After having this tool for writing a blog for a couple of years now and not actually taking advantage of it, I thought it might be a good idea to make a fresh start of it. While my focus was on photography for quite a while, I found that I was a little reluctant to write about it as a work in progress. I always believed that I would post my latest captures but then never felt that they were good enough to post anywhere. Since I was primarily self-taught, I was my own worst critic and spent years comparing my work to professional photographers work and that of my father’s captures. They never really measured up in my view. While that doesn’t really advance my efforts, it is what it is.
Starting now, I think I would just like to write about what I am doing and share some of it here. Good or bad, I am in hot pursuit of numerous crafts, including photography, and I expect to share some of that work in the coming pages.
I recently began a new craft known to scrapbookers and other crafters alike and that is using a computer driven die cutter. My machine is the Cricut Maker 3. This is a high performance, table top cutting machine that can cut over 300 materials including thin pieces of wood, mylar, paper, vinyl, cloth, foam and numerous other materials that can be fashioned into all kinds of things as well as being applied to many surfaces. It really provides me an opportunity to play with design in new ways and “borrow” ideas from crafters all over the world. Just learning how to operate the machine and how to make use of the objects I’ve cut has been a real adventure. So far, I’ve primarily been making embellishments for tote bags and tee shirts.
If I can figure out how to insert a couple of photos, I’ll post them. Here goes:
photos of my latest t-shirt creations
So, the above photos are showing the most recent of the t-shirts I’ve made in the last week. The first two are from cut vinyl pieces, placed and then pressed on to the t-shirts with a heat press. the third is an image that was printed by way of the Cricut application and then cut out with the Cricut cutting machine. The printed material is a type of vinyl that can be run through an inkjet printer. It is then pressed on to the t-shirt with a heat press. The fourth photo shows my first successful attempt at sublimation. This is a little tricky because I absolutely needed to be working with a polyester t-shirt blank – not 100% cotton which is my favorite material to work with. I am using pre-inked sheets with patterned sublimation so placement of color is a little haphazard. This is cut out by the Cricut and then pressed on to the polyester t-shirt at a high temperature for a pretty long time compared to the vinyls. The result was better than I expected and I think I’ll be doing more of this once I find a supplier of polyester blanks that is good quality at a reasonable price.
My next challenge will be to sublimate on to objects such as coffee mugs and tumblers. Presses are sold to accomplish this with very little trouble but the presses are a little expensive. There may be a market for these items on our family owned business if I can come up with some good ideas for what people want on their mugs. I seriously doubt there’ll be a huge market for my standard, sarcastic and/or caustic phrases. Maybe, I’ll start with some nice florals or cute little hearts or butterflies.
So that’s what I’m up to right now. I’m going to try to keep up with this and maybe post some of my best and worst moments in what I am doing.
In Vizzpat's World 