Event Recap – Occoquan River Communities’ Winterfest

Greetings All! It’s been a busy fall, full of custom design orders and events. My last event for 2015 was the Holiday Arts Market at Tackett’s Mill. It was part of a large Winterfest organized by the Occoquan River Communities.

Lesson: It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask
By the time I heard about the Holiday Arts Market, it was well past their submission date. I went ahead and sent an email to the organizer to see if they still happened to have openings and guess what– they did. Not only that, the booth fee was free. And on top of that, the Holiday Arts Market was in the same building as Santa Claus would be after the parade. I am very thankful they let me into the show so late.

IMG_20151212_114422224_HDR
Santa Arrives

Setup
For this show, they did have electricity, so I brought the printer along. They also allowed people to hang things on the wall, so I put all my wreaths and magnets on the wall behind me, allowing me to squish everything else into a single table. I did not show any of my jewelry this show for two reasons– 1) Lack of space and 2) I sold all out of my Helix Heart Pendants the weekend before.

It was refreshing to be in an indoor venue for a change and I didn’t have to tack all my signs down.

The other artists were amazing. I loved their work and even though they have been doing this for so much longer than I, they were all very supportive of me and my work. They made me feel very welcome.

IMG_20151211_172227841
My Setup the Night Before

Big Start
The first half hour of the show was crazy busy. Crazy busy. 67% of all my sales occurred in the first 30 minutes of the show. At one point in time, there was a queue of people lined up waiting to pay.

After that, it did slow down immensely. It gave me a chance to visit with the other artists and my children. As a bonus surprise, my two year old nephew and his parents stopped by for a visit.

IMG_20151212_135056884
My Nephew and My Youngest Son At The Booth

Winners
For this show, the biggest winner was the Cork Kitty! All but one lonely white cat sold.

3D Printing - Amry of Cork Kitties
Cork Kitties – SOLD!

The five Firefly wreath that I secretly hoped no one would buy did get purchased. The fireflies butts glow in the dark and the way they were positioned on the wreath, the glowing makes a star. I will have to make another one.

3D Printing - Firefly Wreath
Firefly Wreath – SOLD!

Cardinals continued to have a strong showing. Hummingbirds and Goldfinches made sales and a big congratulations to the Red-Winged Blackbird who got his real first sale!

3D Printing - Redwing Blackbird
First Sale! Red-Winged Blackbird

Virginia is for Wine Lovers bottle stoppers did well as usual as did that Glowing Cthulhu Coaster. Every single show– I sell Glowing Cthulhu Coasters (often to the point of selling out). It still amazes me how well they do.

3D Printing - Virginia is for Wine Lovers Stopper

The Glowing Marine Corps Museum (which I have yet to blog about) did well. The great thing about that product is just two sales covers an entire roll of GlowFill!

3D Printing - Glowing Museum of the Marine Corps
My Glowing Ode to The National Museum of the Marine Corps

My two-color holiday napkin rings (another thing I need to blog about) got their first “Craft Show” sell as well.

IMG_20151108_103416835
Napkin Rings – SOLD!

Phew. It was a good day, but at the end of it, I was thankful that was my last show in 2015. The next show on my docket right now isn’t until March. I’m hoping to catch up on my blogging in Q1 2016… and launch my 3D Printing YouTube Channel!

Marathon Etsy-ing

Phew. Did some catch up on my Etsy site and got a bunch more products listed this week including:

>Marathon Etsying

  • Bird Christmas Ornaments and Wreaths – for the Nature Lovers on your Christmas list!
  • The National Museum of the Marine Corp – a special model for a show I did in Quantico, Virginia. The model glows in the dark and can be lit within by LED
  • Library of Congress Ornament– which scored me a trip to the White House.
  • Schrodinger’s Cat and Box – It has been a surprise sleeper at the craft shows, so I decided it was Etsy-worthy. 🙂
  • Breastfeeding Pendants – where my 3D Printing journey began!
  • Heart Helix Pendants – My current favorite necklace– hearts twisted into a double helix.

