Increasing A Standup Freezer’s Usable Storage

I like my stand up freezer in general, but I have always felt like its shelves were inefficient. Because the contents of the freezer (especially meat) often don’t stack well, it feels like only about half of the shelf’s storage area is usable. Adding baskets is the obvious choice, but every time I look for baskets I find them to be over-priced and inefficient (the sides are usually sloped, and they are never the exact right size). This fall, while surfing for a basket solution again, I had an epiphany.
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Colander Handle

A few years ago my wife bought a colander at a garage sale. Its handle has never been in great shape, but it has been falling off a lot lately and it needed attention. My wife asked me to fix it, and after finding out expectations were low (specifically, she would have been satisfied with a hole in a dowel rod), I thought I would try for something nicer. During a period of “maker’s block” for a much larger project, I banged out a fairly nice replacement with scraps from my recent panjolele project.
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Barn Quilt Canvas

A few times a year my wife asks me to build a canvas for her. This is usually a certain size of paneling cut down, or possibly some joined dimensional lumber. Then she paints whatever is on her mind on it. I usually don’t post these because they don’t have a lot to do with the end result, but recently she asked me for a fairly involved “canvas” to make a “barn quilt” on. She sent me a link to this page as a reference for what she had in mind. These aren’t really barn quilts in the traditional sense, but certainly the designs and materials are inspired by them.
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Cake Pan Ukulele

A couple of months ago Make Magazine‘s site posted a link to one of their projects – The Panjolele Cake Pan Ukulele. I had been considering buying a ukulele for a while and these steps didn’t seem too intimidating. After looking around I dug up a paper copy of the issue that had this project in it and got to work. This post is a build log to help me remember the project in general, and specific lessons I took away from the project.
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