Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

I have to say nothing much has changed on mine this week. Still the same detritus mid-project, working on the auto-opening window cards I was doing last week. I got my friend’s card off a day late because the glue wasn’t dry, and it took an extra day to get to her because of the bank holiday which was a shame. Anyway, here’s my main desk.

Sewing Stuff

Or should I say, UNsewing stuff? Recently I bought four infinity scarves from Ebay, in different colours to go with different outfits. I thought they were a bit too long, so I’ve undone the seam on each of them, and I shall be sewing them up again a bit shorter. They are made of quite fine jersey material which is pretty wide, and I think I may fold them in half lengthwise and possibly add some soft material inside to bulk them up a bit. At the moment they’re just in a heap by the sewing machine.

I hope Shaz (Silverwolf) visits because in this photo you can see the gorgeous card she sent me for Christmas, proudly displayed in the gallery area of my studio.

Office Stuff

I haven’t had any time to be in the studio this week because I was determined to hold to one of my New Year resolutions, to get the monthly accounts finished before the end of the first week of the month. On Monday I spent nearly all afternoon and evening wrestling with them because I got in a muddle with something and ended up tearing my hair in frustration! All done now – completed by 6th January! (I wonder how long this will last…) There’s a mountain of shredding to do but my filing is up to date. I am starting to go through my filing cabinets and weeding out old paperwork. I’ve got far too much junk. What I find scary about this is that a) it accumulates to the stage when it seems too overwhelming even to begin to tackle it, and b) (which is probably even more scary) after a while you cease to notice it! Definitely time Shoshi got to grips with this before I end up on one of those terrifying TV programmes about hoarders who can’t even navigate around their homes!!

My best kept New Year resolution so far: “Tomorrow, I am going to stop procrastinating.”

Creative Stuff

If you’re not into technology, please scroll down for stuff that might be more interesting!!

I’ve been doing quite a lot of work in Inkscape this week. In case you don’t know, Inkscape is an open source (free) application for vector drawing. Vector images work on a different principle from photos which are bitmaps. When you enlarge a photo, it pixilates, but vector images can be enlarged indefinitely with no loss of definition. You need vectors for the cutting machine.

I decided to make some card templates. I’ve already got quite a lot but they are all based on A4 (UK) paper size. Most of the Youtube tutorials are by people in the USA and their standard “letter” paper is 8 1/2 x 11 inches. I much prefer working in inches, and I think their “letter” paper has a better proportion than A4 which is slightly taller and narrower. It is hard to get hold of letter paper here in the UK as it is all imported from the US. I have a lot of 12 x 12 inch scrapbooking sized cardstock and have decided to make letter paper-based templates that I can cut from this. Any excess can be used to cut die-cut equivalents – sentiments, embellishments, etc.

So that you can see what I’ve been up to, I’ve converted some of these vector templates into bitmaps.

I can cut two standard “notecard” sized cards – 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches – from one 12 x 12 inch sheet. For this one, I’ve added a selection of different mats to choose from – when cutting, I would just move the ones I want so they would cut separately from the card base, and delete the ones I don’t want.

The small square in the top left corner of each image is just a guide, to set the cutting area 1/2 inch in from the edge of the cutting machine’s mat, so that the blade does not snag with the edge of the cardstock. When I finally cut the design, I would delete this square, or it would also be cut. The area to the right is spare card, which can be used for cutting other bits and pieces.

Here is another template for the basic “notecard” sized card, this time with an oval aperture in the front.

Obviously when I come to cut these files, I would join the front and back of the card into a single piece. If I were to cut this as it stands, it would cut down the centre between the green and red rectangles. I only designed it like this so that I could see where the fold would be, and to enable me to centre any apertures or mats on the card front.

This example shows two different cards cut from a letter-sized card. As in all the examples, I’ve left a gap between the two cards so that each card can be easily seen, but when cutting, if I wanted to cut two, I could butt them together and there would be a single cut between them, saving a fraction of an inch of card. In this one, the cards are tent-fold portrait orientation, rather than side-fold as in the first examples.

I have also designed some sheets of mats, cut 1/8 inch smaller all round than the card bases, with different shaped and sized apertures. These ones are small ovals on mats designed for landscape-orientation cards. Because they are single flat mats that do not need to be folded like card bases, I can get four on a sheet of 12 x 12.

On these next mats, I’ve made small circular offset apertures. This gives more room on the rest of the card for sentiments or embellishments.

All these apertures can be resized or moved, according to what I want at any one time. The designs I have done are just basic templates that can be easily adapted. I have created apertures as large and small circles, ovals, squares and rectangles, both on base cards and mats. Of course, any shapes that are cut out to make apertures will not be wasted, because they can be used for embellishing other cards.

I have also designed templates for larger cards, made by folding a whole sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 inches. This one is a tent fold landscape orientation with an oval aperture.

There is no magic in the colours – they just happened to be the ones that I clicked on to show them up better. In the Inkscape software, you can delete the colour altogether, and use an outline instead, known as a stroke. I usually prefer to work that way. You can choose different coloured fills or strokes to indicate either what colour card you want to use for that particular element, or the order in which you want to cut them.

Finally, here are two mats for the larger cards, this time for portrait orientation with large oval apertures. You may notice that the ovals are set slightly higher than centre, which looks better on a portrait orientation layout. If I wanted to use this large oval for a landscape orientation, I would make sure I centred the aperture. Smaller apertures would be centred right and left, but slightly higher than centre vertically, as in the example above.

Once you have these templates set up, you can add other cutting elements. The next picture shows an A5 card template I made a few years ago for a new baby card; I combined the aperture with a lattice grid. (This shows strokes rather than fills.)

