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.

10/18/2026

Lunch break productivity report: not bad, if I do say so myself!

I have a festival coming up and I'll be there with a booth, so right now every spare minute in the shop counts. This morning I got the borders cut, and they're reaady to be stained. Then on my lunch break I sanded all of the pumpkins, a hardwood barn quilt, a set of coasters that are now cut to final size and waiting on roundovers, and a maple and purpleheart cutting board. I did find a little imperfection on the edge of that board, so I'll trim a sliver off before it's done, but it's very close.

Next lunch break, the cherry coasters and one more cutting board are on deck. I can see a small part of my workbench and that hasn't happened for weeks, so this is progress for sure!

I'll share the festival details soon, and I'd love to see some familiar faces at the booth. Which piece are you most excited to see finished?

10/15/2026

Purpleheart wood perplexes me!!

This cutting board (which I LOOOOVE, by the way) is made of purpleheart and maple. The purpleheart was bright purple for months, right up until the moment I added cutting board oil.

WHAT HAPPENED? I actually love the way it looks now even more than when it was bright purple, but I am still trying to figure out why. I also love how the maple grain came out. Is there really anything more satisfying than adding oil to a finished cutting board? NOPE!

Is the result worth the pain of working with purpleheart? I find it burns easily, tears out when you look at it wrong, and just plain laughs at me when I try to work with it.

Purpleheart sure is pretty but is it worth it to you?

10/13/2026

Four sign backers, four patterns, and I cannot pick a favorite.

All four are pine, and all four went through my usual process, but each one ended up with its own personality. On the left is a tall chevron, at the top is a wide chevron, in the middle is the square geometric barn quilt-y pattern, and on the right is the darker four-panel chevron. They are just the backers for now, which means the fun part (whatever ends up on them) is still ahead.

Which one is your favorite: the tall chevron, the wide chevron, the square, or the dark four-panel?

10/11/2026

Is there anything better than the moment the grain shows for the first time?

This is a water pop, and it is one of my favorite little steps in the whole process. I spray the sanded wood with water, which swells the tiny fibers that sanding crushed down. Once it dries I can sand those raised fibers off, so the grain does not stand up later when the finish goes on. It also gives me a sneak peek at what the wood will look like with the finish on it, and it shows off any sanding scratches I missed before they get sealed in forever.

But let's be honest, I mostly do it because it is gorgeous. These are eight coasters in walnut, padauk, sapele, and maple, and every single one changed color the second it got wet. Then I stacked them leaning against each other to dry, which felt like a perfectly reasonable idea right up until it didn't.

How do you lay out your coasters after a water pop? Surely there's got to be a better way than this! 😂

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?

Address

Brandon, FL
33511

Website

https://phoenixfeatherwoodworking.com/

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