KayLand

Recently I’ve been working on creating a new design: puffin fridge magnets.

Puffins look so cute – sometimes they seem like they’re smiling, and sometimes they look like they’re a bit worried. So I tried to capture that in the design.

laser-cut puffin fridge magnets

To make them magnetic, I used small thin neodymium magnets …

about a hundred tiny (but strong!) neodymium magnets

… which I stuck in the back of the puffin with PVA glue (e.g. ‘No More Nails’, but I just got mine from Wilkinson’s).

It’s amazing what a difference the new magnets make. This is the kind of thing I used to use – big chunky ferrous magnets:

magnet sizes compared – just look at the size of those chunky monkies!

I would have needed to make the puffins from wood that was twice as thick, just to fit the magnet in the back!

But now all I have to do is etch a shallow litte hole in the back of the puffin piece, and glue the neodymium magnet into it.

Thanks to Camp NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) last night I finally finished the first draft of my book full of step-by-step articles on how to create polymer clay canes.

More news to follow over the coming months, but in the meantime I am so pleased to have actually reached such a milestone. I started the book about fifteen years ago, and it has been on a (virtual) dusty shelf ever since then.

Giant thanks also to the Rocking Self Publishing and Creative Penn podcasts, which gave me the inspiration to (virtually) blow the (virtual) dust off this half-started project.

I am now really looking forward to “proper” NaNoWriMo in November, and in a fit of excitement have bought “First Draft in 30 Days” by Karen Wiesner.