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Making a Rustic Oak Bed
Making a rustic oak bed – May ‘14 It started, as is so often the case, with a picture clipped from some designer home magazine or other. Accompanied with, of course, the inevitable ponderous question: “Couldn’t you make one of those?” This time it was a bed, with big slabs of sawn log for the headboard,…
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It’s Rustic Santa Time
Our Rustic Santas are once again being packed ready for the Christmas markets. Every Santa is made from our own home grown timber (mainly Silver Birch) which has been fully seasoned so they will not leave a mark on the table cloth. Each one is individually made so no two Santa’s are the same. Due to…
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Carving a wooden pumpkin
I have seen quite a few impressive wooden pumpkins on the internet and decided to have a go. Luckily I had recently rescued a large union of freshly felled Sycamore that the wood fairies had left behind as it was too big and nasty to split for firewood. The original ‘big lump’ of wood was…
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Fire Dragons / Swedish Log Candles
We are now stocking ‘Fire Dragons’ made by my brother Graham and his wife Jacky at ‘Really Rustic’. They harvest these large logs from their own sustainable forest in Wales making a wide variety of products from the wood including these Swedish log candles that they have branded as Welsh ‘Fire Dragons’. The Fire Dragon is their take…
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Craft shapes for decorations and labels
For many years we have stocked chunky heart shapes routed from mdf which have been very popular with schools and youth groups as they provided a cheap base for an hour or so project; sanding, painting and decorating them as a personalised hanging decoration for gifts to family members. They have also been popular with…
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New Eggs For Sale Sign
Our new ‘Eggs For Sale’ went live today. Quite pleased with it as it is all hand painted; the letters by me, the hen by my mum. I have much more respect for signwriters after doing this!
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Growing SRC willow for firewood
For some years now we have been growing a variety of traditional basket making willow for use as wreath bases, twig wreaths and wreath decorations with any leftovers and offcuts being used as fuel for use in wood boilers. Nothing at all goes to waste. We spotted a number of websites proclaiming hybrid willow and poplar…
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Making Log Wreath Picks
Son and heir James has found a new skill to raise funds before returning to Manchester for the final year of his Masters degree…. bundling up small willow ‘logs’ to make what florists call “picks” which are used to decorate festive wreaths and garlands. A length of green stubbing wire is wrapped around three suitably sized…
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Mowing draws the crowds
Yesterday proved to be quite an attraction for the residents of our coppice with both hens and geese needing to see if anything tasty was being uncovered. This field was partially planted with ash trees (all grown from seed ourselves) but after news of the breakout of ‘ash die back’ we planted the remainder of the field with…
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15th Continental Beer Festival
We are always on the lookout for logos that shows off our logs (and it makes a change from doing table numbers) and when the New Continental launched promotions for its 15th Annual Beer Festival it looked just the ticket.