Etsy store

I’ve made the first step in my experiment in producing decorative pieces for gifts and for sale. I’ve set up a store on etsy.

The painted butterfly, ready for Etsy.

You can see it here

Etsy seemed like a good place to start, as its like a Saturday market. There is no way I was going anywhere near ebay, which from my experience has lost touch with the individual sellers. being forced into paypal is another good reason. Paypal is handy as a buyer, but sucks so much from a sellers prospective. I want to keep the fees down, so I can sell items at a more reasonable price!

So with somewhere to sell my wares, now I need some wares to sell. So far, I have listed one butterfly. I’m in the process of making a couple more of them, with a slightly different design. I have one in the painting process, and another two about half way through the construction process.

After I finish off these butterflys and get them on etsy, I’ll see how they go, and also see what new ideas I can come up with.

Oh, and I haven’t forgotten about the trains. Progress will happen soon on the tree layout. I thought this Etsy blog was more time relevant this week. Stay tuned for more trains, and other projects!

Metal art

My second attempt at making a butterfly

With my hobby of welding, I’ve been thinking of having a go at making some crafty art style pieces. My thinking is by making little bits and pieces, it not only gives me something constructive to build and refine my skills on, if I’m making things of good enough quality, they can become gifts, and maybe I could even sell a few pieces, and make back material costs at least, and maybe

While doing some research online, at places like etsy, and a bit on the Welding Web forum,  I’ve discovered, there is a wide range talent, from those with little or no talent, to those with a lot of skill, and professionalism.

I don’t understand how people can try to sell rubbish, for what can border on obscene prices. Do these items actually sell? I am puzzled. Some of the stuff I am seeing is downright ridiculous. junk sloppily welded together, and sold. But does it sell? I wonder. I would love to know.

Etsy found Object spider. At even $26, I think its a little much

There are of course, people out there with talent. The guys on Welding Web seem to be pretty skilled, but then again, its a forum full of pro welders, and if you posted some of the junk I’ve come across, you’d be ridiculed / laughed out of the building. Some of the work some of the members produce is art, even the straight fabrication some guys produce. That is art.

Regarding my own work, as I’m fairly limited in what I have to work with tool wise. I don’t have things like plasma cutters, mig welders or an Oxy Actelyne set. I’m hoping maybe if I’m somewhat successful with the tools I have, I might be able to accumulate enough spare change to expand my tools and skills. That would be an ultimate goal I guess, a self-sustaining hobby!

Train modelling off and running (mega train post)

As you would realise from my previous posts, my model railroading has begun, in a small way.

Well, before christmas, I was at tool / hobby store again . While I was there, I realised they were selling off some bits and pieces cheap, I mean real cheap.

I spent at least half an hour, maybe more digging through a box of HO scale track, looking for straight pieces, and sets of curves

If you go by the price stickers on the track, I bought over $300 worth of train track ($2 a piece, for 150 pieces), and was charged $10 for that. It should have been $15, as they were supposed to be 10c each, but I wasn’t complaining.

While I was there,I also picked up a length of flexi track to have a play around with.

Most of the 150 pieces of track. I had already used some when the photo was taken

So, beginning that night, I spent the weekend progressively expanding my railway. Beginning by expanding the loop around the tree to a long stretch past the front of the TV.

Here we can see the expansion of the main line. Now stretching past the TV. It wasn't long before this wasn't far enough.

And then expanding that back towards the tree in another long run. I also extended the other end out past the coat rack near our doorway. I was particularly chuffed when I managed to integrate one of the track crossing pieces, and it worked!

Full size. This is as it stands at the peak of the layout.

Over the weekend, Diana and I made the trip back to the hobby store. We were originally seeking farm animals and such at a different store near by. We didn’t leave with more train track this time, but Diana surprised me, and bought me a new train for me:

The new train. YAY!

This train is a whole other ball game compared to the first one. Its quieter. it runs slower and a lot more realistically. It runs a bit better, due to the fact it picks up power from all wheels at once. It’s very nice!

I thought I had enough track for a life time, but I was already wishing I bought more. I have enough to make a nice long single track, but what if I wanted to add a second track along side the first? the box of train track was taunting me. I needed more. I would never get another opportunity to get train track for so cheap.

The thursday before christmas was payday, and eventually the hobby store got the better of me.
I took the long way to work that morning and got another bunch of track. This time, there were less straight pieces (I got most of those last time), and same with the smaller radius curves. I got what I could find, which included a bunch of the larger radius curves, most with the power clips attached. When I got the new train engine, it hits the power clips, so I usually just pull them off. you don’t really need them on EVERY piece of track.

The total haul. thats a lot of track!

As pictured above, I have rather a large amount of track. Each stack of curves with rubber bands is a complete loop of track. there should be all up, about 300 pieces of track. By my count, that’s about $600 worth of track if you take the sticker price of it, all for about $30. That is obscenely cheap!

I’ve begun my small double loop for under the christmas tree next year! so look out for that in future updates.

I’m also going to upload some photos to flickr of my trains. feel free to have a look

2012 an outlook

Happy new year and all that.

In the coming year, I hope to build this blog into a better site.
I hope to get more organised, Post more regularly and add more content.

Content specifics are always hard to pin down, as the blog doesn’t dictate what I do, it’s just a way of me documenting what I do, and I don’t really have a plan of what I’m doing for the year.

