Butterfly and flower marquetry project by a 10 year old

My granddaughter Corina will turn 11 in September. She has a strong interest in art and at her young age has already done several marquetry projects with me. The marquetry “skin” you see below will eventually become the top of a jewelry box.



Here is the image on semi-transparent paper she created off an image she found on the Internet:





Applying veneer tape to the veneer to strengthen it in preparation for cutting:



Using a brass brush to ensure the wet tape is making good contact with the veneer:



Using a straight edge to cut the cardboard backer that will form the packet:



Setting the nails that hold the packet together:



Hard at work on the scroll saw cutting the intricate pieces:


Each piece cut from the packet is numbered and we use a board with a grid to hold all the pieces after they are cut and before sand shading:




This is what the packet looks like after all the pieces are cut out on the scroll saw. You can see how different colored veneers have been stacked under the drawing. For any given piece, you might be cutting through five or six different veneers, but you will only keep one:



Here the background veneer is about to emerge from the packet:



Using blue tape to form a sticky surface onto which the various shapes are placed. There is an entire sequence to doing this that I don’t really show here:




At the end of a long day in the shop with grandpa, a beautiful picture emerges: