speaking the truth

[ A necklace display, shaped as many of them are with a rounded neck and unrealistically narrow shoulders and waist, and cut out of what’s obviously cheap OSB plywood, sits propped up on a wooden book stand. A purple and white necklace is displayed on it. ]

I admit I spent longer than I really needed to before finally deciding that YES I could just make my own necklace display thing for taking product pictures, instead of buying one. In my defense, it was gonna involve cutting a lot of complex curves, & even with a nice jigsaw & a narrow blade I’m just not GOOD at that. On top of which, the pattern I found was too big to fit on one sheet of paper, which meant that whole process was gonna be a Thing, too.

… look, sometimes it just takes a lot to get started, okay?

In any case, I wound up taking the pics for the first two necklaces I posted earlier this month on the same book stand I’ve been using for pictures of the rest of the jewelry, & it … was very clear that it was NOT designed for that, & it was NOT going to do a good job of it, either. I got some not-too-terrible pictures, but I also got the smitch of executive function I needed to actually, you know, DO THE THING.

Which wasn’t TOO hard. I hadda mess around in Inkscape for a minute to trace the pattern into a lovely vector format & then break it into four sections, then print each one & tape em together, & then I hadda take really quite a few minutes to have at with the jigsaw & get the thing cut out of a handy spare hunk of OSB plywood in a semi-reasonable fashion. & then I stared at it for FAR too long trying to figure out how to build something to hold it up without 1) buying anything, which I was trying to avoid in the first place; 2) having to tear apart any more pallets than I’ve already torn apart, which was already too many; 3) having to do Highly Complex Geometrical Math Calculations; or 3) screaming before realizing that the book stand that’s been doing double duty as a jewelry display item would also do a perfectly good job of, you know, holding up a mediumish slab of plywood.

(I do have most of a plan-like object for making a proper stand now, which is good, cos eventually I’m going to want to use the display board to actually display necklaces in a place where people might like to buy some, & they don’t work well for that if they’re laying flat. But that also means that I’m gonna need to cut more complex round shapes with the jigsaw, cos chances are preeeetty good I’ll want to display more than one necklace at a time, so I’m not thinking about that yet, because of the screaming.)

In the meantime, it works JUST fine, & I’ve taken new pictures of those first couple necklaces, & they all look pretty good. It’ll do.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

[There’s a hole cut in the side of Borgia, a mustard yellow cargo container. It’s roughly the size and shape of a doorway, and, in fact, there’s a door frame in it, made from weathered old wood. Leaning against the wall next to the doorway is a slab of metal, coincidentally the precise same size.]

Cutting the hole for the door in Borgia was SO MUCH easier than I was worried it would be. I totally needed earplugs — the sound was HORRIBLE, even with just the jigsaw — and I kept having to take breaks lest my hands vibrate clean off, but over the course of a couple days I got it done.

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originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

Yes, this is both your cats & progress post for this week, on account of I’m picking up the trailer on Friday & aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

But I finished up the worktable, complete with shelf & lumber storage, & LOOK AT IT, IT IS SO GOOD

Also Major Tom likes it a lot. Here, he is saying ‘dis mine’.

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originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

Specifically, the ‘putting spikes into each pole to loop ropes over’ part. Since I’d bragged on Twitter that I’d worked out a process, here it is!

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originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!