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New Hobby: Adventures in Marquetry

Yorkshire rose coaster marquetry project - Kay Vincent - LaserSister

This year (2022) I started a new hobby. I am now a marquetry enthusiast (in addition to all of my other craft addictions).

I moved house in 2021 (from the south to the north of England) during the covid lockdowns, so for a very long time I wasn’t able to start any new hobbies that involved seeing real people. But in February 2022 I was wishing for a new group or club to join in Yorkshire, and discovered that Leeds Marquetry Group were restarting their beginners’ sessions that very same week. So I signed up. And it turns out that marquetry is a brilliant pastime for me, because it seems to combine a lot of the skills that I’ve already been building up via my other crafts, over the years.

Through my papercutting experiments I’ve already learned how to use a scalpel to do some very intricate cutting…

…and through my lasercutting artworks I’ve learned some of the characteristics and limitations of working with different types of wood veneers:

So marquetry basically involves a mash-up of my existing craft skills.

The very first project I completed was a Yorkshire Rose coaster:

As with my papercutting projects there are quite a few errors that really jump out at me when I look at this piece, but overall I’m really pleased with it. I designed it myself (starting out with petals that were based on heart shapes) then cut it by hand, and there were some really challenging sections in it.

The best thing about Leeds Marquetry Group is that everyone is so friendly and helpful. In just a few months I’ve learned more about cutting, gluing, sanding and varnishing wood than I could have ever learned from books or the internet. I’m looking forward to learning even more, over the next year.

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Chinese Flower (papercutting project design: 224)

This Chinese Flower design is from an ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing (where I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

I was doing pretty well with my papercutting during the Covid19 lockdowns, but then we had to:

  • sell our house
  • move to another part of the country
  • get new jobs
  • sell my husband’s flat
  • buy a bungalow for husband’s mother
  • rent out the bungalow because mother-in-law had a fall and couldn’t live in it
  • help m-i-l move to a care home
  • sell m-i-l’s flat
  • start renovating our new (old) house

I also had to pause my PhD. Bummer. But last I’m sort of getting on top of things, and can occasionally find time to relax and do some crafts again. So here we are with another design cut from the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book. This week’s design is number 224 in the book:

Closer up:

I’ve called this one “Chinese Flower” … because it looks like a traditional Chinese papercut, and features a flower.

This piece was reeeeally small, so overall I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. The cutting is mostly accurate and I didn’t cut off any crucial parts of the design. The only flaw that leaps out at me is the middle of the central stripe in the top leaf, where there is a little kink in the design:

…but that’s only if I’m being super-critical. If I were that bothered by it, I could get my scalpel out and tidy it up.

In terms of the actual design, I like this one. It does have that traditional Chinese papercut style, which is something that I enjoy looking at. I could see myself using this design as part of a papercut greetings card, or maybe on wedding stationery.

While I was cutting it I was listening to one of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher books. I’ve listened to a lot of them recently and they tend to merge into each other in my memory, but I think it was One Shot. I never thought I’d get into Jack Reacher books, but then I ran out of my preferred audiobook genres in my library’s app so had to expand my repertoire. Turns out I really enjoy action/thriller type books.

Any comments? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Christmas Number One!

Last month I wrote this article about experimenting with Amazon’s FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) programme – where the basic idea is that sellers ship a load of products to an Amazon warehouse, then Amazon do the picking, packing and postage for them. I’ll try to remember to do a more detailed report when the dust has settled and the Christmas rush is over, but for now let’s just say that the experiment appears to have been successful. In fact it’s been so successful that I have scored a “Christmas number one” this week, and here is my screengrab to prove it:

As shown in the screenshot, my personalised Christmas letter bauble is now officially an Amazon Best Seller.

When is a #1 not a #1…?

OK, it’s a bestseller in a subcategory of a subcategory of a subcategory. But I’m still taking it as a win!

It was hard work, though. In order to get to that stage I’ve had to sell a lot of bauble ornaments. And in order to get to that stage I’ve had to make a lot of bauble ornaments. For six weeks in the run-up to Christmas it felt like my whole house was a mini factory full of baubles, wood sheets, ribbons, boxes, and wrapping materials. My family became my factory workers, and my cat became very confused.

The final batch of ornaments was only processed by Amazon yesterday (21 December), so maybe that’s too late for even Prime customers to order my products. But in the meantime I’m just going to bask in the glow of having achieved a Christmas #1 in the charts.

They keep selling out, so by the time you see this they might all be gone again. And in that case it won’t be worth looking at any of my shops. But for just this brief window in time, I’ve been able to achieve a bit of an ambition to be a chart-topper on Amazon.

