83. Make something using the wood from Melissa's grandpa

I finished one of my woodworking projects.  This one isn't a big one, but it is one that I am proud of doing.  As I wrote about not too long ago, I was given quite a bit of wood from Melissa's Grandpa. A lot of that hoard of wood is oddly shaped wood that I am not creative enough to come up with a lasting purpose for.  I decided to tackle something smaller as a beginning on something that I hope will be special for the kids in years to come.  Here's the finished product (1 of 3):

It's a piggy bank!  And it is perfectly timed.  Tonight we had my mom and grandma over and my grandma gave the kids their first pennies.  We will have to wait awhile until they can put them to good use though.  They will be gifts for the kids' birthdays coming in October (don't tell them).

This was a fun project to make because it wasn't too difficult to make.  I posted pictures before of what the pieces looked like apart.  Here's another one that I took after glueing one of the sides on:

It's hollow on the inside and a cork stopper is in the bottom to be able to remove their coins they so diligently saved.

Around the pig you can see some of the scraps of leather that I used for the tail and the ears.  Melissa found a bag of scrap leather at Michael's for a couple of dollars and it worked out perfect.  The hardest part about working with it was that I couldn't find anything strong enough to cut the leather.  I finally decided to put the band saw to use and was able to make the cuts that I needed.

I am really proud of these three piggies.  I'm hoping to be able to put more time out in the garage before school starts back up again to work on some more projects.  Hopefully I will be able to finish my goal of making toys for the kids.  I've got plenty of ideas.  Now I just need to put the ideas into reality.