Nesting Elephant Puzzle

I just love the Made By Joel blog, he's a dad who makes lovely simple toys for his kids on an almost daily basis! Lucky lucky children. Anyway, I was inspired to make one of his Elephant Puzzles for Merlin. I wanted to try my hand at a bit of woodwork. I had memories of doing this kind of thing at Montessori school, drawing a design and cutting it out by hand with a children's coping saw. I remembered it being quite easy so I was surprised to find that actually cutting through an inch thick beech Ikea chopping board was not the gentle carving motion I had in mind, but actually a sweaty, curse inducing labour of love. Anyway, with cutting over, I sanded it well, and gave it a couple of coats of Danish tung oil (which is a beautiful natural wood oil), and I was quite pleased with my efforts. Oh, and so was Merlin for whom I was actually making it, umm I think, or was I making it for myself? I get muddled sometimes.