I’m on day three of a four-day vacation. It doesn’t hurt that a weekend gave me an extra two days. In that time I’ve said farewell to the 2018 Redmond Saturday Market season, made jewelry, broken out my die cutter and dabbled in keycaps.
The great thing is that most of the projects have made me stretch myself.
First I was sorting through my bead stash looking for beads to re-home, and I found these bright, candy-like beads. I tried pearl knotting and a few iterations of stringing before I remembered some shiny pastel spacers I had on hand. Once I worked those between the beads with some clear glass spacers, I ended up with something that I don’t hate. It’s very Miami/summer. I’m such a Seattle/autumn.
Next, the beau commissioned a keycap. Although it’s not complete, how to get the image on the keycap really caused me no small amount of concern. Once again, I remembered a product that I had on hand (and that seems to be no longer available) saved the day. Preliminary results show that the technique is indeed promising.
As for die cutting, I hadn’t done much in ages. It always feels like an event to cut out a bunch of small pieces of paper — even though the machine does most of the work. I’m excited to try something with vinyl. Unfortunately, I only have white vinyl on hand. Unless I’m going to print out an image of go-go boots, I’m having a hard time imaging using it. That feels like another personal challenge.
While marbling doesn’t stretch my skills, per se, it’s still fun to see what kind of results I get. Who knew I’d fall in love with the medium.
It’s a bummer to think that tomorrow is the last day of vacation. I could use another month of this. I mean, holiday shows are coming up, and there are Christmas gifts to make. No rest for weary/wicked.