Toothpick Holder

I saw this idea from Wood Magazine somewhere a while back and saved a picture to give one a shot.  Last week I got around to it. 

I used spalted Tamarind for the body.  I had to soak it with CA glue as I turned it to make the wood hard enough to get a finish I was happy with. 

But after several soakings and some scraping and sanding, I was satisfied.

The body is about 2" at the top and about 1-3/8" at the bottom.  I finished the lid and body with some homemade friction polish while they were still on the lathe.

I have a habit of keeping small pieces of woods I really like just for stuff like this.  I used a tiny piece of Desert Ironwood left over from a pen blank to turn the finial.  The "bucket" that holds the toothpicks is from an offcut of Cocobolo from a hand plane knob I turned.  And the stem connecting the lid and bucket is a small piece of Olivewood that was too small to even put on the lathe so I shaped it with a carving knife and piece of sandpaper.  

The Cocobolo has some of my friction polish on it.  No finish on the Olive.  And the Ironwood has friction polish and a single coat of wipe-on poly since it's the piece that will be handled all the time.

Thanks for looking.  Comments and questions welcomed as always!