My newest design: "Day/Night"

Which is really not new (see this post from September last year), but I finally got to make some decent pictures of it, so it is now finally officially 'launched' and for sale in my webshop. It's a 3D printed ceramic egg cup that functions as a candlestick when you turn it upside down. Hence the Day/Night name: it can be put on the table for both breakfast/lunch (egg) ánd dinner (candle). Well look at me being clever and all. Anyway, the pictures:

Now I still need to make decent pictures of another item, my business card stand - which is, by the way, my absolute favourite design - but this is rather difficult so it might take some time (it holds white business cards, and shooting this with a white background is really not easy). And scenic pictures of a business card stand? I still have to figure out how to set that up.

After these and a few portrait pictures are done, I can finally close this chapter - I'm kind of stressing out about all of it but it has to be done (actually, it should have been done weeks ago, I'll explain why in the future). I'll finally be able to work on some other things after that, yay!

In the mean time I'd like to share this link with you: it is a breakdown of the process of creating a stunning watercolour (mainly) fantasy illustration by artist Jenny Dolfen (also known as Gold-Seven). Very inspiring, it makes me want to run to the art store immediately to get a watercolour set and start experimenting!

Time for some serious celebrating!

Guess why?

...My 2012 jewelry collection is done! The designing part of it, at least. Most of the items are already in my possession (and boy, am I wowed by the results), only a few items still need to be produced. If everything goes well, the whole collection is complete and ready to sell (including decent pictures, updated website, web shop and all that stuff) halfway around November. Lots of work to do of which I can't wait to start with.

To celebrate, I bought myself a few 'congratulations!' presents. Okay, I'll admit it was just an excuse to buy some of the new products in the shop where I work, really. The place has been remodelled recently and the collection has expanded with loads of awesome goodies, I just want all of them! Life ain't easy working there, way too much temptation ;).

A tiny baking tin for pies: because everything I bake has to be eaten by only two people and I want to bake quite often, normal pie tins are often too big. Even the best apple pie or cake gets boring after eating it for several days in a row... So this size is perfect!

Le Creuset (you probably know them from their cast iron cookware) has some fantastic (oven-resistant) ceramic mugs. I already have two big mugs and two espresso mugs in my possession, but since a few weeks we also have mid-size mugs in the store. I couldn't resist!

I made some apple sauce, so easy to make and so incredibly tasty!

And I've been walking around again hunting for mushrooms. And I found them...

...even though most had already been destroyed unfortunately.

...except for this humongous fungus! (yes, I just hád to say that).

Okay, recipes!

For the tiny apple pie, I took half of the following (Dutch) apple pie recipe:

- 250 gr flour
- 175 gr butter
- 80 gr sugar
- 2 eggs (1 1/2 for the dough, 1/2 egg for on the pie)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- a pinch of salt might be a good addition

The dough is made by mixing everything by hand (less dish washing to worry about) and letting it chill in the fridge for half an hour while you peel and prepare the apples. Apparently, the cooling is necessary because the butter in the dough needs to be cold when you put it in the oven. The warmer it is, the earlier it will melt during baking, resulting in a less crisp crust. At least, that's what I read and I think it makes sense ;).

For the pie filling, you'll need to mix:

- 1 kg apples, peeled and cut in parts or slices
- 50 gr sugar
- 70 gr raisins (I usually leave those out because J. is not a big fan of them)
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon

Put the 2/3 of the dough in the baking tin, put the apple mixture in, then use the remaining dough to make small, diagonally crossing stripes on top of the pie. Brush the remaining egg over the stripes, and bake the pie in a preheated oven for about an hour on 170 degrees Celsius. Yum!

For the apple sauce, peel and cut several apples in pieces, put them in a pan with a layer of water (I fill the pan with water up to about halfway the apples, but usually less water is used). Add sugar and cinnamon (for 1 kg of apples: 100 gr sugar, one big teaspoon cinnamon), let the apples boil until they have become soft (usually about 20 minutes). Use a masher (Dutch: pureestamper of stamppotstamper) to make the apple sauce less lumpy -that is, if you want it to be.

Happy cakes

One of my favourite 'recovery' activities, activities I have when I feel I need to take it slow for a day, would be baking. And since I really needed to take it slow after the 'Noche de Tuna' this weekend, I started baking some mini chocolate cakes. With extra chocolate on top. And sprinkles. I love sprinkles. They make me happy.

The recipe:
Mix 100 g butter
with 100 g sugar.
Add 2 eggs and mix everything.
Mix 100 g of flower
and 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder through, don't mix for too long.

Pour into muffin tins or papers, bake in an oven at 170 degrees Celsius until done (you can check this with a knitting needle or something like that: when it comes out clean, the cake is done). When they had cooled off, I dipped the cakes in molten chocolate and then in chocolate sprinkles. And voila!

