the panels took a little longer than I thought, But since I had very little else to do, I probably 
obsessed on them more than I should have. By the time I finished, I was tired and it was late, so I was not in a posting mood. Anyway, here they are: For the elephant and the Hull FC, I used the router. Since the panels were rather small, I had to use my "special" clamping plan to keep them still. Pretty cool, eh?
I new that the stain would be a problem if I didn't carve them deep enough, but the client did not want them painted and had seen some of my other unpainted panels.
The darker provincial stain tends to over darken the grain of oak. But it does give it a cool antique look. She also did not want the two larger panels polyed. So there they are!
The two smaller plaques were pretty much the same as doing the toilet seats and fish panels. 
The painting was a bit more of a challenge, but I think they 
turned out pretty well.
Ever since I gave up toilet seats ( there IS NO GOING BACK!) I have 
discovered that I have a lot less to say lately! Even on Cheryl's blog! However, I was handed a nice little commission this weekend from my neighbor. Actually, his girlfriend from London, England! You see, she wants some "uniquely American" gifts to bring back to her family from the States. And let's face it, McDonald's hamburgers don't last long and make bad gifts. So, she threw out a
couple of ideas for some carvings. I have looked up these pictures online and will
see if I can get them carved up perhaps tomorrow. One is a Rugby team from England, The next is an Elephant, ( I'm going to use the same model that I have used for the elephant toilet seat) and Mickey and Minnie mouse! Some will be painted, others will be left with just stain, no poly. We'll see how they turn out!
digging through some old pics the other day when we were moving our shops around and stumbled 
upon some old Army and Alaska photos. Just to prove that I actually had a few moments in my life of adventure, I thought I would post them. The mounted King salmon you may have seen in previous posts was actually caught in 1991 on the confluence of the Russian and Kenai River in Alaska. ( Below it is a Dolly Vardon caught in the same area, 23 inches!) I could not keep the fish since it was "out of season" but a nice lady took my picture before I released it. She then sent me a copy and my mother secretly contacted a taxidermist to make a mount out of a fiberglass blank. 
( I was in college at the time, not yet a full time carver)
The next pic is of a fellow lodge employee ( Tim, was his name) and our first clear up of sockeye salmon at the Russian river, ( Summer of 1990) And finally one of the few pictures of me while I was in the Army 1993-1996. Mountain Dew was my drink of choice.
I might find blogging a little more challenging now that the toilet seat 
carving business is no longer... However, there is always Allenbrite to play around with. But since it is more about Cheryl and not much about me, I guess I will be more like a Narrator. Still, it gives me something to do. I'll still try to post a little bit on this one as well. And, Of coarse, any carving or woodworking projects I might come upon. Thanks to all who have found me interesting enough to follow up to this point. For tonight's anime Karau Phantom Memory Opening. I have revisited this anime because Netflix is booting it off the watch instantly part of their website. So, I'm catching it one last time. It's a great Anime!
moderately successful. The fact is that carvings just were not the 
"flavor of the day" there. Oh! I did get lots of compliments, even handed out a couple of business cards, but the real flavor of the day was my wife's Wristlets! She did awesome! Which means WE did awesome! So my carvings were not a hit there, I didn't really think they would be since it was an ongoing weekly market instead of a show or festival. I DID manage to sell one box, so I was not totally skunked. The crowd was pretty good and steady, and the show only lasted 4 hours at a cost of $10 to enter! 
( pretty good deal if you ask me) They even provided 2 eight
foot tables to help display your stuff. We have went to craft shows that were more expensive, less organized, and sold less than this one. ( to put this in perspective. I may have been a little over optimistic with my carvings because I could not even display them all! If we go again ( I doubt we will go to another one since it closes after next week) I may bring my carvings again, but I might show them off a little better. I still was not "feeling" the crowd there, but you never know who might drop in and buy something. Cheryl's story was much brighter, so you can read more on Allenbrite... Enjoy!
