24 Tote Bags

I finished sewing 24 tote bags from a client's recycled vinyl banners. Great to have a repetitive project to hone one's sewing skills. For a few of them I was able to preserve the grommeted edge. For the majority of the bags I used a seam binding made from another piece of vinyl. The client is going to give them away as prizes for a Stampede barbeque. 

Sugru/Oogoo Design possibilities

I was mending some iPad charging cables with homemade Sugru and didn't consider the further possibilities until just recently.  Shown is my first test piece, a glass jar.  I had been thinking of making baby food jars into lunchbox snack-food containers that were shatter resistant and dishwasher safe. Sugru fits the bill for that purpose.

When I was mending my charging cables, the excess sugru stuck to my vinyl tarp used as a dropcloth.  Then I realized I can make iPad cases with silicone corners. I don't have to have all those fiddly shapes to sew to make openings for the speakers, audio port, cameras and charging port -- which is why I haven't been making iPad sleeves to this point.  fixing the tablet with flexible corner mounts is much better.

The sugru would also make a great stylus holder.
My ideal iPad case has a stylus holder, macro lens holder, bottle of screen cleaner, and charging cable storage. And of course the ability to prop it up, plus being an artistic statement. These attributes I will ponder. 

Lower image is from instructables.

Yet more design iterations on the Soap Caddy Bag

I made the seams flat in the soap drying mesh so the seams don't dig into the soap, and added a loop for razor storage. I've also downsized the bag to fit a local store's soap bars.  I've now been reinforcing the handle attachment points by doubling the vinyl. They just keep improving, folks.

I created a mesh with beehive hexagons to go with the theme of the store and made a decal out of their logo. It was a very intricate logo but I got it to work.

Look how great this customization is! Hotels, campgrounds and RV parks could use this for ongoing advertising! Wish I had more time to market the heck out of these.

Panama Concrete wall blocks, the patterns therein

Recently I enjoyed visiting Panama. I noticed that their concrete divider walls and windows had more variety of patterns than I find in my part of the world. I sketched as many different ones as I could when I was there.  I used Paper 53 as my notepad. Then for this composite image I used Photoshop Touch on the iPad. These patterns might end up in future soap caddy bags. also here.

Hey I don't know if anyone actually reads this blog, but I moderate comments because it seems like most of the comments I have been getting are linkback spam.  That is, the comment doesn't seem to have anything to do with the blog post, just general flattery, or something to do with a key word in the most general way, and the purpose of the comment is to generate traffic for their own website. That's fine with me as long as it's a legit comment. 

Soap Totes at The Beehive Calgary in Kensington

 Soap totes now available at The Beehive Calgary in Kensington, on 311 10th Street NW. Free parking behind the building, accessible from the back alley.

While I dropped off the soap totes, I purchased some Midnight Jasmine soap and Grapefruit Vanilla. Thanks so much Sandra for giving this retail experiment a try!

CD player decals for the vision impaired

My mum has macular degeneration, and so she reads books on a CD player. The buttons on the edge are black on black. Hard to read, even for a sighted person.  Product designers should ask themselves if their buttons can be read by a person over the age of 43, when close-up vision becomes more of a challenge.

So, I dug out some black adhesive vinyl and made some decals for the functions. Their positions on the top surface corresponds to the location of the button on the edge.

As usual I used my Cricut expressions machine with Sure Cuts A Lot. [But you can't get that combination any more, if you were to start out now you'd have to get a different cutter if you wanted to use SCAL.]

I will create a pay-it-forward listing on my etsy shop for the decals at cost if you want to do the same for your vision-impaired loved one.