courdorygirl

Hello and welcome to the Village! I love the hangers and am looking forward to seeing more of your work!

Hi there and welcome! Granted, I have a different saw than you (I would love an Excalibur, but it may be a while yet), but I use nothing but spirals. I find people either love or hate them, and I'm on the love end. I hate turning wood, and dread having to put my hand behind the blade for anything. Like Kevin said, the tension has to be really tight, so that when you pluck it like a guitar you get a high ping, almost an F. (Instead of the middle C of a flat blade). The best advice I got was from a video, and he said if you can tap your piece next to your spiral blade and it flexes more than about 1/16", it needs to be tightened some more. Also, yes, they have to be blown out fairly often. When I'm cutting a puzzle I stop every ten pieces or so to blow the kerf dust out. I just blow on it, but you could use an air hose instead. And cut fairly slowly. Your wood will chatter if you're going too fast, and that will make your blade break. So will overheating, so you'll have to turn the saw off regularly and let it cool down while using a spiral, if you want it to last a little longer. I hope that's decent advice! I'm fairly new to scrolling, those are just things I've picked up while cutting! Welcome to the Village, there is always someone around to answer questions and give advice and be friends!

Beautiful work!

To each his own I suppose, my brother has Ubuntu Linux and I detest it. I'll always be a Windows user. (Computers at the college design lab are Macs and they are even worse for me.) Usually, rebooting Windows will fix a freezing problem. Also, if you haven't done it before (or in quite some time) you might want to consider defragging your system. (This takes all the fragmented files and downloads in your system and squishes them together to create more room. It might make it run faster too.) On Windows 7, just open the Start menu and type in defragmentation and the dialogue box will come up in the search results. It's easy from there. I have Norton, which is expensive and can be aggravating, but it has caught no less than 5 Trojan viruses in 3 years. I also have Ad-Aware on a jump drive that I need to install, because while Norton catches most viruses, it doesn't seem to catch adware at all. Normally, the adware doesn't bother me because I don't do much online shopping, but when I do it gets obnoxious.

]Like dgman, I do it freehand. Start with your picture, and glue it to your wood. I use 3M 45 adhesive spray. Some people use wood glue. Find whatever you prefer. I like to let the glue cure for 24 hours so that I don't have my graphic coming off at the corners while I'm trying to cut, or sliding around on me. Some puzzles I cut free hand. Cut it in half, then half, then half again until you get to the size you like. This is a good method for making trick puzzles, like this one. There's no up or down so it takes longer to put together. If I want to make traditional pieces, I want them all to be roughly the same size, so I use a grid generator. My favorite is http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/lite/ I can input the size I need, and how many squares up and how many across and it will automatically make the squares all even. If my measurements are 3/4" or more, I round up to the next whole number. It makes the edge pieces a wee bit larger, but that's ok. After cutting all the pieces and putting them together in the rough, I take a picture for a key. It's easier to see the lines in the photo before the pieces are sanded. I sand each piece either with my dremel (Happy birthday to me) or my sander, depending on how big they are. Finishing...I've done it both ways. I've sprayed my picture with polycrilic before cutting, but it make the ink run and I went through more blades and more sandpaper. I've also brushed the pieces with varnish afterwards, which makes for really nice pieces, but you run the risk of accidentally hitting the graphic with your sander. I've done this several times, and just sold the puzzle at a lower price. Most people don't seem to mind. You just have to find what work for you. I hope that helped out some!

I just learned to do this today myself, so I'll pass on what I did. (I use Windows 8, so I don't have a start bar.) After I downloaded my font (and hey! I use the same site! yay!), opened the .zip file, which will give you a few files (mine was the font file itself and a readme file), in the downloads folder. Leave that open. In Windows 8, click the folder hotkey at the bottom of the screen (In windows 7 and earlier, open the Start Menu and just search for the font folder.) Go to the control panel, then in the search bar type in "fonts". The computer's font folder will come up first in the search results. Open this, and make the window smaller. Drag and drop the new font file from the downloads folder into the fonts folder. Restart your programs. You should be able to access the font from every program now. I hope that wasn't too confusing!

Hi Stan! From one newbie to another, welcome to the Village! Everyone here is awesome and so helpful. I love your clocks, what an awesome idea!

Wasn't it an outbreak of Listeria bacteria? They've been recalled everywhere, which is really sad, because I love Bluebell ice cream. (They make the only dairy free sherbert, which is all I can eat comfortably)

A commissioned portrait jigsaw puzzle and it's pattern that the glue is curing on. That's all that's currently on my bench other than blank sheets of plywood. I have lots of files on my computer waiting to be printed after I go buy more colored ink.