Enjoy!

Fun Print – Le FabShop’s Wolverine Claws

The le FabShop’s Wolverine Claws were making the rounds on the Internet and they looked amazing, but I did not feel compelled to print them. My husband saw them and instantly wanted some… but still I hadn’t quite worked it into my 3D Printing schedule. And then…. The 3D Printed Nerd nonchalantly mentioned in a VLOG that he printed them.

Suddenly I was swayed. And I already have grey filament in my printer from the Fun Police Sheriff’s Badge. It was destiny. So I went ahead and gave it a whirl. This was before The 3D Printing Nerd’s full video on the claws, so I was still blissfully unaware it took 3 tries to get them right. That might have deterred me, but luckily I didn’t see the video yet and luckier, my first print was a huge success.

I printed at 0.25mm layers with 10% infill. The Thingiverse instructions recommend rafts. I forgot to turn rafts on in Simplify3D, BUT knowing the brutal overhang was coming, I did glue stick the absolute heck out of my bed. That was sufficient to keep the claws stuck on the bed. I did have a minor first layer issue, so the very first layer of one of the claws was fused together in my print. I freed that up with Exacto Knife and SHEBAM. We were in business.

Sadly, my husband STILL doesn’t have the wolverine claws he desires. My four year old took one look at those things and yeah, now they are his. : )

3D Printing - Sagan and his Le Fab Shop Wolverine Claws

It is such an amazing and impressive design. Many thanks to le FabShop for sharing their design!

Print Diary – Fun Police Sheriff’s Badge

A friend of my brother’s passed away last week. He was in his thirties, so it was an unexpected death. Last night, my sister-in-law texted to see how soon I could 3D Print something for the funeral. She wanted a Sheriff’s Badge with one request– that it simply read “Fun Police”.

Thanks to Thingiverse, OpenSCAD, and Simplify3D, I was able to turn around her request fast.

Thingiverse and OpenSCAD
Thingiverse had a lot of Sheriff Badges to choose from. I went with the design by Bichiatari. I liked the standard six star approach and bonus– it was in OpenSCAD, which I taught a class on last June! I used his base code to make some slight alterations:

  • I made the points of the stars spheres to give it a more three dimensional look.
  • I changed the font to “Rockwell Extra Bold”. I liked the look of the text and I liked how thick the letters were
  • And finally, I changed “Sheriff” to “Fun Police”.

Fun Police - Test Run
Original Model

Simplify3D
Now, when I was done, the points of my stars did extend below the base of the star thanks to the spheres.

Fun Police - Test Run - Untruncated Spheres
I didn’t want to print those sphere bottoms

For my first trial run, I didn’t go to the trouble of making that flat in OpenSCAD. I just flattened the bottom when I sliced in Simplify3D. I simply changed the Z offset, so the bottom part of those spheres were below my build plate, so those parts wouldn’t print. A nice handy trick.

I also felt the proportions were a little off, so I scaled just the height of the object down so it was only 6mm high.

Simplify3D - Fun Police - Quick Hack with Offset and Scaling
Hack with Simplify3D – Changed my Offset To Lower the Object Down

Rev 2
The first print was okay— and I bet they would have been satisfied with it. I didn’t like how the “E” at the end of “POLICE” printed out and I thought it would be a better use of real estate to make the letters bigger.

3D Printing - Fun Police - First Print
The First Print Had a Messed Up E

So I went back into OpenSCAD and made some changes:

  • I put “FUN” on one line of text and “POLICE” on another
  • I made the text bigger.
  • I resized my object down to 4mm high
  • Finally, I went ahead and chopped off the bottom of those spheres so it would all lay flat

For those interested in the code, the full OpenSCAD code is below.

As far as the second print— I liked it much better. I used the MakerGear Silver PLA filament.

