How exciting! Pictured here is a functioning prototype for the motion sensing skirt that I’ve been planning. It uses a Lilypad Arduino, a microcontroller board designed specifically for use in textile electronics. The lilypad board takes readings from an accelerometer (the small board in the upper right of the photo) and translates information about the movement it is sensing into different colors of light from the RGB LEDs at the bottom.
Ok, so I know this doesn’t translate all that well to a still photo. I tried to take a video of it working, but my little point and shoot doesn’t handle the LED very well for videos – they made streaks all over the screen. I’ll see if I can get over to my parents’ house tomorrow and talk my little sister into playing videographer for me, though. In the meantime, I’m off to work more on the final design.
Hooray! I just got my application in to be a strolling vendor at this year’s High Sierra Music Festival. I’m super excited about it – we went to the festival last year and had a great time, and to have the opportunity to go back and enjoy the music and the festival while also promoting my business is just awesome. I’m particularly excited about the roaming aspect… I won’t be tied to a booth, I’ll be able to catch the shows I want to see, and I’ll get to mod the wagon I made for the festival last year to be my little mobile ‘shoppe’.
If you’ve never vended at High Sierra before they ask you to include some promotional material with your application. As I’ve been focused on building up my product offerings and improving the quality of my photos, I didn’t yet have any printed promotional material. So, I used the quick and easy collage feature at Picnik to put together a couple of postcards – the one above that focuses on the laser cut goodies, and another focusing on my electronics work (more on that in another post). I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Continue Reading →
I just got some great new jewelry posted over at my shop today. One of the great features of etsy (where I have my shop) is the focus on community. And one of the ways they have to build community is through the creation of ‘teams’ of sellers that have something in common – whether that be background, media, style, or anything else. I have joined two etsy teams so far… PDX Etsy (for people from the Portland area) and Mad Scientists of Etsy (for those with a background or day job in science or whose work draws on science.)
The Mad Scientists run a monthly challenge where they provide a topic and everyone who wishes creates something that ties into that topic. The picture you’re looking at is one of my entries in the February challenge, which had the topic of Mycology. I had a couple of related ideas on this one, tried them all out, and liked them – so I ended up posting 3 separate items for the challenge. Two necklaces and one pair of earrings, all inspired by Amanita muscaria – the iconic toadstool also known as fly agaric.
This distinctive fungus pops up in all sorts of interesting cultural places, from the Super Mario Brothers 1-up mushroom, to Smurf houses, to fairy pedestals in European renaissance art. In my tributes, I combined elements of poplar that I had laser etched with an illustration of the gill pattern from Amanita muscaria with vivid red-and-white polka dotted lampwork beads and 14 karat gold-filled chain and toggle clasps. As I said, I really liked how they all turned out… the red and white is classic and fun, and even gives it a bit of retro-50s flair, in my opinion. What do you think?
Lookee there! That’s my new workbench, ready to use. A friend who loves woodworking and had all of the necessary tools and know-how came over and built it for us, for which I am extremely grateful. The post in the middle is sunk into the garage floor and filled with concrete to protect the back wall. so we had to design around it… Made for quite a tall workbench, but that’s actually quite nice for the finer detail work I’m generally doing. Continue Reading →
This has to qualify as one of the most incredible projects I have seen in a long time. Carlos Alberto, a craftsman in Portugal, hand built this gorgeous wooden Vespa. Continue Reading →