Very nice work my friend

Very nice! I would wear them.

That's really cool! Love it!

I've always wanted to go to Lancaster, I used to have a penpal that lived there (we lost contact over the years, and I haven't found him on facebook yet.) But, like most I can't afford a trip like that on such short notice. Maybe next year.

*blush* Hardly, I can always use improvement. My husband and mom say I've been underselling them. I just go based on the retail price I see in toy stores for the boxed puzzles. *shrug*

Hey everybody! I completed some more puzzles the past couple of day and I thought I would show them to you. First is one I did that my husband picked out. He's the one that loves putting them back together after I cut them all apart. I might sell this one, and make him another though. Convention in two weeks looming, and I need inventory again. And this one is for my friend's mom who is an equestrian. I asked him if she'd want a fairly easy one or a doozy. He responded doozy definitely, and I think I accommodated him well enough. The scissors were for a size comparison. Let me know what you think!

Very nice work!

Maybe I'll try Deft brand. I'm usig 3M polycrilic and it's leaving bubble marks on my paper if I don't wipe, and if I do wipe the ink runs. Maybe because I bought the water based?

I have a problem with this also, except the other direction because I'm right handed. I have to have a grid to work with or the pieces come out smaller on the left every single time. I don't care much for the pre-mad patterns either. I make a grid with roughly the size pieces I want, tape it (It's worth the extra few minutes to me, but to each his own of course), and then tape my whimsicial pieces to that roughly where I want them to be. It helps me keep the pieces fairly uniform. What do you seal your puzzles with? I've been trying spray polycrilic and I don't like it. Should I use a brush-on sealer like minwax?

For The Hunters (the name of the drawing, by the by) I had a 99 piece grid, and the whimsy pieces taped to the top of that, but otherwise freehand. The flowers were done completely freehand. Cut in half, then half again, then half again till I got down to a size I liked. Some of the pieces (like the flower stem) are a bit small but my hubby said it was alright. He's my puzzle put-togetherer, haha. I can cut them all day long but forget putting one back together! (unless I'm doing line by line as I cut...this is how I make the keys. I shoot a photo of it fresh cut and then print a 4X6 photo straight from my phone to include in the box.) I hope they sell fairly well. I'll update y'all how my show goes this Saturday. I've never been a big fan of craft fairs.

For my puzzles I use Apple Barrell acrylic craft paint. I use camel hair brushes, and I always let the first coat dry then apply a second coat rather than trying to glop a lot of paint on the first time for coverage. Then I use 3M spray sealer (I get mine from the craft section at Wal-Mart but I think they have it in hardware also). Two or three light, even coats.

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been around much, we've had a chaotic week. My mother-in-law got remarried Saturday, so my husband took one of his week's vacations and we spent our free time hanging out with his brother and sister-in-law. 'Twas fun. But, since I have a craft show this saturday to prepare for, back to scrolling! I would say back to work, but I don't really consider scrolling work! I wanted to show y'all a couple of the puzzles I finished yesterday. They do still need to be sanded, I will probably do that this evening after it (hopefully) stops raining. I also need to print off a few more graphics today to cut a few more tomorrow. I also did a couple more kids puzzles yesterday, one for the show and one for a commission, but I have neither painted nor taken pictures of them yet. Another thing to do today! This is shaping up to be another chaotic week! At least it will be all jigsaws puzzles the next few days. First, this one isn't for sale, it's for a friend of mine who is letting me use his artwork. And this one is going to the show. It's designed so it doesn't matter which side is up. My husband put it back together after I got home last night and said it was hard. He actually had to break out the key (the photo on my phone, ha!) for a minute. I think the photos I'm going to choose today are going to all be animals. Let me know what y'all think! Oh, and here is a picture of me and the hubs from this weekend.

I do both. Scrolling is not only my hobby but also a small business. I figured if I wasn't going to work I might as well try to sell some of my items, and I've been selling them ever since. Most of the year it's by word of mouth, and the money I make supports my hobby and then some. I don't really care for craft sales but I will sign up for a couple a year, mostly at churches to help them with whatever their fundraiser is. Other than that, we do 3-4 comic book conventions (my mother and I split a booth, she crochets.) A big part is knowing your audience, and con attendees are my people, hehe.

My prayers are with you Brian! My mother is a survivor of bone marrow cancer (Officially I believe it's cancer of the white blood cells, which are created in the bone marrow? It's all a little over my head.) so I know you can get through this!

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday Dave!