3D Printing - Fun Police Second Revision
Second Print

OpenSCAD Code
[js]
//I thought the current height was too chunky,
//so scale it down to 4mm high after everything
//else is done
resize([0,0,4])
difference () {

//Rotate the star 30 Degrees, so it is easier to visualize
//and place the text
rotate([0,0,30])
union () {
//The first two cylinders are our star
//3 sided cylinder is a triangle
cylinder(r=40, h=5,$fn=3);
rotate([0,0,180])
cylinder(r=40, h=5,$fn=3);
translate([37,0,2])

//Spheres at each star’s point
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([-37,0,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([-19,33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([19,33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([-19,-33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([19,-33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
}

//These cubes are our engraved lines
translate([-23,10,1])
cube ([50,1,4]);
translate([-23,-10,1])
cube ([50,1,4]);

//This is our text for engraving
scale([0.7,0.7,1])
translate([-30,3,1])
linear_extrude([0,0,5])
text(” FUN “, font=”Rockwell Extra Bold”);

scale([0.7,0.7,1])
translate([-30,-9,1])
linear_extrude([0,0,5])
text(“POLICE”, font=”Rockwell Extra Bold”);

//Finally this cube is to cut everything off at the bottom to make it flat
translate([-50,-50,-5])
cube([100,100,5]);
}
[/js]

First Thingiverse Remix!

Last week, thinking about how much I have gained from the generous licensing of Thingiverse designers (such as RosieCampbell, Liz Havlin, EHM), I decided to pay it back a little bit and I made my Glowing Pumpkin Pendant/Pin available on Thingiverse. I even marked it as good for Remix and Commercial use.

3D Printing - Glowing Pumpkin Pendant - Face Options

A week later, my design has its first Remix! A gentleman from the Ukraine adapted it into a keychain! And interestingly enough, he printed it in a single color… and it looks fantastic!

Ukraine Pumpkin

Just like the Mill House Museum Ornament, I’m glad to see my colored design translates well to a single color! : )

P.S. If you don’t have a printer, I do have prints of the original Glowing Pumpkin Pendant/Pin listed on Etsy.

Modeling Diary – Occoquan’s Mill House Museum

After the Occoquan Arts and Craft Fair, I was approached by the Occoquan Business Guild. This holiday season the Virginia Governor’s Mansion is celebrating Virginia’s localities. They invited counties, cities, and towns throughout the state to design an ornament for tree. I was asked to design the Christmas Ornament representing Occoquan!

Originally we discussed a replica of the old Ellicott Mill which was the very first automated mill in Virginia. But, the Mill looked to be particularly ambitious in the timeframe (end of October). So we ultimately decided to do an ornament based on the Mill House, which is a structure that still stands today and is home to Occoquan’s Mill House Museum. The Mill House’s shape seemed like it would aesthetically make a better ornament.

This structure also has an emotional connection to me and my family. My maternal grandmother worked at the Mill House Museum for many years.

I did some sketches and settled on a pretty literal translation of the Mill House. Since the Mill House is a stone structure, I recommended the final print be in Shapeways’ Full Color Sandstone. I felt its stone-like finish would be perfect for the ornament.

3D Printing - Mill House Museum  Original Sketch

Modeling – Base Structure and Details
For modeling, I used some reference photos I took of the building.

Mill House Reference - Front

Mill House Reference - Mill Side

The side of the mill with the chimney was tight for me to get pictures, so for that side I also used a reference photo I took of a model by former Council Member Dr. Walbert.

SMALL Mill House - Chimney Referene

One of the key features I wanted on the ornament was an old Mill Stone laying on the building. For that, I referred to good ole Wikipedia and its article on millstones!

Modeling – Mill House
I did all my work in the free modeling software Blender. The base model, the windows, the door, the brick trim above the windows and the chimney shape all went quickly and were pretty much done with cubes and basic mesh modeling.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Mill House Start

Modeling – Physical Textures
And then I had the tricky part. The stone work and the brick work. Now, because we were planning on Full Color Sandstone, I did have the option of doing a UV Map and doing that details just through the colors. But I decided, I really wanted those textures to be actual textures. If we wanted to print the model in bronzeFill or plastic, I wanted the details to translate. I briefly researched Displacement Maps, but with the time clock ticking, I went with an approach I was more comfortable with. (One day I may look back and think, “Dude- you did this the HARD way!”)

