Experimenting With Word Art

Been trying some different techniques with word art lately. I decided that cutting them from a board and leaving them unpainted looked a little boring so I've been trying a spray painting technique I eluded to in some prior post. I am less than pleased with the results.

To recap: I start by sanding and painting the board on both sides and then laying down blue painters tape on both sides. Then I attach the pattern and cut it out and before removing the pattern and the painters tape I spray paint the inside of the letters. Then remove the tape and pattern.

The first "Live Laugh Love" I did in black and gold came out great. I got three orders for it instantly. One wanted black and silver so I did one of those.

As I said, the first one came out great but subsequent ones not so much. Somehow I am getting a little leakage around the edges. I have tried touching them up with a paint pen but it looks pretty obvious if you look at it closely. Which brings me to my next point. When it sits on a shelf or desk the touch ups are not that noticeable. Still when I am asking folks to pay for something I want it to be perfect and it is not. I'll keep trying though until I find what works.

My friends at work have been keeping me pretty busy lately. I have filled three orders for the hearts with the couples names and wedding dates in them. I have a feeling that more will be coming. Have a couple of custom design projects as well. All this is keeping me from getting to some spring scroll saw projects I want to do. Butterflies are huge sellers and I have patterns for several variations. Just received another issue of "Creative Woodworks and Crafts" and they have some patterns for tiny little bird houses. Some people collect bird houses so those might go big.

I have done some more work on my website. I have the home page pretty much done and ready to publish. Lot of work to do on content yet. There will be a link to this blog and I hope to have a page to post some videos on as well. Need to book up on that first.

Sorry it's been so long between posts. Remember, lots of work, hockey season in playoffs, spring is almost here and I just bought a new bicycle. Time to start livin life again. Sounds like another word art possibility doesn't it?

Update: What's been goin on?

Been a couple of weeks since the last post. You probably remember this picture of the heart I made for my friend Andrew at work. Well after he showed it around a little I immediately got orders for two more and I finished and delivered them and got firm orders for two more and tentative orders for two more! At this rate I'll be running out of 3/8 inch oak pretty soon. The good part is I'll have money to buy more!

You may remember in our last visit I was bemoaning the fact that I ruined one piece when I over cut the letters in one of the names causing the middle of it to drop out. I called it designer firewood. Well, my wife saved it from the burn pile by suggesting I just cut out the heart shape around the name leaving an opening that you could fill with a picture. She always seems to see the angle that I miss. Now I have another way to sell this lovely heart.

My website plans have kind of stalled for now. I have a home page designed but not sure I like the look of it. I can't seem to get the pictures I want to use sized correctly. I have pictures of my saw and a few of my best cuttings to show off but can't get the photos down to a thumbnail size. I like to get them down to about 2x2 inches. If you know how to do that let me know in the comments section.

This weekend is free for me so far so I will be doing some cutting for sure but I really want to make some progress on the web site so I may spend most of it right here in my little office working on that. Hope to have something to show you soon.