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.

My Second Box

Cut this one out last weekend from a Steve Good pattern. The nifty thing about it is that the top is held in place by magnets and it swings open and shut from either end. I made just a tiny mistake in that I drilled one of the holes for the magnet in the top too deep and the one in the bottom not deep enough but it turns out to be okay because it pivots like a post now. This little box is 1 inch deep. It is made from 1/4 inch oak for the top and bottom an 1 inch thick maple for the walls. It can be used for any number of things, paper clips, push pins, change, wrapped candy (you wouldn't put loose candy in there because of the finish), jewelry, your watch, just use your imagination. I will use it as an "eye catcher" on my desk at work to draw attention to whatever else I may have there to sell. On my bazaar table this one will go for $20.00. I like these a lot and will be making some more out of different kinds of woods in the future. I picked up a number of different 1 inch thick boards the last time I visited my favorite wood store.

I'm actually sitting here kind of depressed tonight. I was working on a custom order I got from a friend at work and I got just barely into it and was trying to cut out some small letters in her name and slipped and ruined it. Now I have a nice chunk of what we in the scrolling community call "designer firewood" Fortunately I do have another board I can use and I will just have to start all over. Bummer though. That is why I decided to photograph one of my successes and post it here on the blog.

Things are gradually slowing down. The basketball and hockey seasons are winding down so pretty soon I will have a lot more time to devote to scroll sawing. There are so many things I want to cut and just have not had the time to devote to them. But this weekend looks free and clear so far and I hope to have a lot of great things to show you next week. Unless, of course, I make more designer firewood.

A Valentines Day Sentiment

Have had a lot of requests for this little piece of word art but never got around to designing a pattern and then the other day I thumbing through a 2009 issue of Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts and BAM! there it was. This pattern was designed by Toni Burghout. Thank you Toni. You saved me a lot of time and (no doubt) frustration.

For the painting of this piece I used a similar technique to what I did with "Hearts in Love".
I started with a piece of poplar and painted it a glossy black. Then I covered both sides with painters tape, attached the pattern and sawed it out. Then before removing the tape I spray painted the inside gold and there you have it.

This is one of the most popular phrases for word art. People like to have it around to remind them to Live life to the fullest, Laugh because it feels so good, and never take Love for granted.

Last week was another hectic week for me. I was busy every night last week and none of it had anything to do with scroll sawing. It was basketball, hockey and a particularly painful committee meeting. All of it related to announcing. While I'd like to be in the shop these evenings I need to make hay on the announcing business while the sun shines. This week looks a little better.

I delivered the fretwork heart with the names and wedding date to Andrew last Monday and by the time he was through showing it around I had three more orders for it plus an order for a
couple of key chains and a kids coat rack! Looks like I have my work to cut out for me (as opposed to having my work cut our for me).

I'm working on another fretwork box right now that I hope to have done this week although this week is almost as bad for non scroll saw events as last. Then I'll get to those orders.
Pictures coming. Stay tuned (just can't get away from broadcasting ).

An Enjoyable Project for a Friend

A friend of mine at work asked me to design something for his up coming marriage and this is the result. I took a pattern for the Holiday edition of Scroll Saw Woodworking and Crafts and

enlarged it so I could fit the names and wedding date on it and cut it from a 3/8 thick piece of

oak . The finished project measures about 11 inches across and about 10 inches high at the peak of the arcs. I dipped it in Watco Danish Oil and then put two coats of Watco spray lacquer on it to seal it. I'm confident he's going to like it and I'm sure I'll get orders for more. Where to find the wood is another matter. I got this one at Johnson's Workbench in Charlotte (pronounced shar LOTT for you non Michigan folks) which is about 100 miles from here. Needless to say at $3.20 a gallon for gas I don't go running down there very often.

Enlarging the pattern and cutting our the heart was pretty easy. Designing and cutting the names and dates was another matter. I use Inkscape to design word art. It is a vector drawing program and I am learning to use it for more and more things. I have cut many free standing words, names and sayings where the letters sit on a base. Cutting letters INTO a piece of wood

is quite a different matter. When you do this you quickly realize that anything with a closed loop (e,o,p,d ect) requires another design technique called bridges to keep the center of the letter from falling out . There is a way to do this in Inkscape and there are some excellent tutorials on line to help you out. Unfortunately I am a slow learner and after watching the video about 25 times I finally got the hang of it and now it is quite fun.