Oh yeah, and as promised: pics of my second batch of designs and my business cards!

This item is called 'Day & Night'. An egg cup at day and a candlestick at night if you turn it upside down. Not yet for sale, because I managed to send in the wrong file for my second batch, which was a version that wasn't exactly round.

Whoops... I sent the right file with the third batch, so hopefully that one will turn out right. And the 'wrong' egg cup/candlestick can still be used in the product pictures, to show both functions (egg cup and candlestick) in the same picture without having to resort to Photoshop.

This ring is called Sydney. I make it a habit of giving my jewelry designs names that are personal names, and at the same time have a connection (sometimes somewhat cryptic) about how the design looks or what it is based on. Can you guess the link between this design and it's name? I ordered it in stainless steel for my third batch, but since it doesn't meet the design requirements 100% I just hope it'll turn out all right!
I also made a little ceramic cake-mold of my logo. It's not for sale and I'm not going to use it just yet, but I plan to make some cakes with it later on this year, just for fun.

And here, they are, my business cards. Whaddayathink?

And the last pictures of this week: the tomato soup I ate for lunch. I don't like store-bought tomato soup, it tastes too artificial. But making it yourself is actually pretty easy. It can be much healthier as well, since you can add plenty of veggies. I played around a bit with Photoshop (well, the open source alternative GIMP) to create the absolutely white background. A bit difficult because some settings also made the bowl dissappear, since it was almost white as well. I ended up altering some parts manually. These are the results:

I love this!

Hi there, long time no see! I'd like to ask how you're doing, but since I doubt I'd get a response I'll just start talking on my own again ;). Once again about my design work, since that is basically all I'm doing at the moment. A little boring to the naked eye, but all the more interesting for me ;). I love creating! Love it!

It is a relief to be able to say that, after working on my designs for, well, forever it seems. It's just several months though in real time though. Since about March I started to work on them 'for real', dedicating several days a week to learning the 3D software, brainstorming, more brainstorming, sketching, and trying my hands at creating models for 3D printing. My whole business plan is based on that, you see. Creating actual, physical, usable products to be 3D printed, instead of just the ones in my head. Sellable products instead of imaginary ones. To earn a bit of extra income in the future that would allow me to spend more time on designing. And so on, until I would be able to work on my own products full time, making the transition to mass produced items.

All this time, a thought, hastily pushed away, kept creeping up. What if this turned out to not be what I loved? What if creating physical products on my own was not what kept my heart beating and my blood flowing? Then what?

For years, I've known that I wanted to work independently as a product designer, and later on in my own design studio. It would take a lot of work and would be a mighty difficult road, I've always known, but I felt that it was just as well the only scenario that I really really wanted.

And now, with my first batch of personally designed products in the shop, my second batch of products arrived just today, and my third batch almost finished (hopefully next week), I think it is safe. Safe to say: I love this! Such a relief ;). Because loving what you do is so incredibly important, especially when planning to walk the difficult road. So yeah, I frickin' love this! Whew!

I'm even considering starting a two-year Master course Industrial Design at Delft University (two hour away from my home to boot), because I'm starting to doubt my current (Bachelor) level of knowledge and skill will be enough to deal with mass-production and more complex commercial designs. Yeah, me, who used to say: "never again" after finishing my Bachelor's. That's how much I love this, and how confident I've become about this suiting me. It would require a rather insane schedule since I would want to continue what I'm doing now as well, and I would still need to brush up my skills and knowledge on several fields since it is another University, where the Bachelor education has a different focus than the one I did. But I would start it only after a year anyway, so I'll have some time for that.

Okay, I'll stop ranting now...


Basically everything else I did apart from work lately were exercises and challenges to improve my skills on several fields. Yes, I'm obsessed, I know ;).

I'm nearing the end of my "14 days, 1 shape a day" challenge. It was to train my 3D software modelling skills. Just using taking 15 to 60 minutes a day to create an aesthetically pleasing shape. Creating a good render (virtually created image) of it was originally part of the challenge because it seemed a good opportunity to learn that as well, but I've mysteriously managed to make my virtual camera disappear and have yet to find it back.

For non-3D-software-experts: the camera is an object in the 3D model from which point the virtual item would be 'photographed', but no camera means no point to photograph from and thus no digital image. There you see kids, always remember where you leave your stuff! (Yes, that was a lame joke, sorry for that).

These are the results of day 1 to 4, in screenshots, still awaiting the missing camera.

I also figured learning to create interesting product pictures would be convenient. And fun. So I'm trying to create more interesting settings when photographing by adding props etc. Haven't gotten very far though. The score so far (including the picture on top of this post):

I've gotten a bit farther with my embroidery.

