Allergy season has been in full swing, so I’ve been fighting off headaches for the past few weeks (months?). Since migraines and artwork don’t really go hand-in-hand, less has happened on the workbench (and the Writing Desk) than I would have liked.

But stuff has happened! 😀

Since my last workbench update in May, I’ve posted two of the Fat Pony Magnets (#040 and #041) as well as a tutorial on Making Better 100% Silicone Caulk Molds and one on How to Build Simple Wooden Craft Paint Shelving.

More things happen than make it on the blog (woe) so here’s a run-down of what you haven’t seen yet and what’s on the burner for July. *rolls up sleeves*

Making the Little Things Big

I’ve been having problems getting my eyes to focus in on small details recently. Since most of my artwork is on the small side, this was Not Good™!

Reading glasses turned out to be less than useful and the headband magnifying visor my husband was using for electronics was… okay.  It was odd trying to find the perfect position to hold the horses at and it gave me a bit of a neck ache.

My mom gave me her old magnifying lamp a while back, but it’s been sitting in my art room gathering dust. The issue was that the plastic folding table I use wasn’t sturdy enough to hold it up… but I found a workaround!

So I’ll be doing a quick blog post in a bit on everything I tried, the build for the workaround, and whatnot. I’m just glad I can start working on the micros again. 😀

Plaster of Paris and Wood Glue

I’ve been having fun working out a full production process for the Flat Cat Head casts, using the new set of 100% Silicone Caulk molds.

I’ll be posting a full breakdown of the steps with the materials and tools required, as well as building a time and money analysis of the whole process. This is part of my push to get gift boxes up in the Etsy store, so there will be more on that as well! 🙂

I’ve made a few tweaks to the plaster and wood glue mix that I use as well as some of the prepping process. I’ll have another tutorial about that up in a bit as well as one on the various brands and types of glue that I’ve been experimenting with.

A Lightbox, Reborn!

I can finally say that I’ve gotten the lightbox rebuilt to the point where I’m not fighting with it to get well-lit photos. I might still have some color balance issues, but at least it’s bright and clear! 😉

I’ll be doing a post on that rebuild (of course) and another one on the process I use to setup and take the photos. I might not be an expert, but I’ve got some of the basics down, so I might as well boost other folks up the learning curve.

100 Days of Something Creative…

It’s too late to properly join The 100 Day Project for this year, so I’m jumping into my own little dash of solo insanity. I need to kickstart my creativity and it looked like a lot of fun! 🙂

Starting today (7/13/2018) I will be sitting down to do something creative every day and posting a photo or quote to my Instagram. It might be building something, or painting something, or writing something… just that’s getting my mind on creation and not consumption.

I’ve got a lot of Arts and Crafting to get done… so let’s get going! 😀 *rolls up sleeves and grabs camera*