Handmade Gifts for friends and your home

Choke cherry 

4″ wide x 3¾″                                 $48   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


Why should a gorgeous bowl just to be admired on a shelf? It’s made for a more active life as a go-to for malt balls, or candied truffles, or vintage jelly beans – don’t you agree?

This bowl came from a choke cherry knocked over by a strong Maine nor'easter. Down inside of the log was a soft bit that the grew tree around, but the result was too pretty to toss.

Cost each: $48.00
One of a kind

Choke cherry with black cherry lid
3¼″ diameter x 3¾″ tall                          $49     
Mark Baldwin,  Surry Maine


Choke cherry is a small tree, usually not more than six to eight inches diameter. This one grew to 18” diameter by the banks of Emerton marsh before it started to die about 25 years ago and finally toppled over and hung up in a nearby maple. The is the first piece from it after cutting away a lot of wood too far gone to turn. The lid is black cherry, a larger tree whose wood is common for cabinet work, probably from Pennsylvania.
 
But what about the box? You’ll find a good use – perhaps sugar, or a cosmetic cream, assorted buttons, or for sampling malt balls one at a time. OK, two.

Cost each: $49.00
One of a kind

Tulip Poplar and Mahogany
9¼″ x 1½″                                $75
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

There is no excuse for this piece. The palate just upped and took charge. The hunk of mahogany on the shelf looked like it wanted a job. That can happen.

Sorry, you’re on your own if a guest won’t leave until they work out the clues or stop laughing. Or the other thing.

Cost each: $75.00
One of a kind

Tulip poplar, mirror, paint and varnish
7¼″ x ¾″                                  $75  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

For a child or curious passer-by who moves closer and closer to the mirror. These ready-to-hang pieces are bright for the eye and emotions wherever they’re hung, in an obvious or out-of-the-way spot. For the maker they are a delight to concoct—with a mix of clear intention and surprise.

Cost each: $75.00
One of a kind

White pine, teak, paint and varnish
9″ x 1½″                                   $75
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

These ready-to-hang pieces are bright for the eye and emotions wherever they’re hung, in an obvious or out-of-the-way spot. For the maker they are a delight to concoct—with a mix of clear intention and surprise.  

Cost each: $75.00
One of a kind

6¾″ x 3½″                                     $28    
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


Red cedar takes a rich finish when cut smooth and rubbed with coats of tung oil. It will carry any arrangement you make – whether twigs, weeds, berries, cherry blossoms, or grape and lifesaver kabobs. And for the kids? How about a daily arrangement on their own, no grownup advice needed, concluded each day with a selfie with vase? What a record, what a gift that will be as you browse through their evolution in clothes, haircuts, imagination.

Cost each: $28.00
One of a kind

Cherry  
4¼″ x  2″                              $32.    
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This charming little pestle will demonstrate its over-size power to grind (in any practical bowl) and to crush a garlic with its flat end. Besides all that, using this little baby is a captivating chore for a child.

Notice that there are two pieces of cherry glued together. The dark piece is from a log cut for WWI airplane propellers in 1915 but broke through the ice on Maine’s Green Lake when the woodcutters were towing a load to a sawmill. Scroll to T-003 on page 2 to see more about that. The lighter piece was cut and milled in the 1990s.

As this note is written there is a south-southeast gale blowing; the bay is full of white froth, minnows are jumping in a calm little nook in the marsh making brilliant white flashes among the hard-driving rain drops. It’s the kind of day you’re happy to be on solid ground, at the lathe.

Cost each: $32.00
One of a kind

Fiddleback rock maple and teak 

10″ x 1¾″                                $36   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


Blade is 5¾”. The edge, sharp enough for anything spreadable or perhaps a cake, goes all around the blade. You can touch up the edge with sandpaper if needed (probably not).  Finish is walnut oil, good stuff for eating and finishing. Boiled linseed oil, tung oil, and mineral oil are good food-safe substitutes to keep utensils bright. The blade comes from a bunch of firewood split while looking for the fiddleback grain. The teak is from making a cabinet for my sailboat.

