Wooden objects for babies ideas?

[nclemmons]

[member=37411]Edward A Reno III[/member] -

Cradle is for a doll.  I've had nieces who wanted to sleep in it, but it's small!  I don't have one close at hand but from what I recall, length is about 20-22 inches.  Designed for American Girl 18" dolls.  I usually order the linens / mattress and then make the cradle to size.

 

[ear3]

Finished the slightly more ambitious rattle this morning.  Trying as much as possible to integrate more hand tools in my work, so rather than run a long board through my planer, I cut the middle walnut board to size and simply planed it down to thickness.

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As with the other rattles, I drilled a hole in the walnut for the noise makers.  This time I used small ball bearings.  I had gone to home depot to pick up a bag, but discovering they don't keep them in stock, and being impatient, I swiped the bearings from an odd caster I had lying around, which I had to cut open with the angle grinder.

After glue up I also used the jack plane to take the laminate to rough thickness.

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Jigsawed the rough shape and put a hole for the handle with a forstner bit (bled out on the top of the block -- neglected to clamp it down tight enough so it went flying halfway through the drilling and the the wayward bit gashed the top of my thumb -- luckily no stitches)

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Did some more rough shaping using a combination of rasps, the RAS, the jack plane, and the OSS to widen the center hole:

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It was slow going with the rasps on the inside curve, so I decided to speed it up with the sandpaper drum on my dremel:

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After I had achieved the shape, I used the RO90 and interface pad (for the outside), and the granat foam sheets and the 150mm interface pad by hand (for the inside) to finish sand it to 1500 grit

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Applied a finish of the Real Milk Paint co.'s Half-and Half (half tung oil half citric something or other), which I ordered specifically for this project.  Will probably seal it with beeswax when the oil is dry:

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So here are the toys I've got going thus far:

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[nclemmons]

Those look fantastic.  Great design and choice of woods!  Lucky baby!

 

[RKA]

Wow, really well done!!  How long would you say the last one took?

 

[Kev]

I remember justifying a scroll saw early on when our little monsters were starting to develop. I made little puzzles and tiny carts and stuff. I think I did more playing making the stuff that the kids did using them! Back then I remember it was a bit of a challenge finding good non-toxic paints, etc (~20 years).

 

[ear3]

Thanks [member=21249]RKA[/member]  Hard to say on the last one, as the work spread over a few days.  Maybe six hours?

Wow, really well done!!  How long would you say the last one took?

 

[DTSaskatoon]

My son fell in love with a small pile of scrap 2x4s when he visited me in the garage.  He stacked them up and made all sorts of structures from them.  They were lots of fun and he even painted a few of them.  I am incredibly impressed with the skill and craftsmanship shown by the other posters.  I'm sharing my scrap 2x4 story because it's a true story and it shows that there is always another use for that scrap piece of wood.  My son is a little bit older but he still asks to play with scrap pieces of wood.  If he gets a big piece of wood, it's turned into a balancing beam or a sword...

 

[ear3]

Ain't that the way?  Like, you spend all this money on some large, shiny toy, and the boy just wants to play inside the empty box.

My son fell in love with a small pile of scrap 2x4s when he visited me in the garage.  He stacked them up and made all sorts of structures from them.  They were lots of fun and he even painted a few of them.  I am incredibly impressed with the skill and craftsmanship shown by the other posters.  I'm sharing my scrap 2x4 story because it's a true story and it shows that there is always another use for that scrap piece of wood.  My son is a little bit older but he still asks to play with scrap pieces of wood.  If he gets a big piece of wood, it's turned into a balancing beam or a sword...