I guess my target for next year should be to try to reach #1 in a higher-level subcategory. So instead of Handmade > Home & Kitchen > Home Decor > Decorative Accessories > Ornaments, I should aim for Handmade > Home & Kitchen > Home Decor? Hmm – maybe that’s a bit too ambitious…!

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This is why I joined Amazon FBA …

Screenshot of why I joined Amazon FBA

Amazon FBA = “Fulfilled by Amazon”. In other words, there is an option for them not just to show your products/artworks on their giant shop, but also to ship those items to customers.

In 2018 I registered as a seller on Amazon Handmade, but it was such an exhausting hassle that I didn’t start experimenting with selling there until 2020 (here is a link to my blog post about it, and here is a link to my shop thing). Then last week I joined Amazon FBA, as another experiment to see if it would be worth doing. One week later, here is my proof:

Amazon are shipping items for me while I’m asleep!

Of course, they’re doing it for a hefty fee – and setting up the whole thing is a huge faff and takes ages – but I’m guessing the process will get faster/easier once I’ve done it a few times.

The other giant benefit is that as well as shipping things for me while I’m asleep, Amazon will also be multiplying my capacity for physically sending out parcels. At the moment I am the sole employee of my business, so it is my job(s) to do the following:

  • Order raw materials
  • Design items to make and sell
  • Make the items I’ll be selling
  • Pack and post sold items
  • Take photographs of products
  • Research possible new suppliers
  • Research possible new outlets
  • Update my websites
  • Add new products to my online shops
  • Attend craft fairs
  • Visit potential retailers of my products (shops, museums, galleries)
  • Restock existing retailers of my products
  • Design business cards, logo, stationery
  • Carry out maintenance on equipment
  • Deal with customer queries
  • Develop new products
  • Keep accounts updated
  • Fill in tax returns
  • Etc…

…not to mention that in the background I’ve actually got a life to live, as well.

So when I spend time on the activity of “pack and post sold items” it means that I can’t do any of the other activities at the same time. And if I can’t spend time making items, I then won’t have any to pack and post.

One drawback of using FBA is that it involves a LOT of admin, which eats up time. Another is that I still have to actually pack and post items – although it does save me some time because they are all going to the same place (Amazon’s FBA warehouse) instead of having to send them to individual customers. However as I said above, I’m hoping the process will get easier/quicker once I’ve sent a few more shipments off to Amazon.

Anyway, it’s been a very interesting experiment this week, dabbling in Amazon’s FBA programme. Now let’s see what happens at Christmas…

Have you tried selling with Amazon? Or is it an evil bloated monster squatting all over the internet and you would never even shop with, let alone allow your artworks to be tainted with its vile commercialism? Feel free to leave me a (polite-ish) comment 🙂

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Lockdown Papercutting Project Day 70: Daffodil

Daffodil #692

This “Daffodil” papercut is from the ongoing papercutting challenge that I’ve been undertaking for aaaaages. (Basically I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

Today’s design is number 692 in the book. As usual I’m not 100% convinced that I’ve correctly identified the flower in the design, but I had to call it something. So on the basis that it’s got 6 outer petals and could potentially be seen as having a ‘trumpet’ shape thing coming out of it (if you’re looking at it straight on), I’m sticking with the idea that it’s a daffodil. Maybe it’s a passion flower though?

Closer up:

For this one, I sort of cheated when it came to cutting the small round holes in the centre. Because I’ve bought a tool that punches tiny holes in things. Perfect, lovely round holes. It does so much better than me just using a scalpel. But yes, it really does feel like cheating. On one hand it’s very satisfying to be able to cut small, perfect-looking circles from paper. But on the other hand, where is the skill in just punching out a circle with a tool? But on the other hand, scalpels and pairs of scissors are also cutting tools, aren’t they?

I seem to have left this papercut in a fairly rough state, apart from the nice circles. The bigger (white) circles outside the flower itself could definitely do with trimming and neatening a bit.

I don’t think I’ll be using this particular motif again in any papercutting projects, but as always, I’m pleased to have used this one as a practice piece.

Does that look like a daffodil to you, or could it be something else? Is it cheating to use a circle-punching tool, or is it OK? Feel free to use the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Lockdown Papercutting Project Day 69: Leaf Heart

Leaf Heart #687

“Leaf Heart” is from an ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing. (Basically I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

Today’s design is number 687 in the book. I wasn’t sure what to call this one, but because it’s got leaves in and a bit of a heart shape, that’s why I’ve given it the title “Leaf Heart”.

