try to do it silently and sans heels

I've still got some tweaking to do but this is promising :)

Instead of a tangle or working with M0rt, I decided to do some organizing. I went through stacks of paper and have organized them by color and print. Previously, I'd peruse a stack and have to pull pages out to see how I was going to combine them. Well, not any more (well, not entirely. There are still a few more that need to be organized but my wrist was starting to hurt).

Speaking of, I had a wicked case of the dropsies today and it freaked me out somewhat. Hopefully it's just a one off kind of day.

I finally remembered what I wanted to talk about yesterday:Shoes. And screaming. We watched Olympus Has Fallen (which was really not as bad as I had expected) and there were so many ladies screaming. And having to run barefoot through shards of glass and smoldering debris because they had to ditch their high heels because they couldn't run/escape in them.

My first thought was (not that I can say how I would act in some sort of shooting/bombing situation - though I can handle my shit in other emergency type situations) "why are you screaming? You are totally going to draw attention to your self." The logical part of me thinks "be quiet. they will aim indiscriminately in your direction if you are making noise."

But then I wonder how I would react to someone shooting at me. I know how I reacted when someone was shooting at someone outside in my neighborhood. I stayed down and didn't move. I didn't scream or start flailing about (or run out into the street from the house to see what was going on like some silly people). Hell, I didn't want to move or make a sound. And I don't think I did until a few hours later. (The one shooting I went to as an emergency responder doesn't count. As much as the "victim" wanted us to believe the shooter was on the loose, it was pretty obviously his lady who was the shooter - nearly taking off his junk.)

As far as the shoe things goes, I think I will be able to flee should I need to. I dropped flip flops (terrible shoes for trying to flee) a while ago (and wouldn't you know, my shins and calves are not all tight any more). I ditched high heels years ago (I still keep a pair for special occasions but in a city where you walk everywhere, I usually end up in flats). I've even ditched rigid soled flats for the most part (you need to get some Merrill Barefoot's. Need them - after the initial break in period which was hell).

My shoes these days are minimal, functional and I could escape almost silently (I've sneaked up on more than a few people while wearing moccasins). That's not to say that some how my overall clumsiness wouldn't give my position away. I'm just covered in the shoe department.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is always be prepared. If real life is anything like the movies, you may need to flee at any time. But try to do it silently and sans heels.

Tangle Time

I tangled today.

We had a costume contest at work. We were supposed to dress up based on our favorite collection. I was set to do retro kitchen (hence making cookies last night) but my dress no longer fits. So I changed things up to be inspired by the Designer's Domain collection. I busted out my art apron (totally different than my cooking apron, which is super cute), some pens, paintbrushes, charcoal, paint and the like. I stuck a bunch of paintbrushes in my hair and put on my glasses.

I showed up for work being comfy and ready to make art. Oh and I brought cookies. Because I'm rad like that. The whole office was able to enjoy them, which was nice. I know a few people have dietary restrictions and don't normally get to partake in treats. My cookies were grain free and vegan. Perhaps if you are lucky, I will eventually share the recipe.

I have to say we had some pretty good costumes for those of us who dressed up. Film Noir, Retro Reboot, Swiss Ski Chalet and even New England Clambake were represented.

One coworker dressed for Retro Reboot and pretty much clinched the title when she busted out her Nintendo Powerglove as her finishing accessory. There were a couple of people who had no clue what it was. Hopefully we can use it for company game night.

I didn't spend anytime with M0rt tonight. Taking a step back and allowing my frustration to subside. When I sent my inital email to Craftwell, I got a prompt response the next day telling it it was likely user error causing my issues. Well, I sent off all three videos (ecraft issues, mtc test and mtc results) and haven't heard anything back from Craftwell yet.

We'll see what happens. That file should not be beyond the capabilities of M0rt. I had a similar issue when cutting our wedding invitations as well and those were 5x7 rounded rectangles. 2 to a sheet of paper. Are you going to tell me that project is too much for it to handle as well? I hope not.

