Friday Smiles 2024 # Week 30

It has been too hot to do anything exciting this week so I haven't much to write about. Yes, we did reach the promised 40º on Sunday morning! It was not the most pleasant day and we spent much of it indoors with the air-con on.

I have spent some time in my craft room with my fan nearly touching me and whizzing round as fast as it can go. I am not good at sitting doing nothing all day, and I have read several books on my Kindle, so for a change of eyesight I decided to come down here and do a bit of  laser cutting.

I was quite pleased with a set of six hexagonal coasters I cut, each with a different geometrical pattern cut out of them. However, I am not sure how much use coasters are when they are 'full of holes' so I cut plain hexagons from thin mdf board and glued them behind each design. I then sprayed them front and back with a waterproof varnish. 

I was even more pleased with the little box I made to put them in. It was a bought file but I needed to adapt it to take the extra depth caused by the backing layers, without displacing the shaping of  the feet, or the slots and tabs to put it all together. I added a little glue to the joins and then sprayed inside and out with varnish and this was my end result. It will make a nice present for someone one day.

I needed a new canister of spray varnish so I went to the local ferriteria (hardware store) with my son Tom. While there I found some small sheets of 3ply wood and bought some to try. I wanted to try a bigger cut and the wood I buy from Amazon is expensive and size choice is limited, so I thought this might be a cheaper option. Wrong! I soon realised that the wood was very poor quality but I decided to use some as a practice piece anyway. I made two small Christmas decorations to help me sort out the best engrave and cut settings. The engraving was not very good but they cut well, so I brightened them up with some paint and glitter and then varnished them to make sure the glitter stayed in place.

Then I decided to try my bigger project and as you can see here it was not very successful. The right hand side of the wood sheet was better quality and engraved reasonable well, but the left hand didn't engrave well at all. I had similar results when I tried to cut it out, with the right side cutting smoothly but the left hand side needed a lot of help from my craft knife to cut right through. This left rough edges that needed sanding. The cause was probably the glue holding the layers together.

But hey, not every attempt will turn out just right and it is a lesson learned. If I want to make a big project again, I will buy good wood! And I have a quite attractive dragonfly. His front legs came off so I reattached them with paper strips and glue, but he will probably fly across my wall for a while. I can see his imperfections but not everyone will.

My hand continues to do well, but the shoulder wound has not yet healed. The heat is not helping it. But today at the clinic the nurse was pleased and said it looked a lot better, but 'slowly, slowly', so I still have to attend twice a week to have the dressing changed. I shall be so glad when it can be uncovered so I can shower properly again.

And finally for this week, Wednesday was my second son Mike's 51st  birthday, and his daughter posted this lovely smiley photo of him on Facebook, with his youngest grandson on his shoulders. Mike was ten, twelve and thirteen when my three younger sons were born and he adored them all, especially as babies, and went on to be a great 'big-brother' to them as they grew up, and they are all best of friends now. He has had some ups and downs in his life but he has always been a good dad to his children, and now he has the next generation to enjoy. Smiles all round.

And on that happy note I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and publish this in the morning.