Cheryl and I checked out the Grand Haven salmon Festival to 
see if the attached how was any good. It was Cheap ( $35 entrance fee) to get into but we heard about it too late. Well, on our tour, we saw some pretty cool art and carvings. The two carvers that I found were of opposite sides of the spectrum with hugely different styles. As you can see: One is VERY detailed.
So detailed in fact, that his fish look more like taxidermy! ( I should know as an old 
taxidermist) They were very nice but almost looked like the fiberglass replicas you can buy from a taxidermist catalog. They were priced in the $400-$600 range from what we could find.
ON the other side, 
was Bear claw Jack who keeps things rustic. I'm not sure if he uses chainsaws or chisels exclusively, but he was using chisels while at the show. We didn't catch any prices on his things, but I don't think they were as high as the other guy.
There was also a marble top table maker, Very cool, but not sure if he made any sales since we saw no one lugging around a large stone top table at the show!
All in All, the show looked small with plenty of foot traffic, I'm not sure if the people were buying but the salmon tent was $18 to get in to sample the food, and it was packed! Tomorrow is the show in Grand Rapids, Our car is loaded and ready. 
Oh! Some origami from yesterday that I didn't post, I'll probably have a lot of time to make some tomorrow. Hope everyone has a great weekend!
on Etsy, And since Cheryl is going to a show this weekend, I thought I might show off a couple
of my panels while we bake in the hot sun. I'm going to try to bring as many as I can, but I guess table 
space is limited so I might have to work on my presentation. The show is Sunday afternoon so we'll have to get up early and see how it goes. Hopefully I'll have some good news to report!
I started a new blog(http://allenbrite.blogspot.com/) in our new venture. Allenbrite was the company we started several months ago when we figured that toilet seats were on their way out. So I will probably be posting more there than here at the Midnight carver, Unless I do some woodworking or carving. As for tonight, I worked in my new shop for a little while making 
a couple of display stands for Cheryl's stuff for the weekend. Nothing fancy or special. Just functional. Come on over to Allenbrite and watch as Cheryl comes up with new designs and hear about our triumphs and failures. Oh! Tonight's Anime is S-Cry-Ed Not a bad Anime even if it is a little old. Enjoy!
one of the cats, ( probably Hiro) brought us one of the strangest looking space creatures I have ever seen. I didn't take a picture of it so I had to find one online, But I knew what it was right away. ( I used to watch WAY too much discovery channel and animal planet) A Star Nosed Mole. Now, even though
I knew what it was, I still have never seen one in person. What a strange looking beast! First of all, forget the nose, It has a LONG tail! I mean rat like! The voles, shrews and normal moles have only short stubby ones. Then it had these big meaty paws,
I can't see how they can dig with them since they are so chubby! but they do have long claws, Then the nose, it looked like it had some nuclear genetic melt down forming a strange grown on it's nose. ( the nose was black BTW ,not red like most of the pictures
online suggest.) Well, Cheryl didn't want the cats to eat it so I had to dispose of it before it started to smell. So mark one up for the strange and unusual night creatures. Hiro must have used this scare face to catch it!
we both finished up with out 
shops. I think it took me longer to get all my stuff set up, I would guess I had more "stuff" than Cheryl. Anyway I think it turned out pretty good. The cats approve!
I will probably do some minor adjusting with the wiring and light placement later, but for 
now, at least all of the stuff is not all 
cluttered up. I'm happy that I managed to find a place to put stuff when I took my dust table apart. It held a lot of cluttered crap. There are a couple of shows this weekend where Cheryl and
I are thinking about attending. We need a little seed money to help her fill out some orders she has lined up for her Wristlets. My new shop allows me to gaze upon some of my previous work. YEAH! For tonight's anime. We'll continue with School Rumble. Cheryl and I just finished season one. She now wants to move on to season two. Enjoy the closing theme of Season one!