All my physical textures I went with a height of 0.5mm. I have found 0.5mm details look good on my MakerGear M2– it’s big enough for the detail to be distinctive, but small enough that the printer doesn’t struggle with overhangs.

Modeling – Bricks
Bricks– I made a small cube as a brick and then used the Array Modifier to make a line of evenly spaced bricks.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Screenshot - Brickwork

After I applied that Array Modifier, I did another! I made one row and offset it a little bit to get the stratified effect of two rows of bricks.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Screenshot - Brickwork 2

Finally I used the Array Modifier one more time to make a big sheet of bricks!

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Screenshot - Brickwork 3

Modeling – Stones
For the stone work, I was partially a purist. I pulled up a new Blender project and traced out some of the real stones of the Mill House in Bezier Curves. And once I had a good selection, I used that mini sheet of stones to make bigger sheets.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Screenshot - Stone Work

Modeling – Fitting the Brick and Stonework
To fit my stonework and brick work to the actual Mill House, I made little templates of the sides I wanted to work with. I started by making a template of the side I wanted the texture for. This would include window and detail cut outs where I did not want stone or brick. This took me a while to find a process I liked. I finally ended up with ended duplicating any pertinent vertices.

3D Printing - Mill House - Duplicate Vertices

Then I separated them into their own object by going to Mesh->Vertices->Separate->Selection.

3D Printing - Mill House - Seperate Vertices

I sometimes had to repeat with other objects (such as windows).

Once I had all the relevant vertices, I made a new face of what I wanted stonework for. From there, I used the Boolean Modifier and Intersection to cut my sheet of stonework into…a specifically shaped sheet of stonework.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Screenshot - Intersection

And I ended up with my final textured piece that I could overlay over my Mill House.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Screenshot - Intersection Aftermath

Modeling – Colors
With the Mill House, I didn’t have to create a UV Map for my coloring. I was able to do it all by the Materials tab for my objects.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Colors

In a couple of spots, I assigned a different material to specific faces (like grooves in the Mill Stone)

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum -Color Faces

Modeling – Hollowing
To save on material cost I did hollow out my Mill House. It was an easy process– I Inset the bottom face and Extruded up.

Renders and Rework
Originally I did my shingles with an Subdivide, Inset and Extrude technique. It looked fabulous in my Mamie Davis Gazebo Ornament, but I did not like it in my Mill House renders.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum - Sandstone Render

I went back and redid the shingles the way I did the bricks (so they were staggered).

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum - Sandstone Render - New Shingles

I met with my contacts and gave them a tour of the model and the renders and they loved it! The only tweak they had was to add a doorknob.

“That’s it!” I yelled enthusiastically!

The door had been bothering me all week. It just did not look right. As soon as they said doorknob– I knew that was it. That was the missing piece.

3D Printing - Occoquan Mill House Museum - Reshingled - Final

Test Prints
One of my concerns was the balance of the ornament would be off or that once printed, I wouldn’t be fond of the size I chose. So I did a test print on the Maker Gear M2. And….. I was in love. Even though my printer did not pick up the window panes and I noticed a few minor issues, I was impressed at how great all the detailing came out on my printer. I am so glad I went to the trouble to make that stonework and brick work physical details instead of just colors. As for balance– it balanced perfectly!

3D Printing - Occoquan's Mill House Museum - Test Print in White - It Balances

And for fun, I also did a version for myself in ColorFabb bronzeFill.

3D Printing - BronzeFill Mill House Museum From the M2

Final Print
My final print came out a little darker than I expected, but still very identifable as the Mill House. The most important part– the “customer” was thrilled! Phew!

Mill House - Top

And Now…
And now the ornament makes it way to the Virginia Governor’s Mansion! Exciting!

