My Brother Scan N Cut machine arrived this week, and after a slightly tense first day of banging my head against a wall of new software and unheard of file types, I think I’ve cracked it.

I mean, I can’t believe I’d never heard of these types of machines before!

My brain is fizzing with thoughts of all of the things I can make. In fact, I was able to start a new coin prototype without wearing out my hands, and this one is much better than the one I lost.

What swung it for me when deciding on a Scan N Cut was the fact that I could scan in my own drawings. I have no interest whatsoever in replicating someone else’s designs, so being more able to use my own spontaneous freehand drawings was a big deal for me.

Navigating between art and craft

One of the things that interests me is how these cutter plotter machines are marketed. There are no-frills vinyl cutters that are priced for industry, and then there are machines pitched squarely at mostly female crafters, with lots of soft lines, pastel colours, flowery decoration and cutesy names.

These home maker machines have a lot of potential for all sorts of really ambitious construction projects, but you’d think they were only for cardmaking or scrapbooking.

Sometimes the biggest difference between art and craft is simply purpose – you could argue that originality and derivativeness play a part, but then that would eliminate the Jeff Koonses and Koons-lites… so purpose and intent seem to play a huge part.

Designing my second journal is taking longer than I thought…

I’d wanted to be able to produce a second journal within a week – ambitious, I know, but potentially feasible. The problem was that I chose a topic that required a bit more research, whereas my first journal was based on an article with lots of ready-made questions.

These aren’t just blank notebooks – the prompts and questions have to be relevant and thorough.

Besides that, I had to revisit the cover design for the first book and revamp it as I wasn’t totally happy with the print. That took about a day’s work.

Naturally, that means recreating the book mockups, which will eat up a chunk of another day… ah well. It’s still been a great week for getting stuff done – the ball has definitely started rolling again!

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