Well that is the story of the Andrew & Andrea plaque (can you spot the letters I had to modify?)

Got a very busy week and, unfortunately, none of it involves scroll sawing so it will probably be another week between posts. Check back in from time to time and be sure to add comments if you have any. I love to read them.

update from the scroll shoppe

Another good pattern from Steve Good. Bless his heart he keeps cranking out free patterns almost daily on his blog and I find I use about 85 to 90% of them. Keep up the good work buddy.

This little heart pendant measures about two inches high and 2 inches wide. Steve made his just a bit smaller. I enlarged it about 10% to accommodate a 1/16th drill bit for the tiny spaces.
This one is cut from 1/8th inch bloodwood. Bloodwood is pretty pricey but I got some scraps free from a friend a couple of years ago and have made projects with them sparingly. I'll probably make about 7 or eight of these and sell them for $5.00 each, If I can part with them. I tend to get attached to my projects and sometimes I hate to see them go. But I know they'll have good homes and the money will allow me to buy materials and supplies to make more.

Well the title of this post says it is to be an update on what's going on in the scroll shoppe so here goes:

Been very busy lately but not all in the shop. My other life keeps intruding and the past couple of weeks have been filled with a lot of announcing jobs (yes by day he's a humble mild mannered scroll saw artist working to turn out beautiful crafts for the community. He seems not unlike Gepetto hoping for one of his creations to come to life. THEN BY NIGHT HE DONS THE MANTLE OF HIS ALTER EGO AND BECOMES....ARENA SPORTS ANNOUNCER MAN. INSPIRING YOUNG ATHLETES TO GIVE CHAMPIONSHIP PERFORMANCES WITH HIS ENTHUSIASTIC PRAISE FOR THEIR EFFORTS.) Have two hockey games this weekend and a couple of college basketball games coming up.

During the evenings I'm home I have been trying to work on the website with the website builder at Go Daddy. I find it a bit daunting especially when the directions offered in the start up manual don't work. Looks like I'll be going back to the support desk for help.

Working now on a project for a friend at work. It's going to be a plaque commemorating their wedding. It is a big fetwork heart wall hanging with their names and wedding date scrolled into it. Designed the pattern in Inkscape. Now it's just a matter of getting it onto the wood and cutting it out.

Well that's the post for now. As an old scroller once said: "Keep the dust blowin and the smiles showin"

The Website is Under Construction!

I am happy to announce I have taken the first steps toward getting a website online. Recently I registered the domain name terrysscrollshoppe.com and signed up with "Go Daddy" for hosting. I'm ready to start building some pages.

I spent some time last night with Go Daddy support. They are pretty good, I must say, and the thing that really sold me on them is that they keep all their technical support right here in the United States. I hate to sound jingoistic about this but far to many companies today farm out their call center jobs to foriegn countries where poorly trained people who barely speak English try to help you solve whatever problem you have. Yes..."Peggy" is real and he is just as hard to understand as it looks on tv.

One of the things I learned talking to Go Daddy Support is that I have a lot to lear. Fortunately they make it pretty easy for you. They offer a lot of templates to choose from and step by step instructions on how to go about it. I am pretty confident I can do this and have a pretty good looking website where you'll be able to view my work, purchase products and link to this blog as well.

First step is planning and putting together a really good home page. I'll probably use the image you see at the top of the page here as the banner and there will be some pictures of some projects I've done along with my saw and maybe a couple of me actually cutting something.

I'll be making a products page with picutres of projects you can order along with their prices and a link to an order form. Most likely will use Paypal for transactions.

Also hope to have an "about" page where I can post some videos of the scroll saw process. A lot of people don't really understand what goes into a scroll sawn piece and this will give them an idea.

There is a lot to do and it looks a bit daunting at first until I actually sit down to do it.
Hope to have the first pages up by the end of the month.