Day214 - Love affairs with paper samples.

Friday, August 1, 2008: Yana's work: Printing invites.

Yana very graciously agreed to print the text for the invite. She was so lovely for doing so.

I didn't take a picture while there, mostly because I was freaking out about getting these suckers done. I can show you what they looked like afterwards.

A couple of days ago, I cut all these ribbons. Then Troy sat in front of a very hot stove in July to seal all of the ribbon's edges on a hot burner. It was really a detail that helped make them look uber-professional. The next day, I spent i glueing 300+ pieces of ribbons into these bows. Today I glued the little gold seals.




Then, we had to affix the printed invite that Yana so graciously printed and cut.




The purple was a lovely irridescent paper. The white is an 80# bright white Cougar. It was as gorgeous as paper can get - Cougar is the way to go.




There was a lot of glueing. Then, it's little ribbon safety belt kept it together.




I know that you can't tell from this picture, but the outer paper was a very, very, very nice irridescent cream paper. It is probably the nicest paper that I've ever used. Ever.




Here is a line-up.




This is the box.




This was only half of the 150 that I was contracted to do. If I didn't have to rush home to Frackville to meet some prior obligations, I would have finished the whole of them. I'm guessing total hours for this is around 16-20 hours. That's a broad guess. And that is not counting time to nurse busted fingers from paper cuts and glue guns. But they are gorgeous. Probably the nicest I've ever made.

And I couldn't have gotten it done without Yana or Troy. So thank you both so, so much.

Day212 - These fingers were made for burning.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008: My kitchen: Gold seals

I am currently under a deadline to get wedding invitations done. It is stressful and not always awesome living in this house right now, especially for Troy.

So, part of the invite was these little gold wax seals. 150 little wax seals.




First, there are two main types of seals - wax and a plastic polymer. The plastic are cheaper and can be found in most craft stores. This is what I used. These have a little wick that needs to stay lit to burn the faux wax. It smells a little like a burnt crayon, but worse.



And you can burn your fingers a lot.

I did buy some online that you can put into a glue gun but the stick was HUGE and would not fit in my smaller glue gun. So, back to the little candles.

I made a template so I had a general idea what size to go for. It took a lot of practice, but towards the end I got really pretty good at judging how long you need to keep the seal in the wax before you can move on. (Don't forget, the candle is burning the whole time. You need to be able to both press a seal while dripping wax into another circle. This is exhaustive.)

It also helps to have a little bowl of cool water to cool your stamp off in. Otherwise, you will not be able to remove it from the wax.




I didn't always make the best seal - especially in the beginning. You need to have a real idea of what kind of pressure to use as well. Sometimes the wick goes out and you have to relight it while praying that the wax you already dumped doesn't not harden. This is real juggling - especially since I did them all by myself.

To try to save some of what I did not do perfectly, I set up a little crucible using my Yankee Candle tart burner, a teaspoon and some foil. This worked so well and made the most darling shaped seals.




Here are the seals made with the crucible. They have a slightly different color and a more round shape. They used a little more wax had a larger profile. I don't know which I prefer. The seals at the top of the page look more natural, where as these look like buttons.




Either way, I can do with a vacation from manufacturing them again for awhile.

Day136 - Sandblasted to the future.

Thursday, May 15, 2008: The garage: sandblaster

Another day at the garage? Yes. Why not.

Tonight I used the sandblaster. Well, let's call it a media blaster because it is currently shooting glass beads out of it's nozzle. Painfully I might add. Here is a shot of me all covered up with goggles and a face mask and a shield and a babushka.This did not stop glass from coming into my little eye balls.




When the blaster worked - it worked great. But because this is the most rag tag assembly of any sandblasting tents, Troy did not sift the glass beads between blastings and the gun not being the best in the west, it gets clogged alot. Quite a bit actually. And it is a little infuriating.

At any rate, the fenders looked like this:




I think you can see from the top picture that we took a lot of paint of the fenders this way. And it's way easy. I like to imagine that I'm erasing time because I'm a egomaniac like that.

Ryan also most of the blasting on this fender and all of the other fender. I was just batting clean-up (base analogy. Weee!).

Day135 - Carving holes in plywood.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008: The garage: gas line

Knock one more task off my list: I know know how to hook up a gas tank. Fun, yes I know. Because Troy was mounting the gas tank into the floor of the truck, we had some problems maneuvering the the hook up lines. After a little bit of cutting, an little bit of cussing and some elbow grease, the sea dog is not installed and ready for nozzle. Gas nozzle that is, perv.

Shiny!




The plywood floor will be switched out for a wood bed. I'm sure you will be reading about it shortly.

Day133 - Get in there you damn dirty dash.

Monday, May 13, 2008: The garage: dash.

Tonight we installed the full dash. Mostly everything is wired (I crossed it of the list!) and the radio was finally mounted and secured, so we decided to cram it all in there and call it done.

Here is a picture of before:





And here is our finished dash. I want to punch someone I am so happy.





Just in case your wondering how old that speedometer is - here is the stamp when it left the factory.





1946. That means that it was made completely America just one year after WWII ended (in the middle of a baby boom I'm sure). The economy was probably kicking into full steam and industry was alive in America. The man who made it was probably as old as my great-grandfather or younger and may have had his very own Chevy Stylemaster. Now we have it, it's chopped to hell, but we love it just the same.

Day112 - You can make anything fit if you hit it hard enough.

Monday, April 21, 2008: The garage: Headlights.

Life and times at the garage are speeding up, which is evident in the lack of pain in my fingers and the ability to taste food and not dust. Today I had the pleasure of rebuilding a headlight. And I wasn't left with any pieces at the end so I know I did it right!


First, let me share this tree. I see this guy when we walk over to the garage and he seems excited to see me every time. He makes my day.




Also, I installed the vent back into the body of the truck. True assembly has begun and I could not be more grateful or happy.





This is pretty much how it started out - old nasty light inside rusted housing.




I had to break off this gromet to get the old wiring out.





New lights go in.




But to do that I have to take more stuff apart.





Then I had to do this to make the headlight fit. It's all very technical.





Bam. You cram everything back together with a hammer.





Then Troy tries to tell you he's renaming the business Weston Inc because he has this bad ass hand sign.





I also painted these. One is the bezel for the headlight, one is the house for the back up lights. Both are now red.







It felt awesome to finally build something with my hands instead of sanding until they near bled. The next couple of weeks should be filled with stories of me building a hot rod. You will have to deal with this.