Small Light-Up Stand

    Andrew Crawford April 30, 2025

    I was thinking about ways to get a little bit of extra light to the bottoms of some small objects I have been photographing recently (particularly dice), and to get light passing through translucent objects in a way that would highlight them. I envisioned something that used a piece of clear acrylic to transmit the light to the subject while not having an opaque base in the way.

    This prototype is the result. The base is several layers of laser-cut walnut, glued together and finished. There is a cavity for the light and a lip that supports a piece of diffuser material and a 1-inch acrylic cube.

    The electronics are pretty hacky. I recently designed some 3D-printed lights that hold LIR1254 rechargeable cells, a Chibitronics Circuit Sticker, and a tiny surface-mount switch for use in making rechargeable versions of my paper icosahedra. This is a variant of those with three Circuit Stickers (for more light) and the switch mounted upside down  (for access through a cut-out in the base). This could be done more elegantly with a custom circuit board, but this seemed good for a prototype.

    Since I have only made opaque Jesmonite dice to date, I used some resin dice sent to me by friends to try it with translucent objects. The darker purple one is from Rosey Cricket, and the lighter one is from Silverleaf Dice. If you like dice, you should go check out all the wonderful pieces they make.

    A one-inch clear acrylic cube sits in a small square layered walnut stand, which lights the cube and the 42 millimeter 20-sided die sitting on top of it from below. The die is a swirl of two shades of blue with metallic copper numbers. Shown against a defocused background of handmade paper with fiber inclusions. Side view.
    Small Light-Up Stand
    A one-inch clear acrylic cube sits in a small square layered walnut stand, which lights the cube and the 42 millimeter 20-sided die sitting on top of it from below. The die is a swirl of two shades of blue with metallic copper numbers. Shown against a defocused background of handmade paper with fiber inclusions. Three-quarter top-down view.
    Small Light-Up Stand
    Side view of a one-inch clear acrylic cube sitting in a small square layered walnut stand. The stand lights the cube from below. There is a bottle cap with a Celtic spiral design engraved on it leaning against the stand to show scale. Shown against a de-focused background of handmade paper with fiber inclusions.
    Small Light-Up Stand with bottle cap for scale
    Three-quarter top-down view of a one-inch clear acrylic cube sitting in a small square layered walnut stand. The stand lights the cube from below, but the light is off in this image. Shown against a background of handmade paper with fiber inclusions.
    Small Light-Up Stand (off, top view)
    Small light-up stand with a standard 22mm 20-sided resin die in shades of deep purple with gold flakes and numbers.
    Small Light Up Stand with a D20 made by Rosey Cricket
    Small light-up stand with a standard 22mm 20-sided resin die in shades of purple with gold numbers.
    Small Light Up Stand with a D20 made by Silverleaf Dice
    Top-down view of the base of the small light-up stand with the acrylic cube and diffuser removed to show the electronics: three Chibitronics Circuit Stickers arranged in a trefoil and wired together.
    Small Light-Up Stand Electronics
    Bottom view of the small light-up stand. A small square of very thin plywood fills the opening, and has a cut-out to allow access to the tiny on/off switch.
    Small Light-Up Stand Bottom
    Electronics removed from the base of the small light-up stand showing three Chibitronics Circuit Stickers wired to a small rechargeable coin cell, stuck to the bottom panel with putty.
    Small Light-Up Stand Electronics

    Wood Inlay Floppy Disk Tack Pin

    Andrew Crawford April 17, 2025

    A small (24mm/1in square) pin that looks like a 3.5” floppy disk made from inlaid pieces of walnut and oak, sitting on a plain blue floppy disk.

    I made these little wood inlay save icon pins as gifts for April birthdays.

    I traced a photo of a 3.5″ floppy disk in Inkscape, scaled it to 1″ (~24mm) square, then separated the pieces and kerf corrected them. I laser cut and engraved the pieces from 3mm thick walnut and oak. I assembled the pieces with wood glue, gave it a light sanding, then finished with wipe-on polyurethane (three coats, with a very light sanding between coats and at the end). The tack backing is attached with construction adhesive.

    After consulting with a friend who wears a lot of pins, I got a collection of backings, including the traditional butterfly backs, rubber backs (softer and less irritating for skin contact), and locking backs (to reduce chance of loss).

    There is a 2-minute making-of video:

    Celtic Key Pattern Washi Tape Tack Pin

    Andrew Crawford April 5, 2025
    A small square (25mm and about 3mm thick) is carefully wrapped in a bright printed Celtic key or maze pattern in purple, red, and metallic gold. It sits on one edge next to a roll of washi tape with the same pattern against a background of off-white fibrous handmade paper.

