Phoenix Feather Woodworking

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United States
Brandon, FL
Phoenix Feather Woodworking

Hand Crafted with Wonder and Imagination.

Phoenix Feather Woodworking is a small, woman-owned woodworking studio in Brandon, FL, handcrafting cutting boards, barn quilts, pet pieces & more — backed by 20+ years of design experience.

10/08/2026

Just in case you were wondering what happens when you let your shop vac get this full of sawdust: it shoots out the back. 😬

Once the dust is packed all the way up to the top of the filter like this, it has nowhere left to go, so it shoots out the back out with a vengeance. To be fair, I cannot remember the last time I emptied the shop vac. Lesson learned!

10/06/2026

This one took a lot more patience than I expected, and it was worth every minute.

I started with plain pine boards and resawed them into thin strips, then cut those strips into 120 identical pieces on the table saw. Every piece got sanded and dry fit on the backer, because a chevron pattern only works if every point lines up, and I wanted to see it all come together while it was still easy to fix.

Then came my favorite part, mixing colors and staining each stripe by hand. Orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple all cooperated on the first try... red did not. My first coat came out pink, my second coat came out slightly darker pink, finally the third coat gave me the deep red I was looking for. Sometimes seeing the grain and color of the wood is beautiful, sometimes its a pain in the butt (yellow/white pine mixed with red pigment does not equal red).

After that, all 120 pieces were glued down, and I finished it with a dark wood border and a top coat so the colors stay bright.

10/04/2026

Do you ever reach the point in your woodshop where every project you have needs the same boring next step? That is my shop right now, and the step is sanding.

Here is what is waiting. There are 8 cherry coasters with walnut stripes, 4 cherry coasters with maple stripes, and 4 cherry coasters with purpleheart stripes. There is also a stack of sign backers and two chevron COFFEE signs, with the coffee beans still flat and unshaped.

I looked at all of it, and I admitted I was going to have to sand. And then I did not sand. I shaped the little coffee beans instead, but I am counting that as progress.

I promised I would sand, so I guess I really have to sand now. Sigh...

What would you do to avoid sanding?

10/01/2026

Here is how I made the little coffee beans on my COFFEE sign, from start to finish.

It started on the computer. I drew the beans in Adobe Illustrator and printed them out. Then I covered an MDF board with blue tape and attached the printed beans to the tape, which makes the paper easy to remove later. From there, every bean got cut out on the scroll saw.

Once the paper came off, I drew right on the beans to mark where I wanted to add the curves and grooves. Then I shaped each one with a rotary tool and sanded them all smooth by hand. That is the part where they stop looking like flat cutouts and start looking like actual beans.

Next came the color. I used acrylic paint in various colors to get that roasted look and sealed each one with polyurethane. At the very end, I attached them to the sign with CA glue.

It is only a handful of tiny beans, but I love what they do for the whole sign. Is it silly to be this proud of a coffee bean? Haha I think they came out looking adorable!

What would you like to see me try next?

09/29/2026

I had so much fun creating this Nursery Name Sign!

I probably put a lot more stress on myself than was needed for this one, but I wanted to get it just right. First I cut pine strips for the herringbone background and glued them to the MDF backer. Then I trimmed the piece to its final size and cut out the custom letters and stars on the scroll saw. I knew from careful, incognito detective work that the nursery theme was dragons and stars. Thank goodness for the stars, because I do not think I am ready to cut dragons on the scroll saw yet.

Next I had an inside man sneak a photo of the paints being used in the nursery so I could match the sign perfectly. I painted the backer white and realized it was ALL WRONG, so I sanded most of that off to create a cloud effect with the white paint and the grain showing through. After that I got to work shaping and painting the stars and letters.

Then I made a border and painted it dark blue to match the letters. It looked AWFUL. I threw it in the trash, cut new border pieces, and routed a groove in them so they slipped over the edge and covered any imperfections. :-) I stained this set dark brown, and it looked much better!!

The final step was watching mom and dad's faces as they opened the gift. This was by far the best part!! I made $0 on this piece, but the smiles from the parents were worth more to me than any money. Many blessings to you and your family, baby Oliver!

What is the favorite handmade gift you have ever given?

09/27/2026

Confession time from the shop. For years I have been using whatever double sided tape I had on hand, and I kept running into the same problem. Every time I pulled it off a piece, it left a sticky residue behind that got down into the pores of the wood. Once that happens, stain and color do not take evenly, so those pieces were done. I tossed more of them than I would like to count before it finally clicked that the tape was the problem.

So I tried a tape made specifically for woodworking, the Trazon Woodworking Tape, and what a difference it made! It stuck perfectly the first time. I taped a board down and sent it through my planer, and it held the whole way with no problems. When I peeled it off there was no residue, and the tiny bit that was left came right off when I tapped it with the wad of used tape.

The piece of plywood in the video is left over from the old tape days. It is covered in residue, and I still use it as my planer sled because it works and I refuse to waste a good piece of plywood.

This is not sponsored at all. I am just finding it really useful in my own small shop and wanted to pass it along.

Woodworkers and DIY friends, what double sided tape are you using?

09/24/2026

The most intimidating piece I have ever made.

After I did the dry fit for this piece it sat on my workbench for days untouched. I was afraid to paint it the wrong colors, or mess up the glue-up. I even stalled after all that and was unsure what to do with the border. Maybe it was the size (it is 24in by 24in) or maybe the sheer number of pieces (over 200) or maybe it is just was all in my head. I am still not sure what caused the ‘writer’s block’ on this one. But I finally finished it and I really love how it turned out in the end.

Every piece got a paint wash so the wood grain still shows through the brown, light brown, sage green, light blue, and navy blue.

What is a project that sat untouched way too long because your own mind was working against you? Did you ever finish it?

09/22/2026

Nothing leaves this shop without passing inspection first. 🐾

Sometimes, I escape the Florida heat from my garage woodshop and work on part of a project inside. Today I was dry fitting a herringbone sign backer and doing a little hand sanding cleanup on each piece. Then the Quality (Kitty) Control Department showed up. The inspection was thorough, her expression was judgy, and I am honestly still waiting to hear if I passed. 🙃

Follow along to see the finished piece. It will be a small sign featuring one of my favotire things (shown in this very photo infact)... COFFEE! ☕️

Do you have any freeloader employees with strong judgements like I do? Show me your shop puppies and workshop kitties!

09/17/2026

Every one of these little pieces started life as the same plain board.

I resawed the board into thin strips on the bandsaw, then taped them to a carrier board and ran them through the planer to smooth them out and make them all the same thickness. From there I cut every strip to its angle and started playing with layouts right on the bench. The first layout did not make the cut, I literally hated it. lol But the second one, with the big X running corner to corner, was the one. Before I committed to any stain, I pulled a photo of the dry layout into my design software and mocked up the colors digitally. The mockup started out blue, and somewhere between the screen and the stain it turned into lavender. At first I was like WHYYYYY are you purple?! But I ended up loving it in the end.

Each piece got stained by hand in lavender (not blue 😒), charcoal gray, or white, and some stayed natural so the wood grain could do its thing. Then I dry fit everything on a backer board with the pattern drawn out, glued it down one quadrant at a time with a square to keep the lines straight. Next I squared off the edges, and built a gray frame to finish it off.

If you could pick the color palette for the next one, what colors would you choose?

Address

Brandon, FL
33511

Website

https://phoenixfeatherwoodworking.com/

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