Celtic art Archives - Page 4 of 6

Spirals Bookmark Redesign

Kirigrami bookmark with an interlocking pattern of organic Celtic spirals cut from a white pearlescent stock with a gold gauze ribbon tied to one end.

I designed a kirigami Spirals Bookmark last summer, mostly just taking what I did for one of my velvet embossing plates and, using that with minor changes. It was good but, there were a few spots where it was a little fragile – bits of connecting paper less than a millimeter wide.

More recently, I was inspired to redesign the spirals bookmark to make it a bit more robust. While I was at it, I made a few and, made a few of my Celtic key pattern design bookmarks and, put them all up in the new shop section. The designs are available individually, in three-packs and, in a variety pack with all three designs.

1 2 Celtic art laser paper art paper engineering

Celtic Key Square Wood Inlay Pins

Celtic key pattern walnut in maple inlaid pins with bottle cap for scale.

Celtic key pattern pins made from maple hardwood inlaid with walnut.

Celtic art Glowforge laser woodworking

Snow Elf Manor Pop Up Card

Snow Elf Manor Origamic Architecture / Kirigami Pop Up Card

A stately origamic architecture / kirigami pop up manor for snow elves, sent for the 2021 winter holidays.

Celtic art Glowforge laser OA origamic architecture paper art paper engineering pop up cards pop-up card

Drawstring Key Bag

This scrap (faux) leather bag with a Celtic key theme is an initial exploration of a technique for using small scraps of leather or similar material leftover from other projects. I thought the tiles would be fun with a minimal Celtic key pattern motif in the center of each, then leaned into the theme with a circular key pattern ring on the bottom and, some 3D printed key, sculpted in Nomad Sculpt.

The SVG for the “leather locker” tile is linked below. You will likely want to adjust the slot height to match the thick ness of the material you are using. Let me know if you use it to make anything interesting!

This file is for personal, non-commercial use only. Note that, by referencing these, you are agreeing to release any variations you create under identical terms.

Leather Locker SVG

3D Modeling 3D printing Celtic art Glowforge key pattern laser leather leatherworking

Depthmaps Straight from Nomad Sculpt

This is an update to my last post on modeling Celtic knots in Nomad Sculpt and creating depthmaps in Blender to carve with laser engravers and CNC machines. A newer feature in Nomad Sculpt makes it possible to export a depthmap directly, without having to go through Blender. A checkbox option in the debug menu (named “Heightmap”) switches to a depthmap view, which can be exported as a render. For best results, use a bitmap editor to spread the dynamic range.

I made a short video with a walkthrough:

3D Modeling Celtic art CNC laser

Celtic Spirals Bookmarks

This kirigami Celtic spirals bookmark is a variant of the pattern I used for embossing the purple velvet for the last dice bag. The gold and the smoke blue ribbon both look really good with the ice gold stock.

Celtic art Glowforge laser paper art

Slotted Dice Reliquary

Dice reliquaries from laser-cut hardwood ply.

Celtic art Glowforge laser spirals wood woodworking

Purple Velvet Embossed Celtic Spirals Dice Bag

I made another dice bag with a new embossed velvet design. Some incremental improvements to the process for making the embossing plate: I switched to using 3M 468MP Adhesive Transfer Tape for the glue-up. It seems every bit as solid as the wood glue and, was a lot less hassle. More of the details are covered in the short update video below.

The kumihimo drawstring for this bag was done with glow floss for one of the colors and purple for the other. The glow from the floss is noticeable in the dark but, not especially bright.

By comparison, the 3D resin printed glow-in-the-dark skull beads are quite bright, especially after charging up with a UV lamp for 30 seconds or so. I used the Siraya Tech Craft resin for those.

[Amazon Associates links benefit a local arts organization.]

Purple Velvet Dice Bag (Glowing in the Dark) — Purple velvet dice bag embossed with Celtic spirals pattern, glow floss kumihimo braid and, glow-in-the-dark skull beads (low-light, glowing).

Purple Velvet Dice Bag (Bottom) — Purple velvet dice bag embossed with Celtic spirals pattern, glow floss kumihimo braid and, glow-in-the-dark skull beads (bottom, showing Celtic knotwork ring and Evermore ambigram logo).

Purple Velvet Dice Bag (Lining) — Purple velvet dice bag embossed with Celtic spirals pattern, glow floss kumihimo braid and, glow-in-the-dark skull beads (showing yellow silk habotai lining).

Celtic art Glowforge laser spirals textile

Hexagonal Box

This is a quick box I designed to package one of my little drawstring bags.

You can download the plain version below to make your own hexagonal box.

Hexagonal Box Pattern

This file is for personal, non-commercial use only. Note that, by referencing these, you are agreeing to release any variations you create under identical terms.

Hexagonal Box Pattern (SVG)

Celtic art Glowforge key pattern laser paper art paper engineering

Adding Dimension to Laser-Cut Acrylic Earrings

Translucent Orange Dished Acrylic Spiral Earrings

I am seeing a lot of interesting laser-cut acrylic earrings in the forums and on social media right now. There is a range of interesting and intricate designs. They are, however, all quite flat. I wasn’t sure if people just hadn’t thought of heat-shaping them or, if there was some extra challenge in doing so. I have done some heat-shaping on other acrylic projects (like the VR Headset Wall Mount and the Paper Towel Roll Holder) and, thought I would give some simple heat dishing a go.

Long ago, my grandfather showed me how he was doing silver piercedwork jewelry and, I later did something similar with hand-cut paper earrings I was making. A wooden dishing or dapping block is great for this sort of thing.

If you are curious or, want to give it a try, I made a quick (3 minute) video showing how I produced these dished/domed acrylic spiral earrings and skull earrings (it is October, after all).

TL;DW (too long; didn’t watch): heat gun on low, moving constantly with the center over the outer edge (to avoid overheating the center), about an inch away, for 30-40 seconds. When the acrylic starts to droop, apply pressure to hold in the desired shape. Then, allow to cool for about 40-60 seconds to re-solidify.