Drawstring Key Bag

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.

Attribution-Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlike

Leather Locker SVG

Purple Velvet Embossed Celtic Spirals Dice Bag

Purple Velvet 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.]

https://youtu.be/wSQIBIffR-E

180-Degree-Open Pop Up Snowflakes

180-Degree Snowflakes Pop Up Card (2020)

I played with several variations of this snowflake design back around 2002. There were a couple 180-degree-open card variants that I liked. They were both designed to be cut as four panels that folded together to produce a card with an integrated backing. I had some limited access to a laser cutter for a couple hours to produce the cards. I ended up going with the simpler of the two designs for the production run. That one was less sensitive to smoke deposition and, less fragile.

I always wanted to play with the other design a little more and, in 2020, I finally did a run of those on my own laser.

Smoke deposition was still a challenge, especially on a stock with a pearlescent finish and a little tooth. There is almost always some trade-off with that sort of thing and expedient production. I chose not to apply all of the full repertoire of techniques for these, opting to reduce wear and tear on expensive work-holding mats and, to make production faster.

I made a short production video featuring the jig-in-place technique, dry transfer adhesive and removing stray glue.