I cut out the parts and assembled them. My wife, JoAnn, did the painting and art work. I think we had as much fun creating this gift as Caleb did receiving it.
Zoey, our 17 year old grand daughter also got a home-made gift when she was younger. She was quite active on bouncing type toys so we decided to build her a rocking horse. After thumbing through books and magazines we found a book with all of the answers: "The Rocking-Horse maker" by Anthony Dew. The book covers nine easy-to-follow projects with the easier ones well within the scope of anyone with a basic tool kit and modest skills. The finished horse is shown below. A lot of detail went into its construction and again my wife and I teamed up to get the project completed. This horse has a time capsule enclosed within the body.
More detail on development of this project was given in an earlier post entitled "Birthday Horse". You might be surprised at who these horses are built for and the price asked for them.
Jim, my son has a second boy, Gabriel, that they have adopted. For his 10th August birthday I constructed a Space Plane with Gabriel at the controls and the family and friends shown as passengers. It was designed to be mounted as a weather vane or could be hung in his room. Photos of this project are shown below.
Next in line is my grand daughter Kathryn. Her dad is my oldest son, Ben. She will have her 8th birthday in February of next year so plans are being made to produce a home-made gift for her. This tradition will continue as long as the grand children continue to arrive and I am around to make the gifts. I hope these children will view the gift as special, one of a kind made especially for them. I know I treasured the gifts my dad made for me and I noticed the gifts I made for my children were being handed down to their children.
If you have some skill and a few tools to work with I encourage you to try it with your family. It is a very rewarding project and your child will love it.
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