Handmade Wooden Homeware

A small bud vase, turned thin, for a single dried stem on a shelf or a windowsill.

The wood is burr elm, warm almost amber down the body with darker streaks running through it.

Featuring a live edge top, with one side that drops down the wall in a long split rather than cutting straight across.

That gives the vase a front and a back, which is unusual, and it means where you point it changes how it looks. There are a few dark pips low on the body where the burr was busiest.

With a 32mm hole, this can take dried grass or a few seed heads.

This isn't watertight and isn't meant for fresh flowers or water. Bark edges are naturally uneven and a little rough, and burr wood carries small voids and inclusions.

A burr elm vessel with the tree's bark left in place around the rim.

Burr elm is the wood I look forward to most. This piece is a warm reddish brown, covered in tight swirling eyes and small dark pips. The contrasting bark sits against it. The figure runs right round, so there's no back to turn to the wall. Turn it a quarter and it's a different piece.

It suits a shelf, a table or a mantelpiece. Bark edges are naturally uneven and a little rough to the touch, and burr wood carries small voids and dark inclusions.

Both are part of the tree and neither affects how the piece holds together.

An ash bowl with figure. One to leave out on the table rather than shut away in a cupboard.

The grain reads as wide bands sweeping right round the outside, pale cream through to soft honey, and it shifts as you turn the bowl in your hands. Near the rim there's a paler fleck, with fine speckling scattered through the grain below it.

Low enough to sit on a table without getting in the way.

Marks like these come with the timber rather than anything done to it. They're natural to solid wood and don't affect how the bowl is used or how well it holds together.

Approx. 14.5 cm diameter x 7 cm height.

An ash bowl for the things that collect by the front door - keys, coins, the odd stray screw.

Ash is pale cream, and the grain here runs round the outside in clean lines rather than swirls, so the shape stays the main event.

Low in one side there's a small knot, dark against the pale wood - but smooth under your thumb. It's where a branch once left the trunk, and it's how you'll always know this bowl from any other.

Good for nuts and fruit on the table, or for whatever needs a home around the house.

Knots like this are natural to solid wood. It's sound and sealed under the finish, and it doesn't affect how the bowl is used or how well it holds together.

Approx. 14.5 cm diameter x 7 cm height.

Hand-turned from a single block of Scottish sycamore. Perhaps the palest of the native hardwoods, with a creamy white with a close, even grain and very little figure to distract from the shape.

Sycamore has been the wood for kitchen treen for centuries because it's odourless and won't taint what is put in them. With a rounded belly perfect for nuts, crisps or trinkets.

There's some light discolouration to it – a faint shadow picked up while the timber was drying.

It tells a story - a part of the tree's history and doesn't affect how the bowl works.

Hand-turned from a single block of quarter sawn oak. Cutting the board through the growth rings brings the medullary rays to the surface. The fine silver flecks you can see running across the grain. This one came out unusually pale and even.

With a chamfered underside so it sits light on the table. A dish for keys, rings, salt, olives - whatever lands on it.

Finished with a food-safe hard wax and oil blend - for a soft sheen and everyday durability.

Hand-turned from a single block of quarter sawn oak. Quarter sawing cuts through the growth rings, which lifts the medullary rays and gives you the broad silver flecking across the face of the grain. The hard wax oil finsih on this piece has pulled the colour up to a warm honey.

The bowl has a slight chamfered underside so it sits light on the table. Good for keys and rings by the door, or salt, crips and olives on the table.

Finished with a food-safe hard wax and oil blend - for a soft sheen and everyday durability.

This bowl is turned from Scottish oak sourced from Pitlochry, featuring areas of burr that bring rich texture and character to the form.

The clean, rounded shape allows the natural qualities of the wood to take centre stage - from the warm tones to the swirling grain and small clusters of figuring.

Finished with a food-safe hard wax and oil blend, the surface is smooth and durable.

Hand-turned in my small workshop, each bowl made slowly, one at a time.