Thought maybe some of you here may like this & I'm quite happy with how it turned out so I wanted to share.
3 months ago I was doing a car boot sale with my girlfriend and she was selling one of these on behalf of her parents:
There was quite a bit of interest in it, so I decided I wanted it, and that I'd use it for a project. The most likely outcome was that it would just sit and gather dust in my garage.
But, I saw this while looking for inspiration:
I decided to make it for the gf as a christmas present so we could fill it with bits and pieces / memories collected from days out.
Here is my project, it was a bit of a bodge, but feel free to ask any questions and I'll try and answer them:
Here's the table that was bought for the project (I decided against building my own!):
Here are the table and printers block after some light sanding.
Now, this stage will jump past the cutting of the centre section, as to be honest, circular sawing a coffee table in your kitchen makes a mess (who'd have known?).
This step should have been straight forward, but the width of the printers block was a few mm wider than the both of the table support beams width. So as much as possible was cut out width ways, and the length was cut out just inside my sketch on the table top so that I could sand it to the perfect size.
I got it to a point where it just about fit, and some 'gentle' tapping with a mallet made it sit flush.
I then filled the areas where there were slight gaps and sanded it down.
The table was then ready for its paint, and the tray ready for some walnut varnish.
To keep it simple I used some antique white one coat gloss. I had meant to buy satin but wasn't too bothered by the gloss look.
Next I turned it into an advent calendar.
Inside each door (from 17-25 (will explain later why only 9 doors)) I created an individual scroll and left a message written with a calligraphy pen indicating which present could be opened on that day (if it couldn't fit inside the door).
The presents were numbered 1-9 and assigned randomly, and then the presents put into each door in a particular order.
This was partly a birthday and christmas present, and I hadn't seen my girlfriend for 3 months and the 17th was the first day. 21st was a ring, but the scroll said it could not be opened until we got to London Bridge tube station, where all would be explained.
After leaving London Bridge station I told her we were going to the top of this:
Where she could open the present!
All in all, a success. Hope you enjoyed.
3 months ago I was doing a car boot sale with my girlfriend and she was selling one of these on behalf of her parents:
There was quite a bit of interest in it, so I decided I wanted it, and that I'd use it for a project. The most likely outcome was that it would just sit and gather dust in my garage.
But, I saw this while looking for inspiration:
I decided to make it for the gf as a christmas present so we could fill it with bits and pieces / memories collected from days out.
Here is my project, it was a bit of a bodge, but feel free to ask any questions and I'll try and answer them:
Here's the table that was bought for the project (I decided against building my own!):
Here are the table and printers block after some light sanding.
Now, this stage will jump past the cutting of the centre section, as to be honest, circular sawing a coffee table in your kitchen makes a mess (who'd have known?).
This step should have been straight forward, but the width of the printers block was a few mm wider than the both of the table support beams width. So as much as possible was cut out width ways, and the length was cut out just inside my sketch on the table top so that I could sand it to the perfect size.
I got it to a point where it just about fit, and some 'gentle' tapping with a mallet made it sit flush.
I then filled the areas where there were slight gaps and sanded it down.
The table was then ready for its paint, and the tray ready for some walnut varnish.
To keep it simple I used some antique white one coat gloss. I had meant to buy satin but wasn't too bothered by the gloss look.
Next I turned it into an advent calendar.
Inside each door (from 17-25 (will explain later why only 9 doors)) I created an individual scroll and left a message written with a calligraphy pen indicating which present could be opened on that day (if it couldn't fit inside the door).
The presents were numbered 1-9 and assigned randomly, and then the presents put into each door in a particular order.
This was partly a birthday and christmas present, and I hadn't seen my girlfriend for 3 months and the 17th was the first day. 21st was a ring, but the scroll said it could not be opened until we got to London Bridge tube station, where all would be explained.
After leaving London Bridge station I told her we were going to the top of this:
Where she could open the present!
All in all, a success. Hope you enjoyed.
we have one of those printing blocks sitting in our shed at the moment, and have done for years.
