Planes and boats for Chat n Snap

I have been very busy with my day job and with a big voluntary project this year, so time for making things has been severely restricted.  However when Dee of Sasha Village sent out invitations for her Chat 'n Snap I booked a sales table.  I like a deadline and this gave me a target date to produce a few toys for Sasha/Gregor.  Dee had put enticing colour wheels of items that others would be selling on the day on her blog this week in the run up to the event and I was finally ready to send her a couple of (poor quality) photos the night before the CnS which she has added to her blog in a post called Planes and Boats.

Miniature sailing boats (photo taken in poor light on an ipad) 

Miniature Spitfire aeroplanes (photo taken in poor light on an ipad)

I have designed and made some miniature toy sailing boats and Spitfire aeroplanes.  I made them from wood offcuts in our workshop, so got to use my favourite machine tool (the pillar drill - for mast holes) again, as well as a razer saw, chisel, rotating sanding machine, table top vibrating jigsaw, sanding block and hammer.  10 boats and 5 planes are the result.

The boats were made first, the planes I only started with a week to go (eek) and were much more fiddly, with more processes than the boats.  They were also more complex to paint and 2 nights before the event my elder daughter, who is very artistic, helpfully painted one of the planes its camouflage colours while I painted the others (she asked to paint one) and did a great job.  The propellers on the planes rotate (carved matchsticks fitted with pins). My husband is an aeroplane enthusiast and he was impressed with the planes, so I am really pleased as his praise for creative work is hard won (his motto is "it's got to be right").

We also made some felt glove puppets for Sasha/Gregor (both daughters helped a bit), however I'll write about them in another post.  I will also take better photos of the planes and boats as these are really grainy.