I was back home in Minnesota for a couple weeks this summer, and being back home means I have access to all the tools in my dad’s huge truck shop. Much like using a rolling mill to texture metal (see post 172: Rolling Mill Textures for more information on that), I wanted to try out Dad’s 30-ton hydraulic press with laser cut templates. This beast has been in the family for generations – it was in my grandpa’s truck shop before my dad’s.  It’s hand pumped, beat up, a bit oily and dirty, and perfect for experimenting on.  It was delightful working with Dad on a project, and introducin ..read more

Hello! Yes, we still exist. Last November there was a very subtle change to the posting frequency announcement on website front page, where “monthly” was crossed off and “occasionally” put in its place. And then we took a break that never seemed to quite end. Until today. I can’t even tell you where my mind dredged up the thought “Hey, I wonder what would happen if we threw laser cut acrylic in the jewelry tumbler?,” but it seemed like an interesting and easy idea. Ideally, we’d get a nice rounded edges and an interesting finish, but I didn’t know for sure. Luckily, experiments are what we lov ..read more

Most people have seen those laser engraved rolling pins to create designs on rolled out cookies; did you know that you can do the with metal too? Jewelers can texture metal for distinctive looks using rolling mills. I’ve been getting the itch to do more metal work and enameling, and thought creating my own laser engraved textures for the metal would be a fun start! Our texture experiments for the night! Some used, some not. I may have been overly ambitious. You can use a lot of different things to get texture on metal by compressing it through a rolling mill. The even pressure of the mill comp ..read more

I’ve always had an interest in folding fans. As a kid, they were fun to play with. It was neat how they folded up (and snapped out!) so nicely. Working in history museums, I got to study them in detail – both their construction and their complex place in Victorian culture. They were used as cooling devices, as a way to communicate, and even to play games. If you are interested in the Language of the Fan, there is a nice little synopsis on the websites for the National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA, and at Sotheby’s. As for this month’s post, actually making a laser cut folding fan has been ..read more

Lately I’ve been following Little Free Galleries on Instagram, thinking how cool it would be to have one close by! Free little art galleries work on the same principle as free little libraries do; you can take a piece of art and leave a piece of art for all to enjoy. In the beginning of June, a mini gallery in Seattle posted an image of their newest easel, a weasel easel! I laughed, scrolled on, but that silly thing just stuck in a strange corner of my brain. And when a friend told me her daughter wanted to be a museum curator and had her own mini gallery of cat art, it all came together. I n ..read more

One of those tiny changes the pandemic brought to us is an increased amount of clutter in our entryway. Where there were once only keys and sunglasses, there are now antibacterial hand sanitizers, gloves, simple disposable masks, KN95 rated masks, printed art masks… lots of masks. Jennifer recently decided to clean up our entryway a bit by adding some simple hooks to keep the masks off of our tiny bookshelf surface. Those hooks performed admirably over the last year. However, since last month’s project I wanted to use some more of the walnut material and figured a key holder would work gre ..read more

Most people have seen those laser engraved rolling pins to create designs on rolled out cookies; did you know that you can do the with metal too? Jewelers can texture metal for distinctive looks using rolling mills. I’ve been getting the itch to do more metal work and enameling, and thought creating my own laser engraved textures for the metal would be a fun start! Our texture experiments for the night! Some used, some not. I may have been overly ambitious. You can use a lot of different things to get texture on metal by compressing it through a rolling mill. The even pressure of the mill comp ..read more

I’ve always had an interest in folding fans. As a kid, they were fun to play with. It was neat how they folded up (and snapped out!) so nicely. Working in history museums, I got to study them in detail – both their construction and their complex place in Victorian culture. They were used as cooling devices, as a way to communicate, and even to play games. If you are interested in the Language of the Fan, there is a nice little synopsis on the websites for the National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA, and at Sotheby’s. As for this month’s post, actually making a laser cut folding fan has been ..read more

Lately I’ve been following Little Free Galleries on Instagram, thinking how cool it would be to have one close by! Free little art galleries work on the same principle as free little libraries do; you can take a piece of art and leave a piece of art for all to enjoy. In the beginning of June, a mini gallery in Seattle posted an image of their newest easel, a weasel easel! I laughed, scrolled on, but that silly thing just stuck in a strange corner of my brain. And when a friend told me her daughter wanted to be a museum curator and had her own mini gallery of cat art, it all came together. I n ..read more

One of those tiny changes the pandemic brought to us is an increased amount of clutter in our entryway. Where there were once only keys and sunglasses, there are now antibacterial hand sanitizers, gloves, simple disposable masks, KN95 rated masks, printed art masks… lots of masks. Jennifer recently decided to clean up our entryway a bit by adding some simple hooks to keep the masks off of our tiny bookshelf surface. Those hooks performed admirably over the last year. However, since last month’s project I wanted to use some more of the walnut material and figured a key holder would work gre ..read more