A quick drawing I made while half asleep, it turned out better than expected. I should try that more often, drawing without thinking about everything. Less thinking about doing, more doing. It's just like life, really.

And another drawing. Sigh, drawing fabric is hard...

I'll post the pictures of my second batch of products soon!

First shapeways order!

I made it! My first order at Shapeways (the custom 3D printing company) has been done. I sent 3 ring designs and one design for a small ceramic dish. That last one was just because I wanted a reference piece for future ceramic designs, so it was whipped up in about an hour and a half. In sharp contrast to some of the ring designs... Even more, the ring design I showed earlier (okay, a small part of it) has yet to be completed, it still needed so much work that I decided to focus on the easier designs for now. But, I'll have it finished with the next batch.

Or the one after that. Or after that...

This week is going to be extremely busy at my part-time job, and after that I'm free for two whole weeks (yay!). If everything goes well, I'll receive my products the week after that (I'm very curious), and from then on I'll have loads of work to do: making good product photos, doing some promotion, setting up my own website, working on the next designs and such.

But, my two holiday weeks are for the well-needed fun and relaxation. I've promised myself that I'm only allowed to do some simple tasks to prepare for the arrival of 'the goods', if, and only if, I really feel like doing so. Sounds safe, huh?

To help the holiday feeling kick in at my first day off, I've assembled a little holiday kickstarter pack for myself. A collection of goodies and little presents to bring out that summer feeling. It think assembling it must have been at least as much fun as unpacking it will be...

Busy busy busy

What a week... I can feel the fatigue in my head and my joints, but I've worked hard, had much fun and learned a lot. Nevertheless, I'm happy that next week will be less eventful: finally time to work on my designs!

I worked on the webdesign job, I worked in the shop, I went to rehearsal, I went to the gym, I practised bandurria until I got blisters on my fingers, I practised singing until my voice went soar, I performed with the group (in the sun, with ice-cream afterwards), I dusted my camera off and made some pictures, I stalked a bird (more about that later), I fixed my bicycle tire, I worked out at home so fanatically (apparently) that I walked funny the next days, and I even went to the Open day at Shapeways (the 3D printing company) which was by far the most awesome event this week.

We got a tour through their Eindhoven office (the company started in Eindhoven, the Netherlands but now has its headquarters in New York), got to see the offices and the people working there, the 3D printing machines, cleaning facilities and everything else. The machines were impressive to see in action even though I already had seen similar ones before. It was really interesting to hear about everything they do and be able to ask lots of questions, and right now I'm just brimming with enthusiasm and inspiration for new designs.

I also got this little 3D printed intertwined cube thingy to take home with me (oh, the awesomeness of printed products!), and I just keep feeling and tossing and poking it. It's made in the material they call Alumide, and even though I wasn't impressed when I saw it online, I quite like it seeing it for real. 

 

The fabric in the background is from Ikea, I'm planning to turn it into a desk basket for my camera + camera-stuff as soon as I've made a dent in my sewing projects waiting list. Or earlier in case of little self-control (which is the usual).
And guess what this is? (Yes, except for a display of attempted organisation):

I made it! All parts of the patchwork piece are cut, I even had some tiny scraps left. Now I just have to decide whether I follow my original design and make big triangles out of two small triangles from the same fabric, or whether I mix up all the small triangles. Hmm...


About the bird: this week, when going home, I closely passed a western Jackdaw (a sort of small crow, in Dutch: kauw) that was just standing on the ground, looking a bit phased. Feathers ruffled and messy, looking like it didn't really know what to do.

I looked at it, it looked back with a look of "well, I'm not happy with this situation either, you know". I kept watching it, and it turned around and walked away from me. It spread its wings a bit and attempted to jump but nothing happened, so it just kept on walking. A bit worried, I parked my bike at home and walked back to the bird. Still strolling around with the same "what to do"-look, it was clear that the poor thing wasn't able, or didn't know how to fly.

So I called the animal protection service to ask what to do, and they told me that around this time, young Jackdaws are flying out and often need to learn how to fly. Their parents are still guarding and feeding them, and it is normal to find them walking on the ground, so it is best to let nature run its course and not interfere. I had no idea! Also, the reason why it was looking that phased might be that it had just fallen out of its nest. Ouch... Apparently all normal, but I'm just glad I'm not a bird.

Also, I've found a nice song for singing practise (let's train those vocal cords!), still need to find more. I hope that, once I've improved my singing technique a bit, I'll be able to play some chords on the ukulele at the same time.

P.S.: as I was getting more and more annoying by the ugliness of the blog theme, I really want to design my own. But I need to hold myself back because there are more important things to do right now and in the next weeks. Awww... (As a compromise, I've allowed myself to search for a decent template and try out some things for the time being, so don't be surprised if the blogs looks differently over time).