St. Paul UMC Fall Fair – Recap

On Saturday, I did a little “mini” show at a nearby church for four hours.  Since the booth fee was only $10, that gave me the luxury to do some experimenting with lower prices– particularly with the Cork Kitties and the Cork Puppies!  My experiment for this show as setting them up at $2.25 (that’s including the sales tax).

I left my more expensive products at home and only set up one 5′ table.  TGAW 3D “Lite”, if you will.

St. Paul UMC Fall Fair -  "Lite" Booth

Now, the foot traffic at this show was pretty minimal– I think most of the people there were other vendors, but I still managed regular sales.  My sample size is small, but I’m feeling like there was more conversion from admiration to actual purchase.  🙂  Oh, and I sold my very first Standing Cancer Ribbons.  Yay!

Cancer Ribbon - Pink

Other misc observations:

  • All the sales this time around were cash (At the Occoquan Craft show it was about 60% cash, 40% credit).
  • If I keep up with the magnet boards, I need a better way to brace them– it flew over in the wind!
  • Not all glue is equal.  I’m still filtering out bird magnets whose magnets are loose. : (

Finally, I discovered there is a perk to a slow show.  I got to sneak in some quality time with my boys and it was a fun place to do so.  They had a moon bounce, a pumpkin patch… and the local fire station even brought over a fire truck and an ambulance for the kids to explore.

St. Paul UMC Fall Fair - Dyson on Moon Bounce

St. Paul UMC Fall Fair - Dyson with Pumpkin Patch

St. Paul UMC Fall Fair - Amy and Sagan Decorate Pumpkin

St. Paul UMC Fall Fair - Sagan Drives Firetruck

As for grown up stuff, I got to visit with an old classmate from elementary school.  We had a lot to catch up on.

It wasn’t an especially lucrative show, but I had a most fabulous time.

Two New Fall Events

I have two additional events to add to my Events page. They are both in Prince William County, Virginia:

Saturday October 17th, 2015 – Community Yard Sale
8 AM – 12 PM
St. Paul United Methodist Church
1400 G Street (Off Occoquan Road)
Woodbridge, VA

Saturday November 14th – 4th Annual Fall Fair
10 AM – 4 PM
Post 28 Quantico Buck Keyes American Legion
17934 Liming Lane
Triangle, VA 22172

I mentioned in my follow up to the Occoquan Fall Arts and Craft Show that I felt I may have mispriced some of my items, particularly items geared for children. I’m going to experiment with lower prices at both of these events. Gather up more data for me to learn about pricing and sales.

As I tell my four year old, you gotta practice to get good. : )

More Proof 3D Printing is Hands-On

When I was preparing for Occoquan Arts and Craft Fair, behind the scenes I was somewhat worried the organizers wouldn’t perceive my work as handmade. I had these preemptive unspoken arguments queuing up in my head. I collected up examples (and photos) of all the hands-on work– the modeling, the trial and error, the bed prep, the filament changes, the sanding (my gazebo ornament– I have to sand in between each and every slat in the railing- 70 in total), the painting, the sealing, adding split rings and keychains. I had a point all lined up at how Etsy considers 3D printing handmade.

This whole process was quite similar to all the practice arguments and the State Code passage I memorized in case anyone ever gave me flak about breastfeeding. In both cases, I never had any hassle (which doesn’t mean people aren’t hassled).

But should the tide ever turn, I had thought the giant gash in my thumb would be another good testament to the hands-on nature of 3D Printing.

3D Printing - Injury

If it wasn’t hands-on, how did I get that injury, huh? Huh? Huh? : )

And this tweet from PrintedSolid shows that I’m not an anomaly. Heads up– his picture includes the blood.

Horrors of #3dprinting #ouch #thefilamentbitme pic.twitter.com/FWN9k3y0a2

— Printed Solid (@PrintedSolid) October 4, 2015

3D Printing is most definitely a hands-on craft… and apparently dangerous for thumbs. : )

Blogging the trials and successes of 3D Modeling, 3D Printing…and trying to make a business out of the whole thing. : )