Okay, I’m not gonna lie, I know I get overly excited about a lot of our makes but this one ranks among the top contenders!

I left the “work outside the home” world a little bit accidentally when Cameron and I married in 2007. Long story, all good vibes; it was a very early retirement that I consider myself very fortunate to have had. You read so much today about how difficult it is for so many to transition between working full time and retirement, but it was never like that for me. I had many different roles in the working world and felt ready to embrace a new chapter where the dormant creative within could flourish. But what’s a girl to do when meeting new people at an art show or a class where people are exchanging business cards as a means of introductory? Oh I know, folks can tap their phones together to transfer contact information or manually plug it in, but sometimes the exchange is more transactional. It’s easier to put a card in your pocket or wallet than it is to fumble around with your phone.

For that matter, what about moms on hiatus, retirees, or people who have 9-5’s that have nothing to do with their leisure interests or don’t want to connect their professional lives as, say software engineers with the folks they meet in a photography class?

And before you say it, surely, yes, you can hop onto Zazzle or Vista Print and create colorful, expressive calling cards and they’re lovely. But when you have a laser and a husband who can make it sing, convention has a way of slipping into the ether and plywood, metal, and acrylic come to mind!

We spent some time trying to optimize settings. I wanted a card that was lacy, feminine, pretty, perforated, and also a little tongue in cheek; I don’t take myself too seriously! I chose one of 400 geometric designs we bought on Etsy and collaborated with Cameron to create this:

I need to say here that “one hot bobbin” refers directly to how warm, borderline hot, bobbins get when you’re laying down 500,000 or more stitches on one piece of art in an afternoon. Last week my needle literally popped out of the shank while free motion quilting the Van Gogh inspired pieces. Cameron informed me AFTER I bought the domaine onehotbobbin.com that one could infer something suggestive in my moniker but, let the record show that the name has a literal derivation????. A blog focused on my textile art is fetal at the moment but with any luck will crown within the next week or so! But I digress.

If you’re not interested in the technicalities the video above will suffice. For anyone interested in a failed attempt to dial in settings, go for it.

The low tack masking not only minimized charting and optimized the engraving but it released very easily. I anticipated having to do some heavier weeding but it wasn’t necessary. See below.

It takes about 15 minutes to cut and engrave six of these so 30 minutes of tube burn to make a dozen. I need to price out the wood, the masking, and estimate design time in case anyone wants to order some.

More tomorrow-think acrylic, colorized acrylic, and metal “business cards”. The endless possibilities may keep me up tonight ????.