    I am working on some larger projects, but I had this idea for a quick pin with one of the new washi tapes. This is a 25mm square of Baltic birch carefully wrapped with the wide Celtic key pattern washi tape. I used a bit of wood veneer attached with 3M Very High Bond film to lock the tape down, and attached a tack pin back with construction adhesive.

    I made a quick one-minute process video, too:

    Elongated Dodecahedra Models

    Andrew Crawford March 28, 2025

    Apropos of nothing in particular, I was playing around with a shape I have seen a bunch of people talking about recently, the elongated dodecahedron. It was easy to create in Blender, and I thought I would share my model in case it was of use to anyone else.

    Elongated Dodecahedron Model
    Elongated Dodecahedron Model

    This is a set of blender and STL files for an elongated dodecahedron. This is a well-known solid that has been modeled and used for all sorts of things, including as 4-sided dice, for decades.

    Size: 264kb
    Download Now!

    7cm Print Frame

    Andrew Crawford March 21, 2025

    I made a frame so I could put one of my Celtic knotwork frog prints up over my desk. The frame is several layers of laser-cut walnut and a square of museum-grade UV acrylic. The back attaches with strong magnets.

    Small Celtic knotwork frog printed in green on a copper square, with a white mat in a walnut frame.
    Framed Celtic Knotwork Frog Print
    Back side of the 7cm walnut print frame showing the four round magnets in the corners and an engraved Evermore ambigram in the center.
    7cm Print Frame (Back)
    7cm print frame, open with the back off, showing the UV acrylic, magnet closures, and the black inside of the back panel.
    7cm Print Frame (Open)
    7cm print frame, open with the back off and the matted print in place, magnet closures, and the black inside of the back panel.
    7cm Print Frame (Open with print)
    Frog Celtic knotwork print in a walnut frame hanging on the wall over a desk with a small clock, a netsuke of a skeleton playing a mokogyo, a silver tissue box, and a few Retro 51 pens standing point-up.
    Framed Celtic Knotwork Frog Print Hung

    There is a 4 minute video about making the frame:

    If you have 7cm prints you want to frame, the cut file for this is in the free Subscriber Archive.

    The Newsletter and the Archive

    Andrew Crawford March 21, 2025

    This newsletter is a better way for you to see all of my projects and other things I am sharing.

    The original idea of social media was that people could share things online that you wanted to see, and you could see them. That’s not how it works now. Now, there is an algorithm, optimized primarily to make the owners of the networks money. Now, it doesn’t consistently show you the things you have asked to see. The people running the big social networks have said that their plan going forward is to try to eliminate that entirely, to make their networks a place where you just passively consume things made by machines. [1]

    You want to see the projects I and others are sharing, and be part of the connections and collaborations they create. To that end, there need to be ways to make direct connections to the people whose projects interest you, not intermediated by for-profit social networking companies.

    You will keep seeing at least some of what I post on Instagram, Bluesky, and Mastodon, as long as those places seem viable for making those kinds of connections.

    Subscribing to my newsletter will let you see everything I share, without a big social media company playing games with your attention.

    You likely won’t be getting email from me more often than monthly. You will almost certainly be seeing me mention things I sell, but that’s not the main purpose of the newsletter. You won’t be endlessly hounded to buy something.

    I am hosting everything for the newsletter myself. Your email address won’t be shared with anyone else, and you can quickly and easily unsubscribe at any time (there will be a link to unsubscribe in the newsletter).

    Composite of two screen shots from Instagram: one says that a post reached 179 accounts, and offers to let you boost the post; the other shows 1,020 followers for the account.
    "Of the 1,020 people who asked to see what you post, we showed it to 179. You can pay us to show it to more people."

    Of course, there is an official Privacy Policy for the website, if you want more detail on my data handling policies.

    Subscriber Archive

    In the process of making physical things, I create a lot of digital assets: pop up card patterns, box patterns, 3D models, laser cutting files, etc. To thank you for allowing me to talk to you directly, I have set up a Subscriber Archive where you can download some of that stuff to use in your own personal (non-commercial) projects.

    Subscribe

    [1] Here are a couple of quotes from recent news articles:

    “Mark Zuckerberg has been clear about his intentions: He believes that the future of ‘social media’ is a bunch of human beings scrolling through and arguing about AI-generated content on his many platforms.” – 404 Media

    “What he is describing, of course, are social media networks that are not even remotely social and which may increasingly not even feature much human-made content at all.” – 404 Media

    And here is a more detailed explanation of how social media got like this:

    With Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It