Mother's Day Gift - As a Woodworking Family
- Rob Dennis
- May 11
- 2 min read
It's 2026 and I needed to come up with a gift idea for my kid's (6 year old son and 4 year old daughter) to give to their mother and it had to be wood working related to make me feel special. I wanted something that wasn't just unique but also a memorable lifetime keepsake from the kids. Something she could have on her desk or out in her home. So why not follow the typical military mindset of KISS (keep it simple stupid) and do a catch all tray to make sure the kids could put their "mark" on it.
Jace (6) and Zoie (4 almost 5) supervising the AVID CNC with snacks from the "assigned safe spot."
I had a piece of scrap black walnut in the shop that was rough sawn from the in laws land. I had it drying for about 2 years, milled it down with the Rigid 15A 13" bench top planer, after running the edges over the Sawstop Pro 3HP. Majority of the board was used for a school fall festival in 2025 where I made a series of bread knives.
This piece wasn't able to meet those required dimensions but we saved it, as all good wood workers do...we never throw out a scrap piece just because you never know when you might need it.
Then we took out the old school hand plane, grabbed another scrap piece of wood (2x4 pine construction grade) and shaved it down a few dozen times. Grabbed a bottle of super glue ($7) a pair of scissors and trimmed out a nice little flower that never wilts. Glued it to a stick (or if you have a dowel I didn't so went out side to the free nature bin) and drilled a small hole to shove it.
Placed the black walnut board down on the CNC, dialed it in with the Zero Touch pad, used a 1/4 end mill bit to clean out the pocket using Vcarve, then a 3/8 Round Nose bit to smooth it all out and round out the pocket. Let the kids practice signing their names with an Etcher on some pine before putting them to work on the walnut. Finished / Protected with food safe butcher block oil to bring out that nice color.
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