Paper treasures

I haven't mentioned on my blog yet that I have bought a laser cutter. I have been outsourcing my cutting for years and years to a wonderful man named Bob all the way down in Cornwall. But Bob is soon going to retire so I thought we would have a go at doing our own.

Here she is. She's massive and very red and we had to rearrange the whole studio to accommodate her!

Bob has always been very helpful when I am excited about trying out new designs and he sends me them in first class post but I have to say it is wonderful having the machine right here in front of me as I can get into a creative flow of experimenting and tweaking as I go. It makes the process much faster and much more fun.

The last few months we have been getting to know each other. There have been fights and falling out (the software is pretty basic and very frustrating and the machine a little glitchy) but slowly slowly we are beginning to understand each other. I often ask too much of it as I want really fine cuts but too thin and it won't hold together so I am beginning to understand and work with it's capabilities.

Today everything held together. Everything behaved and I remembered everything I needed to remember! We worked well together. 

I've been tweaking these little paper treasures for a while and today they all cut well.

I'm not sure where I will go with all of these but it's really good to play. 

I first dreamed of having a laser cutter way back before lamps when I was still making handmade cards but they were SO much money at the time and it was way beyond me. Then I found Bob and decided it was a much better idea to have someone else do the cutting BUT it's lovely to finally have one of my own. A new toy with new possibilities.