Hello Again!

Hold on, this a long post made up from several drafts that were never published.  There is so much to unpack!

In late 2022 I sold my house in Texas.  I had been wanting to do it for some time, but never took the plunge.  I finally got up the nerve to contact a realtor and let it go.  It sold in a week.  The market was still really hot down there thankfully and I got much more than I thought I would.  The big part is invested, the smaller has gone to some small fix-it type stuff that was put on hold.  That doesn't mean mama didn't get a goodie!  I took the big step forward and purchased......a......large 60 Watt Aeon Mira 7 CO2 laser.  OMG.  I still can't believe I did it!  It was supposed to arrive in January 2023 until I got hurt (as detailed in my next paragraph).

So, most of my self-promises regarding my new downstairs crafts room turned into not happening.  Laugh out loud!  But, I get back up on that horse and keep on going.  Shortly after the first paragraph of this post, I stepped onto my granddaughters Mermaid Barbie car (while my hands were full of boxes and I did not see it), and slammed onto my knee.  I was positive it was broken, but hey!  it wasn't.  I was out of work for 2.5 weeks recovering with a giant hematoma underneath my knee cap.  To this day, it is still there, slowly, very slowly resorbing and with luck it will be completely gone in another year or so.

So finally, in April 2023, my beautiful Aeon Mira 7 arrived.  And boy did that take some planning.  I had to hire 2 Men and a Truck for an hour to move it into the house, it weighed about 400 pounds!  She, "Jaxonista", is a beaut.

Fast-forward to today, May 2024 and I've been using my laser for over a year.  The thing is absolutely amazing and I feel as though every time I use it, I discover something else I can do with it.  Along with the  laser I bought a T-shirt press, dye sublimation printer, oodles and oodles of acrylic, leather, wood, rubber, mylar stencil material, the list goes on and on.  I have made so much and I get giddy just thinking about all of the new things I can make with it.  Obviously there are some things that cannot be cut with a CO2 laser.  Craft foam, anything PVC, including shrink plastic, and vinyl to name a few.  So the electronic die-cutter, my KNK Max Air, is used to cut those.  But, I find that I RARELY use it and the couple of times I went upstairs to cut some shrink plastic, I had to remember how I did it!  Scary!   Especially considering I had used that thing constantly since 2012.

I really cut off a lot of the detail from the original drafts I had typed because the time sequences and verb tenses were off and would have required too much editing.  

I have made tons of wood jewelry, acrylic jewelry, polymer clay jewelry (using stamps I cut from rubber), you name it.  It's so damned cool! 

I really hope I can do more to keep this blog going with more consistent updates.  Ta ta for now.