Western General Store

I was asked by a woman to make a boot top cross using the boots of her friend's deceased father. I had never made one but wanted to do this, so I accepted. I decided to experiment, so using 2 pair of my husband's boots, I got to work and also made a tutorial for this blog. I found a piece of old plywood and drew out a cross with each leg being 4 inches wide. The plywood was 15 3/4" wide and I made the height 23". After it was cut out on the band saw, I realized the plywood needed to be thicker for tacks and trim, but now I had a cross template. I cut a new cross out of 1/2" plywood. I cut the boot tops off. I marked a center line on each leg of the plywood cross and marked an arrow where the center of the boot top would be placed. I measured past the arrows for the correct size of leather for the center of the cross. I used black scrap leather, cut it to fit and glued it on. 1/4" x 3/4" cedar trim was glued and nailed to the edge. Next time the trim sho...

This is a tutorial on how to make a Christmas Lariat Wreath. First step: Find a used lariat. That's easy for me since I live in the middle of cowboy country! A zip tie at the top secures the rope. Tuck the tail into the rope strands. The ribbon was for a hanger, but in the end, I used wire. Some may want to use this idea. This is an old swag from my mother's decorations. I decided not to go this route. Wrap about 3 foot of garland  at the top. This provides fullness and a place to stick greenery. Stick in greenery. Add a bow. There are lots of videos on the internet on how to construct a bow. I used a pipe cleaner to attach. I attached red ball ornaments with wire. This would be complete unless you wanted to add a horseshoe. One idea is to use a glue gun to wrap ribbon and include a horseshoe. I chose to attach a horseshoe with a pipe cleaner. I tied on a bow, or you could glue it. The size of this wreath is 21 inches across. Have fun making your wreath! Merry Christmas!  

  Here is an easy way to decorate western style for Fall. You may have an old saddle tree you could use or find one at a flea market. Or you may purchase our saddle tree  here . This decor would make an excellent table center piece, or place on an entry table, shelf, mantle, or porch. I put a piece of dry foam for floral arrangements underneath the saddle tree. You may need to trim it to fit and spray paint it black or brown. Then just add Fall foliage. Easy right? You need easy for the holidays. Enjoy!

I was called upon to create Buckle Display Boxes for prizes for rodeo events, so I thought this would be a great project for this blog. We decided on a 3 buckle box. After studying a friend's display box, these are the dimensions I chose, but they are not firm, so you can use this as a base to work from. This project is fairly easy to make. The hardest part is choosing paint colors and decoration. Red Oak pieces were cut out. Pictured is a strange rasp that was in the wood shop which I thought I would use to distress the wood. Instead I used a wire brush on the drill press. Distressing the wood. I painted all the pieces an acrylic vintage white. I didn't worry about complete coverage. This is one of my favorite brushes. I took and old fan brush and trimmed it with scissors. I dipped the brush into the paint and removed the excess. I lightly spread on the second color (acrylic aqua). You can see the detail of the distressed wood. I applied a little glue and nailed it all togethe...

This lumber was just sitting there waiting to be turned into a table. Sometimes I have a project in mind and go looking in the shop for the pieces I need. Other times I see a wood scrap and know what it's going to be. I saw this piece and it screamed tabletop for a side table. Yes, and trim too! I saved all of these mahogany pieces at the beginning of the year to build a side table, and envisioned cowhide on top with silver upholstery nails. This looks like a drawer but it will be turned over and become a shelf. All the pieces were cut to the chosen size and sanded. Now time to glue it up. Glued and clamped. The shelf was clamped in for support. After this dried, the shelf was glued in place and clamped. Brad nails were also used. I glued 1/4" trim around the tabletop. To attach the tabletop, I placed the legs and traced around them. I drilled a hole through the tabletop and into the legs and inserted wood screws. ...

I saw a picture of a handmade rustic bookend with clavos and it gave me an idea to create western style bookends. The possibilities are endless! We have a lot of scrap ash wood in our shop, so I decided to make the bookends from those scraps. I had a set of small scroll shelf brackets and thought it would be an easy bookend. I cut out the scallop design on the scroll saw. All the bookends in this project are approximately 6.5" wide x 7.5" tall x 3" deep. The wood is 7/8" thick. The Boot and Horse cutouts are approximately 7/8" thick. I painted the wood dark brown acrylic, let dry, then antique white, let dry and sanded some of the white off. I screwed on the bracket, which held the bookend together. I traced the horseshoe onto wood and cut it out on the scroll saw and screwed the horseshoe to it. I spray painted it black. I found a few pieces of teak, glued and screwed them together and added 2 coats of polyurethane. I glued and s...