For this card, I cut mats with a narrow border for the centre oval of the card and for the tag from silver mirror card, which were overlaid by a further mat from which I cut the baby footprints, so that the silver would show through. This card could be cut in pink for a baby girl, or in any colour you wanted. Inkscape has some fabulous features that enable you to design a single element of a lattice, and it will repeat the pattern to the dimensions you want. You can then overlay a shape and use this to create an aperture.

Now that I’ve got the new SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) software, it is going to be a lot easier to see exactly what I’m cutting. Once I’ve completed a design in Inkscape, I can export the svg file (scaleable vector graphic) which the cutter can recognise, to SCAL, and arrange any elements I want on the virtual cutting mat, and send it to the cutting machine. I can add and remove elements at will, so that I can cut different parts from different coloured card. You can, of course, do the designing in SCAL without using Inkscape, but I think Inkscape has a lot more features and is more versatile. I am sure those with Cricut machines, or Brother Scan ‘n Cut and other machines, will be familiar with this sort of thing.

You can see how much more versatile this is than trying to obtain dies to cut all the shapes you want. Even if this were possible, it would be far too expensive (at least for me!) and the dies would take up too much space. This way, they take up no room at all. I also cut stencils, which of course do occupy space, but not much, filed away in a ring binder.

Tidying up in my studio the other day, I found this piece of cardstock that I had cut a series of swirls from. I must have arranged them in a regular pattern, thinking I might use the “waste” card in another project, but I think I might use it as a stencil now. If I wanted it to last, I would probably coat it with some sort of acrylic medium.

Kitchen Stuff

I’ve done a fair bit of cooking this week, in order to stock up the freezer again, but nothing I haven’t shared with you before. I’ve done a few favourite pasta dishes, and some more curry, and a big batch of my favourite vegan winter stew.

Free stuff!

When my grocery order was delivered yesterday, I was delighted to see that Mr. Tesco had given me a free gift!

This was a lovely box of vegan goodies. He must have noticed that I usually purchase a harvest festival every week…

On the outside of the box:

Opening it up… Special offers!

Finally, the contents.

A lovely pack of flatbreads, some sunflower spread (which I shall give away because we aren’t really eating processed fats and oils these days), a little chocolate pudding (which is probably full of sugar but I shall eat it anyway!), a little pack of granola (likewise), and finally a single portion of gorgeous vegan stew made from all sorts of tasty goodies. Since my hubby was out all day, I decided to have this for my lunch to try it out, and it was delicious – quite spicy, and you could taste the peanuts in it. I have kept the wrapper and will try and make this from the list of ingredients, some of which I shall omit (like agave syrup – if I think it needs any sweetening I’d prefer to use dates rather than processed sweeteners).

Good old Tesco’s. I’ve been moaning about them a bit lately, but they’ve certainly redeemed themselves with this one!

Blender stuff

I think I mentioned that my Froothie Optimum high speed blender has developed a fault. I have been in contact with the company, and it appears it is still under guarantee. They have offered me several options – I can send it back and they can look at it and see if it can be mended. If I decide on this option, that’s the end of it – I either agree to go ahead with any possible repair, or write it off. However, they are also offering me some alternative extremely generous terms, to exchange the machine for either a brand new upgraded model, or an ex-demo version of the same, or an ex-demo replacement base unit of my original machine. I think this is too good an opportunity to miss, so I am going to upgrade to a new one, which they will sell me for considerably less than half price. I still have to send back my old machine, but I will be in possession of a new one much more quickly than if I had to wait to see if my old one could be repaired.

While it’s been out of action, I’ve been continuing with the Bullet blender attachment on my VeggieBullet. It’s OK, but you can’t run it for long, and its capacity is too small for convenience.

I am hoping that by the next WOYWW I shall be in possession of a new high speed blender!

Health Stuff

Pants

I was on the point of phoning the company yesterday because the fitting lady said she would make sure they sent the altered pair of pants back to me by Christmas, and of course I hadn’t received them. Then they arrived in the post, and fortunately they are fine. I have phoned her and asked her to go ahead and order the final two pairs, and then I’ll be set for the next year, as long as they don’t mess me about any more. I’ve had support pants from them for three years now, and every year there has been a problem. If they weren’t the only ones offering the bespoke service and home fittings, and also the best product (when they get it right!) I would go elsewhere. Lack of competition can be a very bad thing. It’s such a shame, because the fitting ladies I have seen have all been absolutely delightful, and horrified at the problems I’ve experienced.

Exeter Hospital

Still not having heard anything since my CT scan in August, I phoned the surgeon’s secretary a couple of days ago, and yesterday afternoon she got back to me. She couldn’t find anything since the scan and said that it looked as if Mr. Daniels hadn’t even seen it! She was very charming and helpful, and said she was glad I had phoned – I said I wished I’d phoned a lot sooner under the circumstances! She said she would be bringing the matter to his attention straight away, and I should be hearing something quite soon. I told her I was experiencing more problems lately, and it definitely needed dealing with. It’s the system that’s at fault – I have always found the professionals I have had dealings with to be very caring and definitely on my side 100 percent of the way. It’s the communication of information that seems to be the problem, as well as the long waiting lists and everybody under too much pressure, maybe, to be able to do their jobs as efficiently as they might. When I had the scan, I had to insist on lying on my stomach, because that is what Mr. Daniels had ordered, but that information had not been transferred to the request form and the woman was quite sniffy about it – when I insisted, she went away to check, and came back and said “lie on your stomach” as if the previous conversation hadn’t even taken place!

Kitty Stuff

Ruby knows the best place to keep warm on these damp cold days – lying on top of her incredibly soft and warm sister!

Have a happy and creative week ahead, everybody!