Cost each: $36.00
One of a kind

Cypress and cherry

6½″ x 2″                                 $45  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


It’s a sweet little bowl made with three cypress pieces and one cherry glued together before the whole was carved on the lathe. Cutting down into the block revealed a small knot not quite in the center. We mention this in case you would consider it a flaw, or perhaps a feature. There’s no right or wrong to it, it’s just so you’re aware before you push “buy.”

Cost each: $45.00
One of a kind

Spalted Sycamore 

7½″  x 1¼″                                 $70   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


Useful in many ways – sandwich, soup, or as a server – this classic shape shows off the beautiful grain and spalting. Sycamore, also called a plane-tree. and can grow to 100 feet and 500-years-old. It is native in mid and southern parts of the US, and widely treated as an ornamental or park tree. This one almost certainly was not cut here in Maine.

Cost each: $70.00
One of a kind

Arkansas Cypress
5½″ x 1½″                                     $20.     
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


There’s always something to make a sweet spot for the eye – twigs, a snip of evergreen, tall grass, pussy willows or ferns, party straws, the edges of a back yard or sidewalk. It’s a wonderful regular chore for a child.

This particular piece of wood is left over from making a truckload of those painted pillars stuck on the outside of a Toys-Are-Us store in New Jersey. How did the contract for making them come to a small shop in Maine, where 50 years later this little vase was born? It’s a minor tale of business in America: too long for here but drop us a note.

Cost each: $20.00
One of a kind

Spalted Sycamore

8½″  x 1½″                                 $66  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


This piece is a good example of spalting in sycamore. Prized for its varied beauty spalting is the beginning of decay, but not to worry, it’s perfectly strong here.

To keep this piece fresh, clean with a sponge, dry thoroughly, and occasionally wipe on some food-safe oil such as walnut oil (used here), or “butcher block oil or finish.” Actually, almost all commercial oil finishes, such as Minwax Antique Oil Finish, are considered food safe after they have cured for a few days. The stuff called “lemon oil polish” is not recommended.

Cost each: $66.00
One of a kind

Spalted Sycamore

9½″  x 1½″                                 $58  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


Perhaps you know a sycamore tree? They’re a varied family and often dramatic inside. Here’s a peak inside of one that will please the eye and bring a smile or two as it’s passed around the table with a pile of vegetables, slabs of meat, or a torte to end all tortes.

Dinner-size plate with a rich food-safe oil finish.

Cost each: $58.00
One of a kind

Choke cherry, white birch   
4″ x 4″ including lid                    $59.                   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

Lidded bowls are lovely for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge, or as an elegant server for condiments, sugar, salt,  honey, or a string of pearls. 
The egg gives an indication of size and the bowl holds about a cup of uncooked rice. Hand made, of course. Finished with multiple rubbings of food-safe oil.

Cost each: $59.00
One of a kind

Choke cherry, white birch   
5″ x 5″ including lid                    $74.                   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This sweet bowl will keep a lot of butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge, or many other treats or treasures for the table or shelf. 
The egg gives an indication of size and the bowl holds about a 2½ cups of dry rice. Hand made, of course. Finished with multiple rubbings of food-safe oil.

Cost each: $74.00
One of a kind

Walnut with teak lid
4” diameter x 3” H including lid                              $72.  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

This piece is versatile whether for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge or as an elegant server for condiments, sugar, salt,  honey (do you have a dipper? Want us to make you one?), malt balls, or a string of pearls.

Walnut may be the most the prized American wood for fine woodworking or, in the old days, for durable fence posts. Tropical teak is a staple in the finest yacht work.  

Cost each: $72.00
One of a kind

Cherry   
4″ high x 3½″ wide with lid                    $69.                   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

You’ll or your giftee will see how versatile these lidded bowls are. They’re super for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge. They’re elegant for all kinds of condiments, sugar, honey (do you have a dipper? Want us to make you one?), malt balls, or a string of pearls. 

