Botched Boxes

So I was going to try making and selling boxes on Etsy, but it turns out boxes take foreeeeever to make.  And you can buy factory-made ones for super cheap... And then I had the bright idea to make a polymer clay inlay.  So no, that's not just painted on there (although that would have taken *Dr. Evil voice* ONE MILLION fewer hours); I cut out the wood letters and then stuffed some polymer clay in there and covered it with a clay design that I thought would show up better.  And it was going to be soooo much cooler before I sanded too much and had to redo the whole inlay.  Siiiiigh... this is indeed a learning process.

And in this shot, I was going for the lone, pensive box, pondering life's mysteries as the sun sets... 

Celtic knot: Infinity or something something...

Oh hey, so I made a knot. A Celtic knot.  Out of wood.  Typically, when one is making something as immutable as a wooden wall hanging symbol, the underlying meaning should be at least topically investigated.  However, not wanting to invest the 15 seconds of a Google search, I shall let it remain a mystery to me.  I think it probably has something to do with infinity... or racial tension...or something...

Anywho, this guy took me a while to complete.  I wanted to give it some depth as if the wood were going over and under itself.  So after a good deal of painter's tape, Vaseline, spray paint and time, I give you the Celtic Knot of Ambiguous Meaning.

Mustard Yellow!!!

While in this picture it very much looks like gold,  I nevertheless got some mustard yellow paint--booyah!  (Disclaimer: I would not advise consuming actual mustard at any point--ever.  Very toxic.  Very disgusting.  Very yellow.)  I've been wanting to justify buying more paint, and a customer's request settled it.  I kinda want to go paint everything yellow now.  How utterly pleasing.

PS- This little number is distressed with a medium chestnut under the yellow. 

Finished Finishes

I finally finished my finishes collage...   DARN.  There's no synonym for collage that starts with an F...  Alliteration fffail.

Font Ideas

{We interrupt the usual tone of this blog to post some font options linked from Etsy.}

Etsy folks, some things to keep in mind when selecting a font:

•  The thinner the font style, the weaker (easier to break) the finished product will be.  While I can cut pretty thin fonts, we should both worry about the finished product making it to you in one piece after shipping (despite a plethora of bubble wrap and a mail carrier with the best intentions of caution).
• Words containing certain letters that hang below the "line" (such as lower case "y" "g" "q" "p" and "j") will not stand up evenly on a flat surface on their own (but would still be dandy hanging on a wall).
• Cursive-type fonts typically don't look great in all capital letters (like if you're trying to avoid that lower case 'y' messing things up).
• Letters will be scooted closer to each other so that an entire word can be cut out in one chunk (unless you're wanting individual letters cut separately).
• I can do just about anything from fontsquirrel.com or dafont.com as long as it's a thick enough font and listed as "free" or "public domain" on dafont.  (Everything is free to use on fontsquirrel.)  Just keep the above bullet items in mind when selecting :)
• Below are some ideas of fonts that would work well:

Fer fun!

Pine Plus Polymer Pandemonium

Ah, texture.  I'm a big fan.  So I slapped some polymer on this wooden name cutout and Danish oiled the exposed wood.  I'm always a little sad to paint or otherwise cover the wood, since I think wood grain is art in and of itself (go God), so this is a happy medium.  Pine & polymer, salt & pepper, me & mini Reese's... the list goes on.

Korver is my awesome neighborfriend's son.  So this one was for him.  While I don't think it's HORRIBLE to not have the middle of the O and R's cut out, I'm pretty happy that my new scroll saw can make inside cuts with ease.  Perhaps I should consider a career in Dewalt sales...

So then, I was like, "I think this is cool, maybe other people would, too..." So this became my first Etsy listing.  It's super hard though to narrow down the -here's what poly clay finishes are available- when there are virtually endless possibilities.  So I'm working on a good way to convey that in just a couple pictures and pull-down options.  Too many options hurt my brain...

h-No Man

So whoever's been to my house knows that it's a little light on decor...  Mmmmaybe the entire front room only has a few pictures up...that happened fairly recently.  Anywho, I really wanted to try a new technique for a distressed paint finish as well as beef up Christmas decor last month, so I drew up some sketches in primary (you know...where I sit at the back on the piano under flickering lights...and probably should be reading the Ensign or something..)  I then cut these puppies out in pine and tried my new, 2-tone distress technique.  There's definitely some fine-tuning to go, but I really like the shabby-chic look that seems to be popular... I dunno, is it still popular?  Are bangs still in?  Are boot-cut jeans still in??  I just know I'll be that 40 year-old with flare jeans and a slap bracelet...