I'm making a birthday present for a friend of mine. It's a mushroom carved from wood. I already carved and sanded it and it's already looking really nice.

I'm now looking to colour it and an doing some experiments on some wood scraps to use tea as a wood stain. So far I've tested black tea and after about 10 coats, it has a nice, earthy brown colour. Next I'm going to test out some rooibos tea for some red colouring.

I have a small turkish coffee pot that I used to make coffee with and it was really useful for making the wood stain. I put two tea bags in and boiled the water for about 30 minutes with the tea bags left inside.

I then removed the tea bags and boiled down the water. The result was a deep, milky looking tea concentrate which smelled really nice.

Can't wait to finish it and I'm excited to give it to her for her birthday :)

This weekend I was at a chainsaw sculpting course, it was nice but exhausting. Today I decided to leave early because yesterday a full day of learning and stressing over things left me completely drained. Leaving was a good decision as I have some energy left for other things, like organizing the garage.

I've made sculptures before but haven't really sculpted (as in removing material). It is fricken difficult! My perfection + impatience if I'm not instantly good at something don't help at all. But I'm happy to have finally used a chainsaw!

I got to get one of those lunch boxes. Went shopping and will be talking with some family members to schedule a dental check for my brother. Bath night and im so ready to soak.

I'm having a hard time communicating my need for alone-time to my partner who needs a lot of couple-time. Feels rough.