Well, I did make something

Today. It's Monday, which is work then school (same as Tuesday).

I ran out of body wash, shampoo and lotion so I decided to make some (so, see, I did make SOMETHING today besides lunch).

Really the body wash and shampoo are a 2 for. It's pretty much Dr. Bronner's soap, olive oil (infused with calendula) and coconut milk whipped together until it's super airy and frothy.

The lotion was similar (minus the soap): calendula infused olive oil, coconut milk, vegetable glycerin, coconut oil and essential oils (I used cinnamon and clove bud).

After running M0rt last night via Lappy, he seems to be behaving. And MTC seems to be WAY more stable. I will try some more cuts tomorrow night using Lappy and  MTC. Both Lappy and Desky run Windows 7 but Lappy is 64 bit v Desky's 32. There are no posted forum topics discussing 64 v 32, just that the plugin for eCraft doesn't work.

I'm not sure why MTC's admins wouldn't ask what version of Win7 people were running when they complained about it not working. I mean, we ask that right off the bat when someone calls in with problems accessing our website.

I had sent a terse email demanding satisfaction from MTC. I will give it a bit more trouble shooting before I completely give up on it.

This does not mean I have given up on a laser. At all. In fact, I want to go to TechShop so I can laser things for hours. The laser brings great joy. Great joy.

Oh and when the hell did Dr. Bronner's soap jump up to $22/bottle?!?!?!Oh, that's right, when I decided to go to CityTarget (I hate you CityTarget).

Makes the Cut(?)

I'm starting another Skull tonight and I am BEYOND frustrated.

I loved Makes the Cut the first day I used it. It was perfect. It wasn't throwing the paper around the way that eCraftshop Pro does. I got clean cuts the first time.

But that was the first day. Ever since then, I have been getting random error messages when making the cuts. It may occur in the first 5% of the the entire cut path or it may occur at 95% complete. I can't tell you how much paper I've wasted when it gets part way through a cut and stops.

In reading through MTC forums, it appears to be a problem that has been ongoing for at least 2 years with the eCraft plugin. People have reached out over and over trying to get help but have basically been told to kick rocks and that it must be their computer.

Well, I just spent an hour and a half cleaning my registries, uninstalling and reinstalling, making sure that drivers were up to date, etc. I got one clean cut and then got the same error message 10% into the cut on the paper I wanted to use for piece 3 of this particular assemblage. I tried moving my files from my external hard drive to my desktop (just in case there was some sort of issue with the hard drive communication with the eCraft).

I have requested a refund from MTC. At this point the usability of MTC is so unreliable that I am not willing to throw any more paper at it. It had some features that were great, but in all honesty, those features don't outweigh the wasted paper (and time costs).

I'm running a timer for this assemblage to see how long it will take and at this point I have 3 pieces of paper cut in 2.5 hours. I probably could have cut that by hand faster. I spent 2 hours working through some file issues in Illustrator (which is understandable, but once I get those sorted out my time investment should be minimal for cutting). The part that should be time consuming should be assembling the flowers and hand inking the line work.

In other making stuff news, Justin and Rod worked on casting in brass this week while I was at work. (all the good stuff happens while I'm at work). My head is spinning with ideas for things to make and I can't really prioritize what I want to do.

I'm still making sure I spend at least an hour a day on something creative (except last night - went to bed early and had the best night's sleep all week. Friday night seems to be my best sleep night). I was going to tangle last night, but Justin wanted to go to bed early. He didn't feel well and apparently got up and was quite sick in the middle of the night. I didn't even realize he got up, that's how deep in sleep I was!