Back to 1:12. distractions.

Mmmmmm coffeeeee...... This post will be more of a personal one, so you have been warned.

But first, Coffee! I had had a few ideas brewing (haha) in my head for more than a few months now, but owing to my limited drawing skills, and lack of experience with Inkscape, I put them aside, thinking I will try again if I had the time. And the energy to fail. Cos, I always fail, at least once. Or twice. Just to be sure.

It didn't start with this logo though. It started with LED lights. I had purchased a roll of LED light strips, and wanted to make some lit signboards, and figured that once I succeeded, everything else should fall into place. It was also always a goal of mine to finish a 'proper' roombox, not a piddly little photography corner - which never got completed, and fell apart after I accidentally dropped my re-ment roombox onto it HAWHAW SIIGHHHH.

My previous attempts at signage lighting were....not well thought out. The lights weren't diffused enough, and not distanced enough so you could see the bulb placements, even through a 1mm thick white acrylic sheet. Now that I have enough spare lights, and a bit more experience with soldering, I decided to give it another try.

So I built this first:

Preview #dollhouse #scaleminiature #scaleoneinch #onetwelfth #handmade #wood #woodwork #acrylicsheet #LED #DIY #lighting #signage #fictional #coffeehouse

A video posted by @snowfern on Mar 31, 2015 at 2:52am PDT

which led to my previous post about the ringlight yada yada, and then to the logo.

OOps. forgot to take photos of the signboard. It's actually supposed to be a menu board, but I was a little too busy to concentrate on the menu design. Gave it a forward tilt, 60 degrees IIRC. Though it might seem very 'deep', I will have shelvings at each side, so that will mask it (I hope). The depth is to cater to the diffusion of the light. The 1mm white acrylic sheet helps with the glare, and the logo was printed onto tracing paper and temporarily slotted at the front.

The base of the roombox is exactly 30cm x 30cm , and was a discarded sample that I picked up from the bin area near my ex-office building :X Everything else was either plywood or wooden strips from Daiso.

Grey/white tiles are laser printed sticker sheet that I made a few years ago, that had been languishing in my vverrry thick stash of "might-be-useful-papers". Aluminum sticker sheets from Daiso.

I have done a little more than this photo, put in more polycarbonate/acrylic windows.

Made a wooden form to create some squarish coffee cups, via thermoforming. I -think- the material is styrene sheet, but when I bought it, it was labelled "plasticard"? And it is my favourite thermoplastic to work with. I'm still not satisfied with my clumsy and totally inefficient thermoforming/vacuumform setup, so I'll tweak it a bit more. Curved a piece of plastic around a knitting needle, and drilled a hole in the side to slot it in. 

Probably will re-make this, and size it down, it's quite a large mug, about 9cm wide. But I like how it looks. 

Took me only 5 hrs to come up with ONE cup. T-T. *sardonic grin*

Also, tried to make more bubble tea cups. My previous batch was ...'passable' but not good enough. I hope this batch looks better. Still trying to figure out how to make 'to scale' working straws....will give it another try later today. These were made with 0.3mm clear PVC sheets from an arts supply store.

Welp. That's it. On to the personal stuff.

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Ahma has been hospitalized since 26th March, after a week of persistent back pains. She has been diagnosed with myocardial infarction and fractured spine, but is in stable condition now. They are not considering surgery for her due to her age + risks,  and she has been fitted with a back brace to help her move when she gets home.

My health, although worsening, is under management too, with the help from my very very understanding and loving fiance, and an adenomyosis support group on FB. I wish I had found out about them sooner.

I've originally expressed more, but somehow, everything i've written just seems so....irrelevant and reductive. Maybe I am coping better than I expected myself to. That's progress too, and worth noting.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be cryptic. I really did want to write about everything, but...in re-reading it, even -I- got irritated at my own whining. Time to get on with life.