A friend of mine had a tree down and asked me if I could use any of the wood. After selecting a couple of logs and a couple of potential ideas, I jumped to work building some cutting boards.

A few failed attempts to jig up one of the larger logs later, I had to pivot and instead cut some cross sections of a slightly thinner log.

With a bit of work on the plane to get them smooth and level I moved on to sanding and other prep work.

As seen above I found a crack in one of the cross sections and attempted my first ever bowtie fix. It did the trick and is still holding well. I love new challenges!

After some sanding and one coat of food-safe finishing wax the bowtie is looking like a fun feature. I am learning to let my art hold character rather than perfection.

Here is a picture of it with the wax just being put on.

And a picture of one with wax and one without.  The difference surprised me!

Here they both are with full finish.  Two coats of wax and a nice shine later.

The spalting (where fungi invade the tree and make fun patterns) on this log really caught my eye because I love wood with character and this really fit the bill for my project being homemade.

Above I am laser etching on a cute frog. I got the idea from the term woodworking known as "frog wood" meaning FRee On Ground and it is where I get the majority of my wood.  Parameters like that always keep the creative juices flowing.

Here are the finished set, with the frog on the bottom and the nice food safe finish on top!