Last week, I was in the middle of another bout of wrestling with technology that should be working, but for some reason just isn’t. All of the branding for my shop that I’m developing has read “stationery, stickers, and more” for a long time, and I bought a Cricut maker with the intention of making sticker sheets with it. It’s one of the things that the machine is designed to do. I designed 15 sticker sheets with express purpose of using the machine to produce them.
My Cricut does make usable kiss-cut sticker sheets. About 50% of the time. I have tried everything from changing blades and cutting mats and brands of paper. I have tweaked the individual machine material pressure settings at increments. No matter what I do, nothing seems to work: after one or two copies the stickers won’t cut all the way through the label layer, or they cut through the whole sheet.
Each time it doesn’t work, I have something I can’t use that costs over $2.00, all told. I’ve been going a little more insane every time I think that I’ve finally got it working, only to face pages and pages of more ruined sticker sheets.
I have 15 sticker sheet designs. But I told myself last week that sometimes it’s best to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. I’m going to use this all someway, somehow, but it’s just not working now. By the end of the week, last week, I put these all on the “back burner”. I turned back to compiling my items that are working: books, cards, and prints.
So did the little watercolor sketch I’m posting today. I made it on Friday after a trip for painting supplies meant that I got to do some color swatches. I used all of the rainbow colors to paint some free-hand wildflowers, and I like the way that they came out. It must be because of the little red smiling clay guy I got as a gift and is definitely a luck charm. He is 100% the best part of my week.