Hopefully I’ll get to make some videos of blog related stuff. I’m studying media arts at uni, so it would be nice to use what I learn to make videos.

Trains

With my new-found hobby of HO model trains, I plan on building at least one small layout this year. Currently, my plans are to make it with 2 loops of track in a circle. A larger “Pizza” layout if you will. The goal will be to have it under the Christmas tree next year. that gives me a whole year to get it done.

RC Car

And then there is my nitro car. Its been a while since its been run. The store I got it from has recently gone out of business, so I will need to find a new source of parts when things break. I want to get it out and give it a run. I’ll have to find somewhere to bust it out here at the new house.

Welding

Welding. This year, I’ll hopefully be making some things with the welder. I’ve started making a model  car out of metal. no real scale. If I get it finished, I’ll let you all know.

Cricut

The cricut post seems to be very popular, so I might break out some more cricut stuff too. I’ve made a few cutouts which people might like to see and use. I might post them up at some point

And there is anything else I get up to during the year.

Christmas micro train layout

Here is a photo of my mum’s DuploLego pizza layout. You find layouts in the most unlikely places sometimes. Actually, It wasn’t too unexpected for me, as my mum has done similar in previous years.

It seems to be a mining train operating in a bauble mine amongst a forest of trees.
It must be hard work moving all those Christmas decorations!

And the transition into model train nut continues….

Merry Christmas Everyone

Merry Christmas!!!!

Not a lot in today’s post, Just wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a great day, and those travelling arrive at their destination safe!

Model railroad houses

As you will already know if you’ve read my previous post, my journey in model railroading has begun with a simple loop under the Christmas tree.

I seem to be undergoing a fast paced evolution of building modelling. Beginning with a quickly built house of Lego, and a tunnel of one half of a case of Pepsi, things are progressing from there.

As an extra house, I drew windows and doors on a small cardboard box. It was very ugly, but evolved fast . I put a cardboard roof on it and painted it with acrylic artists paint. It looked better, but still looked kinda crappy.

Then I built a train platform with found balsa wood and cardboard , and painted it too. Its ok, but lacks realism and details.

At this point, I discovered the beauty of printing textures onto paper, and using that to add detail to the houses. Balsa wood window and door frames help make it stand out better as well. (see photo below)

After building this house with printed textures I went back to my painted house, and applied textures to it aswell. Much better. It’s amazing how much better it looks when done like this. There are still ways to improve  the houses, but this is a journey of many steps. I’m yet to add doors and windows to this house, so it’s currently a room with no doors.

And finally there is the little outhouse I’ve made. Same method as the other houses, but with a painted balsa wood door. I think it turned out pretty well. I should have covered the white paper up a bit better though.

And thats it for this installment.
Until next time, enjoy.

Christmas Train

I’ve now officially made the dive into the hobby of model railroading! I’m going to justify model railroading by stating that it’s not actually me taking up a new hobby, but its me merely expanding my interest in modeling from making 1:24 scale cars, to also modelling trains.

Starting off small (and cheap) I found a Model Power train set which was on special at a local hobby store for $60.

This is the train set I'm starting with. Mine is painted a little different.

At the same time, I bought several $1 carriages which they were selling off. I figured they would be pretty crappy, but for $3, I got some extra rolling stock to play with.

So, I’ve got a whole set with controller, engine, track  and rolling stock.  I didnt’ know what to expect with the set. Not being any of the better known brands, it might be rough, it might be noisy, it might continually derail. Inspecting the carriages and the engine, I was happy with my purchase. This set, after all set me back $60. You don’t have to look far to spend more than that on a single engine, or even a single carriage of high quality. I actually like the little diesel shunter the kit came with, and the carriages aren’t too bad, for me to get started on at least.

As it was so close to christmas, my plan is to build a christmas train under the christmas tree. Possibly before I had even left the store, I had a cool idea. What I want to do is repaint / decal the carriages, with a personalised carriage for each member of our family, adding carriages as new additions come along.

The tree looks a little sparse, but it has a train, with a Pepsi max tunnel! Yea!!!

I’ve already started mocking up some pictures for the side of the trains on the computer. Printing them out, and sticking them on the side of the carriages. below you can see the demo carriage I have made for our dog Bella. Dizzy, the pictured cat, will also get a carriage soon too, as will my wife and I. I will need time to plan and paint though!

The first mockup, for Bella our dog

I’m already planning on repainting the carriages so they look great, and integrate the pictures in as much as possible. For the time being, I’ll keep using the cheap carriages, as that’s what I’ve got. Maybe by next christmas I’ll be able to upgrade the $1 cars to ones which run a little nicer.

Happy Anniversary Diana

Happy Anniversary my love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Today marks one year since we were married, and right now are enjoying a lovely romantic get away. Happy Anniversary sweetie. It has been a wonderful year. I love you. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Scrapbooking Process Video

As my most popular blog post so far, by far is my cricut blog, I thought I’d add a video I’ve made for Uni.

It’s not really a how to, but it was supposed to show the process of something, in this case, the process of making a scrapbooking page.

My lovely wife Diana suggested the idea, and kindly volunteered to be the star. I don’t think she realised that required sitting under hot lights for several hours though.

I Hope you enjoy the video!