all I could manage in the 5th wheel toy hauler trailer that we call home.  I made one into a door plaque for my brother and sister-in-law's Squam Lake cabin in New Hampshire.  I did that last Fall.

Now I just finished the other three.

This first one, recently done, was made using drift wood that I collected from a small cove just south of Burlington, Vermont, along the shores of Lake Champlain. The "o"s in "HOME" are made from two beer bottle bottom sea glass pieces that we found on the beach in the Outer Banks, North Carolina, this past winter.  I've coated the wood before adding the drift wood and sea glass, with polyurethane, to try to protect the wood and the bark sides.  I've sprayed the entire thing with satin spray polyurethane after gluing the words in place with my craft glue gun.

The plaque is for one of my sisters and her husband.  They recently had a new house built after the old one burnt to the ground two winters ago and lost virtually everything.

This next one I did using acrylic paints, gel pens, charcoal, and paper.  It is of a vintage Allis-Chalmers D-21 tractor that is owned and beloved by another one of my sisters and her husband. 

The plack below is made from beer bottle caps.  I'm not sure who will get this one.  I'd kind of thought of giving it to a friend in Severna Park to hang outside the house in her patio area.  It's always hard to give someone something like this and fear that they might not want it. My daughter spoke up and claimed it though. 

Note the Natty Boh beer cap on the top center of the crab and the Edgar Allen Poe beer cap on the bottom center of the crab.  So Baltimore.

I have lots of beer caps left but am out of tree trunk slices.  I think my brother-in-law may have saved a few more in his barn in Iowa. When I give him and my sister the D-21 Allis-Chalmers one, maybe I can pick up some more.