It’s been a while since I posted on here which I am sorry for. I enjoy being able to explain my thoughts in more detail on this blog which FB and Instagram don’t suit but of course there is a bigger time commitment which I sometimes find difficult.
I believe that every house should have it’s own mouse. I often carve sketches of mice and leave them in people’s houses that we visit. I have carved mice for family and friends as well as just for fun. My late father took up wood turning when he retired and then spent the next 20 years turning and selling his wares at craft fairs and other events. He adopted a mouse as his trademark and so I carved him a mouse wood-turner complete with lathe which he then proudly displayed on his stall.
I like the simplicity of a caricature of a mouse where as long as the basic essence of the figure is there it becomes recognisable.
I’ve carved a load of mice like these little guys, I originally started carving mice as gifts for friends, my comment being that “a house is not a home until a mouse lives there”. I then had a couple of mice that I had carved without a recipient in mind and posted them for sale on Facebook. Well I wasn’t quite ready for the response. I have since sold about 8 mice via Facebook. It helps that I set my prices extremely low, where else could you buy a unique, hand-carved mouse for £20. If I were trying to make a living out of them the price would be at least 3 times that. But then I carve for pleasure and therapy, a bit of pocket money is a bonus.
Also I have gone back to doing a bit of spoon carving which is something that I have toyed with in the past but never really gone into seriously. I suppose part of the reason is that although carving spoons is straightforward, it is also something that you need to put a lot of time into to get to where you are really happy with the results. I’ve carved so many mice now that I know what they will look like and it has become a therapeutic pleasure. I am not quite at that stage with my spoons yet.
These are a few of my recent spoon gifts, the first photo is of a matched pair of kitchen items, spoon and spatula in Ash for our friend Dorothy. The second is a cooking spoon in Ash for David and Carole.
Then there are an Ash serving spoon and another cooking spoon, both in Ash.
This “Bee” spoon was for Julie to use in her brand new kitchen and is Oak.
This one is a spatula in Cherry
And finally, this is my spoon, a slim eating spoon in Ash with some trial lettering as well.
I continue to carve mice and will be putting a couple more up for sale on FB soon. They are comforting and I don’t need to think too much about them.
