Craft Fairs: BTS and an unabashed promotion

Posted on 15th October 2023 by perfectly4med

I think I started making stuff for my annual craft fair appearances pretty much straight after I had packed away from the last one I did in December 2022. My laser cutter is well past its sell-by date so I use it as much as possible before it fails (which can be abruptly and permanently). I’ve spent the last few days prepping the stall, checking, barcoding and pricing stock, working out how to use a new card reader and app and making last-minute extras.

middle section of my stall for craft fairs

Dates for your diary

Active Arts Craft Market, Countesthorpe Academy (LE8 5PR)
Saturday 28th October, 10-4pm
Admission charge £2 for adults, children free. More than 50 stalls to browse and refreshments are available until 2pm.
Whetstone Baptist Church Christmas Fair (LE8 6LJ)
Saturday 2nd December – details TBC

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Laser cut: Pewter moulds

Posted on 7th August 2020 by perfectly4med

My studio has amassed kit for just about every hobby over the years (except knitting). I was looking for lollipop sticks and came across my pewter moulding kit that I’ve had for ages but never properly used… Turns out you can use your laser cutter to make wooden moulds:

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Laser-cut: Five tealight holders

Posted on 24th May 2020 by perfectly4med

I’ve been playing on my Glowforge laser cutter during the lockdown and experimenting with designing tealight holders. The first, tall one, took inspiration from one I came across on Pinterest. Once I had all the settings dialled in for the circular design, I came up with the next two designs. One features mirror acrylic and is a little bit out there, but I hope the internal reflections will make it zing. After that came the next two faceted rounds using various repeating seamless patterns to fill the facets. All are made from 3mm birch plywood, treated with flame retardant and are available to purchase for £5 each (p&p extra).

Altered Art: Chuck it all on

Posted on 22nd February 2020 by perfectly4med

I’m a fan of Finnabair and her combination of collage and assemblage in her mixed media pieces. There are numerous other artists following the style, and plenty of videos on YouTube showing step-by-step ways of working. Silly old me – I watched one and thought I could remember it as I did my own… This wasn’t the case, so this is pretty much all my own work. It’s the result of a couple of hours work, including cutting out the various chipboard/greyboard elements with my laser cutter. I’ve chucked everything at it!

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Sculpture: Here be dragons I

Posted on 21st January 2020 by perfectly4med

Over the last month or so, I have been working on a new sculpture of a dragon. Made from scratch, I first start with a tin foil armature (the essential shape and skeleton of the beast) and then cover it in stages with Pal Tiya, a specialist modelling material that handles like clay but hardens in water. Once the Pal Tiya has cured for a week submerged in the pond, I let it dry. Fine details were modelled with an epoxy clay which sets rock hard over 24 hours. The fibres in the Pal Tiya make fine detail modelling quite difficult, especially at this relatively small scale. I finished off with dry brushed acrylic paint. The sculpture is designed to go outside and should be weather resistant.

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Quilt No. 026: Rotating Squares

Posted on 18th November 2019 by perfectly4med

I made this quilt back in June and was due to teach it this weekend. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough people signed up for the workshop and the session has been cancelled. This frees me up to share the quilt, and more importantly, the pattern!

It is my own design and pattern. If you’d like to buy a copy (£5), click the button below. You will be shown a download link on completion of the order. The link will also be emailed to you with your invoice – if you don’t receive it, please check your spam folder. The file format is a PDF.

By clicking on the download button, you acknowledge that once you have paid you are not entitled to cancel the order or receive a refund (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 – digital downloads). Continue reading →

Altered Art: various bits ‘n’ bobs

Posted on 16th September 2019 by perfectly4med

My crafting mojo has wandered off, somewhat inconveniently for earning an income, but hey ho, it happens. I have been doing some ‘pottering’ in the studio though and here are a few altered art pieces I have managed to get made…

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Laser Cut: 3D Mandalas Part II

Posted on 28th August 2019 by perfectly4med

I’ve had a couple more goes at layering 3D mandalas. Making the layers sometimes causes some head scratching, but as I have been used to editing layers in other design work, it’s not all bad. The first two are based on my hand drawn mandalas, and the second is based on a photo of a real snowflake.

Laser cut: 3D Mandalas

Posted on 23rd August 2019 by perfectly4med

If you care to remember, I have been drawing mandalas from scratch. I’ve also been expanding my skill set designing and cutting on my Glowforge laser cutter. I’ve seen several 3D mandalas online where the design has been cut from layers of wood, with variable complexity and some true artists whose work must have taken days, if not weeks, to do.

My first attempt at a layered mandala, using 1.5mm thick birch ply:

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Laser cut: A6 notebooks

Posted on 19th May 2019 by perfectly4med

Often, it’s the designing that takes the longest time to do when working on a new project. In this case, it was researching the Scottish Gaelic text for the first notebook, making sure what I wanted it to say really was ‘right’. The notebook has laser cut birch plywood front and back, 1.5mm thick. The Celtic knot is cut out and has a red page behind which isn’t very obvious in the pic. You’ll have to take my word for it that it is a rather effective technique. The text is quite heavily engraved which gives a dark burn that won’t rub off.

The second notebook builds on my A7 notebooks and features one of my hand-drawn mandalas. This took a fair while to engrave as I used a 340 lines per inch resolution for a crisp image.