What you can’t see can hurt you

Or at the very least make you think.  The request is for a Footprints in the sand pen.  The idea was to create a blank that used wood from Bethlehem and an acrylic pour for the water.  There may have still been some moisture in that blank or something happened in the pressure pot, or rather didn’t happen.  After cutting the five blanks from the mold Sam felt like he wouldn’t know which one to use until he actually saw them closer to the final state.  After all how can you tell how the two parts meet unless you can clearly see them?  In turning this one down several small holes were revealed.

footprints in the sand pen blank

Footprints in the sand pen blank

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Bird of Paradise seeds are cool

orange fluff with deep purple hard seed

orange fluff with deep purple hard seed

These seeds are almost to pretty to plant.  They have tufts of bright orange hair in a deep purple or black seed.  The package suggests making a cut in the seed and then soaking them for 48 hours.  A random video suggested removing the orange hair, not making the cut, and soaking for only 4 hours.  So I soaked for 3 days, removed the hair, and made the cut after the soak.  Following instructions might not be in my wheel house.

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Fail or Opportunity?

group of princess pen blanks

group of princess pen blanks

Are you a half full or half empty mold kind of person?  While it’s always great when something works the way you were intending it to.  It’s also great when it doesn’t.  In this case the fail happened because the color swirls did not penetrate deep enough.  No swirling or mixing was done after the color pours either.   The fear is that when the pen is turned all the colors will be removed.  New plan, redo the pour and change the way the swirls are added.  Any suggestions on how to use these pieces?

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A tale of three seeds from the islands

Recently I received these three seeds as a gift.  While I love seeds and playing in the dirt is my favorite, I feel sorry for the seeds.  We shall see if I can get them to grow and keep them alive.  The lemon tree behind me doesn’t think I can do it.

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Princess Pen Blank

Creating a pen blank perfect for a princess.  The recipient picked out the princess pen kit and it is shown with a white pearl blank that has swirls of gold and black.  Can’t wait to see this one cut into blanks.

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Silver Mica Powder

Silver mica powder is a lot more opaque than you would think.  It creates a dove grey color when completely mixed in.  This moment is what creating blanks is all about.  The energy, the movement, the possibilities.  Let’s all just take a minute and stare at it in silence.

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Galleries

Check out some of our creations!

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Corn Cob Pens

Four Corn Cob Pens

Yes, corn cob pens!  I’ve made a dozen or so of these over the years, they are very popular around here.  We recently brought a bunch of pens in to Legacy Outfitters, a store in Logansport that sells items made by local artists and craftsmen, and several of them sold.  One of these was a corn cob pen.  The customer who bought it asked if I could make three more.  So here they are being made.

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Some Acrylic Pens and a Wood One

Here are a handful of pens we turned.


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Island Legs

Kitchen Island Legs

One of the things about little local craft shows is that you might not sell much. You might spend a lot of money on a booth. You sit there all day peopling. You have to pack and unpack and sometimes drive down many a long and winding road. And it all seems like you do it for nothing. I won’t try to tell you that you will always make back what you spent on the booth, drive, and all the food you ate at the venue. It takes some tweaking to find your market and what types of events work best for you. That being said even though you don’t sell at the event you need to get busy handing out your cards, talking to people, make sure that you have interesting things for them to look at and talk to you about.

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