The last few weeks have been pretty busy, despite not having a ton of Xmas orders. I've been doing a little welding, and though I definitely need some more practice I've managed to make a couple of serviceable creations. Up first is a front bike rack for the Hipster Incinerator:

It didn't need to be pretty, but I did want something to hold the heaviest item that comes with me when biking - the U-lock. The welds are disgusting but they'll support my weight, and as long as it can hold the lock then I'm happy.
Up next is a bottle tree that I made for my mother's Xmas gift. Because, let's face it, when your mom wants a bottle tree, you make her a bottle tree. Most of the examples I saw online were pretty boring, and usually consisted of a straight post then a few straight "branches" coming out at angles (side note - why do most bottle trees only use blue bottles?) I thought it would be more fun and interesting to make something a little more tree-like and spooky:

Arts and Drafts recently celebrated the holidays with our annual white elephant gift exchange, which is always a great time and usually involves a lot of scheming, plotting and thieving. For one of my contributions I made a plain leather Moleskine cover, which is not dyed or sealed in any way. This prevents any oils or dyes from bleeding into the notebook and also allows for the leather to get darker with use. There are some fantastic examples of these kinds of leather covers out there, and many allow the elastic band to be utilized, but I thought that design element could be improved. Without naming names or pointing a finger, the examples I saw had the elastic wrapping around the notebook cover, continuing into the leather cover for an inch or so, exiting a small hole, turning around then wrapping around the outside of the wrapped notebook. This creates excess bulk and also means that there's only a small amount of leather between a stitch line and the exit hole, which is a weak spot and a point of possible failure. For my version I have the elastic exit right at the edge of the leather cover, which avoids having to create a weak spot, is much simpler and negates the excess bulk of having the elastic doubled up inside:

 

 

This is just a prototype and I'll probably refine this a bit more on a later version, but for now it's functional.

And finally, this is a project that's been waiting to happen for a while, but I was only able to get to it in the time between Thanksgiving and Xmas. The cabinet maker who made the top for my work bench has a really large pistol that needed a holster, so I made him one. It's set up for either belt or shoulder strap carry, and here it is: