Sometimes it’s important to do a little something for yourself. Or in this case for ourselves. id-iom’s junior member mentioned the other day that he’d managed to break his mini spirit level keyring or ‘wonkometer’ that he’d had for many years. To remedy this I thought I’d create some new team id-iom keyrings. Exclusive, classy, glass-like, laser cut and featuring a symbol of our individual call-signs. They’re 2 of a kind. And no, you can’t have one. As you can see they’re currently protected by Sebastian, the crack squirrel so good luck there…
If you’ve not played the mobile game Clash Royale before then it’s probably better it stays that way unless you’re looking for some insidiously addictive online action to steal away all your free moments. If you have played then I’m sure my little pun for the title needs no further explanation and it’s probably better if you put the phone down and step outside for some fresh air before you have another game. Anyway, whilst playing you can send emoji style messages to the other player to taunt them or gloat a little and this is my favourite one to send upon winning a match. Just to rub their face in it a little. And there’s our clan name at the bottom. I’m not sure what it stands for as someone else started the clan.
As an aside I think I’m finally getting to grips with getting these laser cut and engraved bad lads painted up. I think it’s about time I started doing some bigger bits and pieces with the laser cutter so that should be happening soon. Watch this space…
Whilst home at Christmas I was rooting around in the attic looking for something and came across one of my mum’s sketches from the late 60’s when she was doing Fashion at university. I really liked it and, as a professional womble was honour bound to take it, so did so and scanned it but didn’t really have an idea for how best to use it until I got access to a laser cutter. My original idea was to somehow make them into bookends but then I remembered I have literally no woodwork skills whatsoever so decided to stick some magnets to the back of and then send home to live their new life as fridge magnets. Good luck to you ladies…
For our inaugural visit to City of Colours in Birmingham last year we painted a giant (5m x 5m) version of this piece and since I currently have access to a laser cutter thought I’d commemorate it with a keyring (5cm x 5cm) sized memento. I’m still not entirely sure where I stand on whether one should attempt to paint laser engraved items or whether that detracts from the point of laser engraving them in the first place. The artist in me wants to paint them but sometimes they just look better as plain wood. Plus they are complete fecker to paint properly. I’m still undecided however.
If you’ve ever had a dream so real that upon waking you need to take a couple of minutes to work out exactly what’s going on then you’ve probably got some idea of the inspiration behind the original piece. A half remembered memory of something that really never was. It sounds quite vague but makes for a good picture (and keyring). Right, what’s next to get lasered?
So, it turns out that if you give a man (well, me specifically) access to a laser cutter this is the kind of magical little trinket you can expect him to produce with his first run of successful cutting. I’m a little smitten with this device at the moment. It may become obvious. If I’d ever paid attention as to how to use vector based graphics programmes it probably wouldn’t have been quite so much of an achievement – but I haven’t so it was. I’ve had this sketch of the eponymous Keef pulling some complicated hand signs on my computer for quite a while now so it was nice to finally get to use it for something. I just hope he thinks the same when he gets his new keyring…
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