Arts in Worship: Crosses

Posted on 22nd March 2023 by perfectly4med

I’ve had a few problems with my laser cutter over the last six weeks or so… One of the cables was causing intermittent faults. The presumption was that after four years of use, it was gradually fracturing. I managed to keep the machine limping on until I replaced the cable this week. As a result, I’ve had to feed projects into the machine through a slot so that the lid was barely lifted – an interesting exercise.

It would have been fine if I had not been asked to do several projects in those weeks. A small group craft session for church folk, the ‘Be Still’ evening and a large group craft session for my church’s retired men’s group. All of these needed kitting out with laser-cut items.

The projects

Here are the projects I designed and crafted for the small group and the men’s group. They feature crosses for the Easter season. Both are available as workshops at the Studio for groups of up to eight people. To book, just get in contact with me.

Easter crosses laser-cut from eucalyptus plywood

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Arts in Worship: Be Still

Posted on 15th March 2023 by perfectly4med

I was asked to run a craft table at a recent ‘Be Still’ community event at my church. The aim of the evening was to take the chance for attendees to have some ‘me’ time with massages, facials, mindfulness sessions as well as the craft table. I looked for all sorts of inspiration and didn’t really find any. I then stumbled on some photos of retro signage and decided to go with the theme. I created six different laser-cut wood signs, each with a typical self-affirming phrase often linked to mindfulness sessions. For each, I spent a long time finding a relevant Bible verse or passage to move it from self-centred to God-centred.

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AAA Cards DT: Colour theme ± dots #224

Posted on 18th September 2022 by perfectly4med

A new challenge has just been published over at the AAA Cards challenge blog. This time, it is to create a clean and simple card using a colour theme set by a photo with the optional extra of using dots. I picked out the primary four colours from the inspiration photo and spent a bit of time matching them to archival ink colours before stamping them onto white card using the same dotty stamp. Now, I usually avoid layers on my CAS cards, but most guidelines specify no or few layers so I feel I can get away with two. I like the individual pieces’ drop shadows and the depth they provide.

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Lasered: Believe

Posted on 26th August 2021 by perfectly4med

Every now and then I have cause to go back and look at some of my previous work. On this occasion, I reviewed a piece I made for Jones Crafts some 7 years ago. I like the wide frame and the recess, so I adapted that concept for my latest piece from my Glowforge laser:

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Commission: Token Boxes and Tower

Posted on 17th August 2021 by perfectly4med

It’s always lovely to be asked to make something, and even better when given relatively free rein! The brief was to make boxes that were suitable for holding board game tokens, roughly 3-4″ by 1″ deep in size. The rest was up to me… Here’s what I came up with:

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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).

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: 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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