Closer up:

Closer up there are some shapes that are like a cross between oak leaves and rubber gloves. It’s a good job I noticed the heart shape in this design, otherwise it might have ended up being called “rubber glove oak leaves”.

This one was fun to cut and didn’t take long. But as with yesterday’s cut, I prefer the ‘positive’ designs rather than the stencil-type shapes cut out of the paper.

There are a couple of the shapes where I could have trimmed them a bit better, but on the whole I think the cutting was pretty accurate.

In the background I’m still listening to the audio book of Duskfall, and the narration is still annoying.

Any comments? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Lockdown Papercutting Project Day 68: Rose Border

Rose Border #679

“Rose Border” is from the ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing. (Basically I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

Today’s design is number 679 in the book. And it was easy to come up with a title.

Closer up:

Wow – I really like this one! I love the design, and I’m also pleased with the way the actual papercutting turned out, as well.

Despite that though, I’m not sure I would use this design again in a real project. I prefer to cut ‘positive’ objects from black paper, rather than cutting ‘negative’ shapes out of the white paper. It’s still a good skill to develop though, cutting negative shapes. I might come up with some stencils – e.g. for creating designs for cake icing.

This one took a couple of hours to cut. I used a fresh blade, and it made a lot of difference. The cutting was a lot easier and I made hardly any mistakes.

In the background I’ve been continuing to listen to the audiobook of Duskfall by Christopher Husberg. The story’s OK, but I find that the narration is really grating on my ears, because of the accent that the narrator uses for some of the characters. It’s like a fake-sounding “Oirish” accent.

Any comments? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Lockdown Papercutting Project Day 67: Alien Plant

Alien Plant #536

This is from an ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing. (Basically I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.) And as of today’s design I’m two thirds of the way through my Lockdown papercutting challenge, where I was cutting one design a day, for 100 days.

Today’s design is number 536 in the book. I have absolutely no idea what that plant is meant to be. I don’t even know if I’ve got it the right way round! It looks like it could be from another planet. So that’ s why I’ve called it Alien Plant.

Closer up:

The cutting itself was a challenge. Those long thin lines were difficult to cut without ripping. In fact I think I did accidentally tear it in a couple of places as I was cutting it.

In the background I’ve been listening to a bit more of Duskfall. I’m still pretty close to the beginning so still haven’t made my mind up yet. But I have noticed that because it’s an audiobook then the name “Knot” (who I guess will become one of the main characters) sounds exactly like the word “not”, and so some of the sentences sound confusing.

I think this is in my top ten least favourite from the 922 designs, which suprised me, because it’s generally a bit like an Art Nouveau design. It just seems a bit too abstract to me. But I don’t know much about plants, so for all I know it’s a very accurately rendered design. Any ideas what it is? Or do you agree that it is hideous? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Lockdown Papercutting Project Day 66: Leaf Wings

Leaf Wings #625

“Leaf Wings” is from an ongoing papercutting project that I’ve been doing. (trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

Today’s design is number 625 in the book. For once I found it easy to give this design a name. It looks like leaves, and it also looks like wings.

Closer up:

I like this Arts & Crafts style design. And the thin lines and curves in it were a good challenge for my developing papercutting skills. I can imagine using this motif as the bottom border for a larger papercut. I think this design is in my top 10 favourites so far, of all of the 400+ cuts that I’ve adapted and cut from that book of designs.

In the background I’ve been listening to yet another audiobook from the library. This one is Duskfall by Christopher Husberg. I’m only at the beginning so I haven’t decided yet whether I like the book or not. At least I’ve finished The Blacksmith Queen, now. I think the worst thing about that one was that the narrator sounded like she was gulping air between every sentence. Very offputting.

Any comments? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.

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Lockdown Papercutting Project Day 65: Ornate Leaf Border

Ornate Leaf Border #626

“Ornate Leaf Border” is from my ongoing papercutting project (where I’m trying to work my way through all of the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book by Dover Books.)

This week’s design is number 626 in the book.

Closer up:

As usual it was difficult to come up with a new name for yet another leafy design, but what the heck – the design looks pretty fancy and could be a border.

This one was very challenging to cut, what with all of the teeny tiny ‘shaded’ lines in it. It was also extremely difficult not to rip, because it’s so big and has such thin lines, and they all start from the same central point. At first glance it looks like I’ve done a pretty good job of the cutting, but if you look at it for long enough then you’ll see that some little bits have accidentally fallen off while I’ve been cutting it. Oops. It’s also not completely symmetrical, but I can’t remember if that was due to my inaccurate cutting or if the design was meant to be that way. I do still like it, though. It’s one of the longest and most difficult cuts that I’ve made.

Any comments? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.