Gone fishin!

We went to visit my sister-in-law and her SO back in June. They live in a small town in Georgia on a good deal of acreage. She's recently retired (early and good for her!!) and had a workshop built on the property. It's full of tools, scrap wood and very organized with huge double doors so she can wheel out tools and tables to reduce mess. I LOVED it and came home very envious but with some new skills. (Thanks Linda!)
I've wanted to learn how to use more power tools since the fence project and Linda had the patience to walk me through using a jigsaw. They're a little intimidating to me since you guide the blade yourself unlike a circular saw which has a blade guide. She pulled out some scrap wood for me, some clamps and some saw horses for the wood. Once everything was set up outside (no mess to clean up since we were outside!), she gave me a pencil and suggested I start by drawing easy shapes and then cutting. I was really surprised that it really wasn't near as hard as I thought it would be to cut simple shapes.

This is where I started...

 

She and her SO had recently done some volunteer work on Cumberland Island off the Georgia coast and gave me some sand dollars and fishing floats that they'd found while walking the beaches. I thought they'd be great to hang at home since we have a very eclectic beach style to our home decorating.

Once I had the simple shapes down, I drew a couple of fish on some scrap wood.It did take some practice to get the curves on the fish right but I think they turned out pretty well for a first try. I used my Dremel to drill the holes for hanging the floats and sand dollars. And I originally planned on hanging these outside but decided, once they were finished, that they would be too fragile with the sand dollars for outdoors.

Since I'm definitely not a painter, I called my daughter and asked for some suggestions on how to get started. She had some great tips including marking my paint lines with tape and add shapes with my Silhouette cutter. She also suggested the use of a black Sharpie marker for outlining and hiding the not so straight paint lines. The tips worked like a charm! I used some clear jewelry line along with crimp beads to hang the floats and sand dollars once the paint was dry. 

And this how they finished up!

I used some Command strips (love those things!!) to hang them on the walls in our bar room and definitely love the way they turned out.
A big thanks to Linda for all her help and my grandson Jordan for the paint and float layout suggestions.
Again...power tools are fun and NOT scary with the right instructions and guidance!