Cost each: $69.00
One of a kind

Cherry    
3¾″ diameter x 4″ with lid                    $69.                  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

You’ll see how versatile these lidded bowls are. They’re super for keeping butter spreadable and fresh out of the fridge. They’re elegant for all kinds of condiments, sugar, honey (do you have a dipper? Want us to make you one?), malt balls, or a string of pearls. 

Cost each: $69.00
One of a kind

8″ x 1¾″  White Ash with burned-in decoration 
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine                       $36.

1 
Cut a piece off a log, split it to dimensions close enough mount on the lathe, watch as the bits that don’t look like a vase fly off in a stream of pretty shavings until there it is, the shape of something to come. Burn in highlights, carefully drill out the center, apply coats of finish, sweep up the shavings. Write this note.

2 
Imagine someone somewhere making a little ritual of finding twigs, or feathers, or the limitless combinations of cuttings and pickups that make a limitless number of arrangements to put that many smiles in the eye.

Cost each: $36.00
One of a kind

Choke cherry with a teak highlight on the lid  
6″ x 4¼″   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine                    $88

The bowl holds about two-and-a-half cups. The insulating wood and the lid helps keep your offering warm or cool, whether it’s your unique mashed potatoes, bread pudding with cranberries, cottage cheese scrambled eggs, whipped cream, or ice cream for the à la mode, or (of course) malt balls.

Choke cherry (Prunus virginiana), usually grows to only 6″ or 8″ diameter. This one grew to about 18″ thick in our yard on the banks of Emerton Brook (google), until it started to die over 25 years ago. We watched it age with us until it finally let go. 

Cost each: $88.00
One of a kind

Spalted Sycamore

9¼″  x 1½″                                 $72  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


Sycamore was a tree of my youth. A large one lived by a trail in the woods where I played hooky. This bowl is made from another sycamore, not the giant that I touched when I escaped into Glover Park. But let’s look back; are there trees in our life that we can picture? I can see an oak that was as thin as my three-year-old arm. Being an unquestioning animist in those days I saved some of its leaves from the pile my grandfather burned in the gutter. When I last was on that street the tree filled the space between gutter and sidewalk, its roots pushing up a bulge in the pavement. I’m sure it winked at me.

Cost each: $72.00
One of a kind

8¼″ x 1¼″   
Heart Western fir, playing marble, paint and varnish             $136.  
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine

These ready-to-hang pieces are bright for the eye and emotions wherever they’re hung, in an obvious or out-of-the-way spot. For the maker they are a delight to concoct—with a mix of clear intention and surprise.

Cost each: $136.00
One of a kind

6¼″ x 9″ x 1½″
Hardback “Sixty Years on the Firing Line” by Arthur Krock
Secret compartment by David Schofield, Blue Hill Maine                $46.

Arthur Krock was born in 1886, became a fixture in Washington as an old-style conservative pundit until he died 90 years later. Inside this secret compartment is a collection of subjects that he did not opine on in his decades with the New York Times.  

Cost each: $46.00
One of a kind

7¼″ x 1¼″          Wormy hackberry              $38.
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine  

Fun for a child, small or full-size? The little white holes on the back are where an adolescent powder post beetle chewed its way out, looking for a pal. The bursts of color on the front are where the wood turner was having fun.

Cost each: $38.00
One of a kind

5½″ x 8″ x 1½″ 
Hardback “The Life of Matvei Kozhenyakin” by M. Gorky 
Secret compartment by David Schofield, Blue Hill Maine   $46.

If possible in these brutal days think to the golden age of Russian literature. Of all those great writers now familiar by name, if not by their actual work, none was more famous world-wide than Maxim Gorky, 1868–1936. Gorky was a Soviet man though it’s likely that Stalin had a hand in his death from “pneumonia.” There is no other Gorky book like this on the planet. Chances are that it will surprise somebody in a hundred years.

Cost each: $46.00
One of a kind

10¼″ x 1″   Cherry, walnut, Corelle bowl                $90.   
Mark Baldwin, Surry Maine


The platter should make guests smile but wait until they dig into your appetizers. Clean with a sponge. Use with or without the included Corelle bowl. 
 

Cost each: $90.00
One of a kind