It's well beyond Amazon's return window. Perhaps I should have gone with the Cameo, which was my original plan.

That being said. I still need a laser.

Mustangs in Mexico

I'm still working through M0rt issues and had school tonight. I spent the time I would normally use for tangling or crafting emailing Craftwell customer service about M0rt.

M0rt shouldn't need a new blade every 2-3 pieces of paper (which had ultimately been my solution for the problems I've been having).

Craftwell tried telling me it is likely my file. No, it not likely my file. I sent them the simplest part of the whole project (a circle with a line from center to one edge) to test. I have simplified much of the design I have been working with when I noticed that M0rt wasn't going to be able to cut teeny, tiny circles. The skulls are not too small, or even that delicate.

We'll see what they have to say.

Considering my observation about how differently MTC behaves on a 64 bit v 32 bit operating system, perhaps there is some sort of issue with eCraftshop Pro. Tomorrow night I will do some more testing using Lappy.

I came to a realization today. I miss helping people. In any capacity. I guess if I really try to sell it, I help people make educated decisions on furniture by providing them with detailed information. Or something to that effect.

My mother-in-law told my husband last night that the kids wanted to know if I was coming for Halloween in my witch costume. (I scared a few kids last year (: ) It did make me realize I miss helping people. Whether it's kids learning or, hell, even working at human services, I feel better when I am helping others.

It really reinforced my plan to finish my Art Education degree and get my LCSW.

On another note, my Ancient Latin American Art and Architecture instructor (I'm not calling him ancient, the class is pre-colombian) finally gave a coherent lecture. We're more than half way through the semester. Most of his lectures are some rambling about some dig he went on and a lot of him pronouncing Spanish words that are so accented, it's hard to make sense of them.

Tonight he used the Ford Mustang as an illustration for stylistic seriation. It made sense. Though most of the class was very unfamiliar a 1964 1/2 Mustang, which was the jumping off point. As soon as we stopped talking about cars, it was right back to rambling.

I had some sort of profound thought I had wanted to share, but totally forgot it. What seemed profound at the time obviously wasn't.

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!

Sooooo EXCITED to cut paper!

I put M0rt1m3r to work yesterday as soon as he arrived.

I have wedding invitations to get out this week.  Let's just say my printer (who has not been named like all of other other mechanical items) was not cooperating, so I have to go back to the paper store in the morning and get more paper. Luckily, I can use the cards I cut with M0rt1m3r for other purposes since the printer won't cooperate with the size requirements.

Some really cool stuff I found out about M0rt1:  M0rt1 is dual head.  I knew he could draw and cut, but I didn't know he could draw and print at the same time!  Most craft cutters require you to swap out heads from a cutting head to a pen head to draw vs cut.  Not M0rt1!  He switches back and forth between a ballpoint tip and cutting tip flawlessly.  I tested some of the preloaded designs on the SD card provided with him.

Granted the designs are fairly simple, but the bird turned out cute! With other craft cutters, I would have had to try to print the line work, get the page lined back up and then cut after swapping blades. With the e-Craft, it was as simple as selecting the design and letting it print/cut.

I also made Trogdor the Burninator stickers last night.  I had some issues with the page shifting while cutting the second pass (I probably should have used a heavy card stock backer as the sticker paper is considerably thinner than the other paper I've cut so far), but they turned out AWESOME!

First I created the cutting template in Illustrator and saved it as an SVG file (scalable vector graphic - this is what you will import into the e-Craft software to cut from).  I scaled and placed my Trogdor images in Photoshop and printed without the outlines from the template.  I placed the sticker sheet in M0rt1 and hit cut in the e-Craft software.  I set the pressure at 2, trying to just score the paper for a sheet of stickers. That wasn't QUITE enough, so I sent it through again at a pressure of 4, which was too much (it cut clean through).  Also on the second pass, the page skewed (hence the thought I may have needed a card stock backer), which messed up the cuts on the second row. I got six usable stickers from one side.

