Shop open

After several months messing about with bits of wood I have accumulated several things that I think could be of interest to other people. I thus created an online shop using the ETSY platform  (shop here) - opened on 15 September 2015. Here you are welcome to look at some of the products I have and I would very much appreciate critical feedback and suggestions. Of course if you fancy anything please feel free to do some shopping :)

The name of the shop is Induku. This is the Zulu word for stick. I started carving sticks into small chess figures while living in an apartment carving sticks. Some of the items (especially the maple pendants) are made from mere sticks that I pick up. I think the name is somewhat appropriate. 

There are several items in the shop and all were made using a scroll saw (more details on how some items are made and about the scroll saw in a future post). Two main groups are books and wooden pendants.

Books

I needed a book a while ago (how to make a denim book), and enjoyed the process quite a lot. I thus made some of the scroll saw pictures into books covers and bound them in a few different ways.

Some of the items may look a bit grim - but that is part of the style...

I decided to make it possible to add a personal touch. 

If your name is on the cover please send me your postal address ;)

Any suggestions on what would be cool on a cover is appreciated

Pendants

Since I had a load of sticks laying in the basement I decided to cut them into discs to be able to cut with the scroll saw. The simple pictures that are possible to cut makes nice pendants.

Most of the pendants currently in stock

A bit of a puzzle

Will someone buy both?

Infamous characters.

Other
As inspiration strikes I will make other things also. Currently I am making a clock face and will have some extra to sell. But I also have a whole book full of ideas (a denim book), and will continue to make all sorts of items.

Some of the other items - these are from alder-wood.

I am not sure if there is any market for the things I made but it is fun to make and I will post more on the process of some of these items. 

R&C

Induku on ETSY

Föräldrar i Sverige igen

During the long summer holidays, my parents came for a second visit to Sweden. Since their first visit in 2010 (see the full account here), many things has changed and this was reflected on the things we did during the vacations. Two major changes were that we moved into a house that are located out of the city and that we now have a car. We therefore spend more time away from the cities (we did much of the tourist things last time), and also traveled a bit more by car to see some of the things Sweden has to offer in the summer.

Below are a few pictures of their visit:

Room for our guests.

Very Local:

We had a few braais at our house.

Braaing some of the sausages that we made ourselves. 

A fire!

 We also spent some time on the river that we have access to.

Outing on the river.

Our house from the river.

When we have guests, we often use them for cheap labour (as we did when my sibling and her husband came to visit). This time I had a project to install a cat door in one of the basement windows. My dad and I thus removed a window, built a platform and a insulated wooden door to fit the window and installed the door into it.

Cat door from the inside.

Access to cat door from outside under the deck. 

(Side note: the cat door is an electronic door that locks during the night and they cannot go out. However they can always enter since it unlocks when the chip in their necks are scanned but this means only our cats can enter. We chose this place - under the deck - since it is a bit more protected from the wind, rain and snow. Also our doors are double and a single cat door becomes tricky to install. In the winter I will build a box onto the platform to keep the opening a bit more covered.)

We also had several long walks from the house enjoying the summer weather.

Local:

Moving a bit further we explored the town and the surrounding areas.

We went to a forest close by to pick mushrooms that we subsequently ate.

Finding the yellow gold.

Cooking the pickings.

Closest cities:

The closest cities to us is Gävle and Uppsala. We went to both for a few interesting activities.

Morning fika in Uppsala

Strolling past the castle

River and Cathedral. 

No visit to Sweden is complete without visiting IKEA. We spent some time strolling through the shop and also had an IKEA lunch. During our visit to IKEA we also visited several of the other shops in the surrounding area.

Lunch at IKEA

We also took a boat trip from Uppsala on Mälaren during one evening.

Departing.

View on the lake.

In Gävle we walked through the streets and enjoyed a street festival.

River running into the sea through Gävle. 

Driving around:

Having a car meant we could drive around an we visited several of the small towns and villages.

Österbybruk during a Sunday drive. 

Sculpture at Östhammar - at the Baltic sea. 

An interesting outing was when we visited Gårdsjö Älgpark. The park is located about an hour's drive from us and got to meet several of the residents (both human and elk). This visit is recommended for anyone who want to have a close encounter with these awesome beasts.

Feeding the small beast.

Female elk up close.

Male elk strolling past. 

The 10 days flew past very quickly and sadly the visit was over.

Next year, Carina's parents plan to come for a second visit (they have also been here while we were still city dwellers) during the summer while at the end of next year my parents plan to brave the Swedish winter. We are looking forward to both these visits and hope that this will inspire more friends and family from abroad to make the trip to us.

We are however already back to the salt mines and hope to surface again a bit during winter...

R&C