October 2022 - LaserSister

Posted on 18 October 202218 October 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

Lasercutting TikTok Video

TikTok lasercutting video of Christmas tree bauble decoration - M - LaserSister

Woo, get me – I’ve been trying out 21st-century technology today, and have discovered how to put a lasercutting video onto TikTok.

I’m not sure it was worth all of the effort, to be honest. I’m hoping that TikTok goes away, and that I never have to interact with it again. Either that, or I’m hoping that as more middle-aged people (like me) start using it, TikTok will realise how much people hate the bossiness of an app that immediately starts playing video and audio content as soon as you open it up. Ugh.

Anyway, in an attempt to train TikTok’s algorithms into at least showing me more relevant looping streams of video, today I’ve been trying to teach it that I like crafts and art – especially laser-cut and polymer clay art.

Below is the actual video I uploaded. My first ever attempt at uploading some content on TikTok. It was such a giant, convoluted hassle that I might never bother again. But just in case I do, I wrote a reminder to myself on my KayVincent.com website, vaguely showing how I managed it.

@kay_vincent
LaserSister – my laser cutter making an M Christmas decoration. #LaserCut #LaserCutter
♬ original sound – K

It was a speeded-up video clip showing my laser cutter in action, cutting this ‘M’ Christmas tree bauble decoration:

Maybe I’ll stick to YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram, and leave TikTok for the kids. Dunno.

Sander sadness…

In the meantime, the reason I’ve been making lasercutting TikTok videos instead of sanding the decorations is that my sander is broken. It’s the second sander this year that has spontaneously conked, so I’m going to hunt down the receipt to see if it’s still under warranty. In the meantime I’ve ordered another sander, but have gone for a more industrial model, rather than the (literal) home or garden version. Hopefully by Friday my little sanding station (in the garage) will be back up and running. Because I definitely don’t want to be hand-sanding hundreds of wooden Christmas decorations.

Posted on 10 October 202210 October 2022 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

More Marquetry

Yorkshire rose coaster marquetry project - Kay Vincent - LaserSister

More marquetry news this week: I’ve won first prize in the “Beginners’ Applied” category of a marquetry competition – wow!

I’ve been really enjoying my membership of the Leeds Marquetry Group, and last week I entered their annual competition. I submitted the Yorkshire Rose coaster, which was the very first marquetry project that I’d ever completed (and which I wrote about in July here).

I created the design myself, and based the petals on heart shapes. Then found a really pesky, tricky wood to cut it out of. (For such a therapeutic hobby, I do seem to find myself inventing a surprising number of new swear-words.) Then I covered the coaster with a heat-resistant and water-resistant melamine sealant, gave it to my dad as a birthday present, only to pinch it back again to enter it into the competition.

Posted on 2 October 202230 January 2023 by LaserSister — Leave a comment

Wedding Papercut

Natalie _ Oliver papercut - Kay Vincent - LaserSister

This is the most recent wedding papercut that I’ve created.

I did originally create a design that just used the initial letters of the two people, but the trouble with couples who have the initials of “N” and “O” is that it looks like the artwork is spelling out “NO”. Which isn’t a very auspicious message for a wedding gift. So I decided to spell out their names in full, after all.

First I tried cutting the piece with my lasercutter, but the result wasn’t as good as I’d hoped for. The laser-cut edges of the designs were just a bit too brown and toasted. So I cut the design by hand instead, to ensure that the edges of the paper stayed their original colour. Then I framed the piece in a “shadow box” frame. (It’s taken me years of experimenting and searching, to finally find the right type of frame for this type of papercut. Would you like a tutorial article on how to frame papercuts like this? If so, please let me know via the comments section or the Contact page. )

Natalie _ Oliver papercut in frame from side - Kay Vincent - LaserSister

Creating the design

The leafy/berry-y elements of the wedding papercut design came from an SVG file that I bought from Vectorstock.com. I’ve mentioned Vectorstock here before, but basically the idea is that to save time, you don’t want always to draw a completely new design from scratch – especially if someone else has already created a lovely design to begin with. Buying an expanded licence allows other artists to buy the SVG file and then sell their own artworks, based on that design. With this system the original artist gets a payment from other artists who want to use their design, the customer-artist gets to save time when creating their own artworks, and the customer-artist’s own customer gets an artwork that is totally unique but is usually a lower price than if the papercutting artist designed every single element of the design from scratch . Win/win/win!