I'm going to try using manual mode to cut out the rest of the stickers that didn't get messed up (which was only one sticker, but it threw the cut pattern off for the entire thing, so I canceled the print.). 

Unfortunately, I had homework to work on this weekend, so it was a mix of trying out M0rt1 and doing work.  I have to tell you, I wanted to blow it off completely and just cut paper!  I want to blow everything off and cut paper! 

Welcome M0rt1m3r

We welcomed our 3rd robo-child today (as Justin termed it) to the Gnomery today.  M0rt1m3r, my new e-Craft arrived today.

I have wanted a craft cutter FOREVER.  Wedding invites turned out to be the best excuse to get one.  

Here is the unveiling video: 

In addition to cutting it also does "printing" with a pen plotter.  A lot of the other cutters have the ability to do that, but you have to switch out heads.  

Well, not with M0rt1m3r!  He has a dual head (upgrayedd)!  R2-D0nt is also a dual head machine.  This is how we roll in the Gnomery.  

I've done some test cuts and it takes a bit of getting used to (I had pretty good results using 12x12, a few issues with 8.5x11, but moving a paper guide solved the issue).  

I'm getting ready to test print an invitation on cut paper.  I'll let you know how it worked! 

My Quad Copter~

Justin is obsessed with quad copters.  The joy he gets from his tiny quad copter and his plans to get a more advanced one are great.  He asked last week "what is your quad copter?"

I have to say I found it. At least for now anyway.  I can't have an Epilog Laser in my room.  I wish I could. Seriously.  That would be the most bad ass thing ever. I have laser envy. We went to visit Type A last week and I saw they got the Fusion. I wanted to hang out there forever (once they got it working!).

Well, tomorrow I'm getting a new toy. The Craftwell e-Craft.

I have used the Cricut and was super disappointed that it doesn't work with Sure Cuts A Lot anymore (Provocraft sued the pants off SCL because it was a way to circumvent the stupid cartridges and allowed people to cut their own designs).  Obviously, I am going to want to cut my own designs. It would be stupid to rely on cartridges. 

I was going to get the Silhouette Cameo.  I saw it a few months ago at Blick and thought I'd wait until a 40% off coupon came out.  Well, I did that, and lo and behold, they put the dang thing on sale the same day the coupon started. No Coupon For YOU! 

I started looking at the e-Craft when I saw it on Joann.com.  I found a 15% off coupon and was ready to head over after work to pick one up.  Wouldn't you know. Coupon is IN STORE ONLY and the e-Craft is online only. 

Seriously, the world was conspiring to keep me from having my craft cutter. 

I go to Amazon because Amazon loves me and always has what I want and I get free 2 day shipping with Prime.  But really I want the cutter like yesterday.  I need to cut my wedding invitations, RSVP cards and maps and get everything sent out this weekend.  

One of the perks of living in San Francisco is Amazon Saturday delivery.  For only $8.99 I am getting my e-Craft delivered to me tomorrow.  No $20-$50 shipping and still not getting it until the middle of next week.  I paid $8.99 and I get it tomorrow. 

For me, one of the selling points is the fact that it's mat free (and there is a roll feed attachment).  What does that mean? All of the other craft cutters utilize sticky mats to hold the material in place while cutting.  It's a pain.  The mats are pricey. They smell something awful. All your parts get stuck to the mat (I think I've ripped more paper trying to pull it off the mat than anything else using the Cricut).  

e-Craft can be used with a mat (from what I've read) but it leaves tiny tabs to hold the cuts into place without a mat.  I'm totally cool with that.  Some other bloggers totally bitched about these tiny tabs. Seriously?  You can clean them up. No big deal.  I've got enough tools of various types (cutting, grinding and the like) to remove a tiny nub. 

I will post more as I figure it out (consensus seemed that there was a bit of a learning curve - but there seems to be two camps: the scrapbooker that wants cartridges and artists who are willing to figure it out. Guess which one I am?). 

All I can say right now is "I'm Ready! I'm Ready! I'm Ready-eddy-eddy!"