Laser Cut: Christmas 2019

Posted on 29th July 2019 by perfectly4med

I know, it’s the C-word again, but in the crafting world, Christmas is in July. I think it is so that all the kit can be bought, put somewhere safe, searched for and then, in a final frantic rush, used. In my case, it’s because I have an idea or find inspiration that I have to do something with. It also helps that I am well prepared for a table at a local craft fair at the beginning of November.

This week’s offerings summarise a few hours work over the last month or so, featuring original artwork inspired by Pinterest browsing or from my own creativity.

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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.

Laser cut: A7 notebooks

Posted on 8th May 2019 by perfectly4med

These are A7 kraft covered notebooks with laser-etched designs using my own mandalas. It took a little experimentation to get the right settings dialled in, so the gold covered one is a bit of a botch. I engraved it with too low a setting, so there was a small etch, but no colour. I painted it with gold acrylic, dried it and then tried all sorts of techniques to colour the etched areas only. There was scraped acrylic paint (messy and didn’t stay put), antiquing cream (the same) and finally, I went back to a golden oldie which I haven’t used in a long while – tar/bitumen. This settled nicely in the grooves (though not entirely uniformly) and polished off the top surfaces. I like the aged look.

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Laser cut: Christmas Lanterns

Posted on 6th May 2019 by perfectly4med

I mentioned that I’d been working on some Christmas projects after hearing that I have been given a table at a very popular craft fair in November. Here are six MDF Christmas lanterns for tealights – they are 10cm cubed and will contain a glass tealight holder. I had a fair bit of brain ache when working out what would work without bits dropping out if they weren’t connected to anything else. I obviously got it right as nothing is missing, and I was chuffed to cut each design correctly on the first go.

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Laser cut: Engraved wooden tree decoration

Posted on 25th April 2019 by perfectly4med

I’ve had a bit of a creative funk recently – I had little direction to work in and consequently, things have been a little quiet in the Studio. That changed this week with my application for a large local Christmas Fayre being successful. I know, I know, it’s only April and I’ve started on Christmas prep – but that’s how competitive getting a table was since the invites came out in March.

So, the laser cutter has been blazing away with a couple of new designs. The first uses a disc designed to be a wooden earring. At 5cm diameter, it seems to be a little large for that, but I thought it would complement my other wooden tree decorations. A quick bit of design and hanging an amethyst coloured heart bead created this:

The trickiest part is hanging the heart. This was originally planned to be a star, but I didn’t have any suitable beads to hand – I think the heart works just as well.

Bible Journaling: Stencils

Posted on 20th December 2018 by perfectly4med

I recently took up bullet journaling as a means of recording what I intended to do each week alongside what I actually did (or didn’t). I thought it would be helpful to have some visual prompts for my pages, so invested in a set of stencils designed for bullet journalers. Well, the bullet journaling lasted about 8 months, but the stencils hung around and I started using them in my Bible journaling instead. There was just one problem – they were too big to use in the margins of my journaling Bible. So, this week, I created my own to fit!

Here are some journal entries demonstrating my stencils in use:

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Tangle Pattern: Balls Squared

Posted on 29th November 2018 by perfectly4med

This is the next instalment in a short series of new tangle patterns. I like the geometry of this one, with the curves interplaying with the curves. The negative space is quite pleasing as well, with a cross appearing as the pattern is tiled. Below are a sample card and two 3D versions of the pattern etched into wood.

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Altered Art: Signs & woodblocks

Posted on 31st October 2018 by perfectly4med

I’ve been in full production mode getting stock ready for a Christmas Fayre at the end of November. All being well, there will be good footfall and matching sales. If not, anticipate a lot of listings in my Facebook and Etsy stores!

This week I’ve been concentrating on signs. The wood plaques were bought in, and then undercoated with gesso and a cream chalky finish acrylic paint. I designed all the typography in Adobe Illustrator and then etched the outlines on to the signs using my brand spanking new replacement laser cutter. After that, it was a matter of using Posca pens to fill in the gaps before doing a dirty wash with diluted acrylic paint to age them. Some had crackle medium added to the corners, but it doesn’t show up overly well. Each sign is approx. 30cm x 10cm, £5 each.

I’ve also been playing with some 10x10cm paulownia wood blocks, etching into them using the laser cutter. The laser has burnt away the soft wood more easily than the grain leaving a beautiful texture in the background. A set of four is available for £6.

Used in these projects:

Signs and wood blocks: Creativ Company
Laser cutter: Glowforge
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Christmas 2018: Tree decorations

Posted on 14th August 2018 by perfectly4med

I know, I know, it’s still August. But in a crafter/maker’s world, Christmas has to start early to get stock together. I’m hoping to book a table at a local Christmas Fayre in November at the same time as the town Christmas Lights are turned on. Hopefully, that will mean a good footfall. But it also means I’ve started making tree decorations and spent the last three days doing not much else!

For those that wish to buy some before the fayre, they are £1,50 each – just drop me a line. P&P will be £1 for those that can’t collect.

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Altered Art: What price a tag?

Posted on 5th August 2018 by perfectly4med

These are solid beech tags, 12 x 2.5 cm in size and about 1 cm thick. I’m calling them chunky gift tags and spent a day getting the settings right on the laser cutter. Variations included cutting from both sides (involving lining up the mirror image, not easy), lots of repeat cuts, and lots of sanding. Every block had to be covered with masking tape front and back prior to cutting. I have a sum total of 30 tags that passed quality control, 4 that are seconds and another 6 or 7 consigned to the bin straight away.

One of the trickiest things for an artist/maker to get right is pricing. Following guidelines from college, each of these tags should be sold for £7.50 each. I certainly wouldn’t pay that much for them. I’ve settled on £3 each with two for £5 as an offer, and even that seems a little too much. What is often overlooked when considering the price of artwork/made items are the costs involved in prototyping, learning from mistakes, the odd block that is inexplicably more dense and harder to cut than the others, and the wear and tear on equipment.

May I encourage you to ask artisans ‘what has this really cost to make?’ You may not be willing to pay that price, but at least you will know why the moniker of ‘penniless artist’ is all too real.