Tower defense games

Right now, I have a cold. It's pretty annoying. I'd rather be making shiny things! (But playing with fire while woozy is usually a bad idea.)

Whenever this happens, I always imagine that my body is playing a tower defense game--setting up my immune system to defend me from waves of oncoming yuckiness.

In honor of me being sick, here is my brief overview of tower defense games I've loved. They're just the right balance of casual gaming (click buttons! see pretty explosions! make numbers go up!) and strategy for me. These links are to reviews on other sites, because I don't feel nearly as eloquent as the reviewers right now.

Plants Vs Zombies: Cute and approachable

Gemcraft Labyrinth: Delicious complexity of tower layouts

Kingdom Rush: Really fun power-ups and unit types

Sentinel 3: Homeworld: The best option I've found so far for my Android phone

Let me know if any of you have similar games that you'd recommend! I wouldn't mind another game to occupy my time while I rest up and recover from this cold :)

Playing with color

Right now I'm playing with color. These test pieces on the left are using two colors of Adirondack brand alcohol inks, with Ice Resin as a sealant.

I'm really loving the intensity of color that I can get out of these inks. I'm definitely one of the people who gets "drunk on color". At the local art supply store, I savor each hue in the aisle of colored pencils. I need bright green in the winter and on grey days, whether in the form of a salad or a blinding lime-colored shirt. And I'm simply hopeless in a yarn store.

As I wait for more shades of ink to show up on the UPS truck, I'm scheming about the ways I might use color in my jewelry. What if I wasn't confined to using the colors I can find in my gemstones (shiny though they are), but could summon any combination of hue and shade at will?

I'm thinking of tidal pools out west and the water in Riven. Of deep gazing pools and of ponds lined with glittering pebbles. Of all the ways I can bring together the highbrow art of metalwork and the playful, down-to-earth craftsyness of ink and resin.

The pendant that started it all--a custom order, for someone who asked if the background could be blue. 

From my computer to paper to metal to paper

Look at this print! I've finally gotten the hang of transferring designs from my computer to metal, using this tutorial for the laster printer transfer process and the Edinburgh etching method. (The image I used for this example comes from Wikimedia Commons.)

Just being able to replicate computer designs nearly exactly on copper or brass is pretty exciting on its own. But using my trusty pasta machine as a printing press worked just as well as I'd been hoping. So neat!

You might wonder what the point is of printing a design on a laser printer only to transfer it to metal and then print it by hand. Well, I'm a process junkie, so my first answer is "It's just fun, OK?!"

But there are some other reasons. The texture of this kind of print is just different--the metal bites into the paper a bit. There are opportunities to incorporate artsy layering of printed textures by etching a combination of computer designs and designs carved by hand. And if I wanted to, I could use fluorescent inks, glitter-laden inks, or play with inking with multiple colors for a handmade, one-of-a-kind print. All things you can't get from a standard laser printer. Then, when I'm done playing with printmaking, I could turn the copper into some sort of jewelry!

I feel like I suddenly have a whole new world of design and illustration at my disposal. Right now I'm wondering how to combine public domain medieval woodblocks with fractals and abstract shapes. What do you want to see me etch?

Knitting!

You guys know I knit, right?

I'm currently in the middle of two enormous purple shawls. (One's supposed to be easy and one's supposed to be complicated, but they keep surprising me by being sneakily challenging and simple in unexpected ways.)

I'm not going to post pictures of those, because I have a thing about jinxing projects in progress. But a couple of weeks ago, I snuck a third project in: a snuggly winter cowl.


I improvised the pattern, using a couple of cable motifs from a stitch dictionary along with some quick back-of-the-envelope math to figure out how to put everything together. That kind of crafty engineering is so satisfying for me--there's something deeply rewarding about taking some pretty materials and ideas and convincing them to become a Nifty Thing. And on top of that, I'm really happy with how it turned out. Winter's taken ages to get here, but it's finally reliably below freezing, and the extra warmth around the collar of my coat is definitely welcome.

Please show this necklace to someone awesome!

This necklace has been waiting for over a year for the right person to find it. I'm not worried about it never being bought--I'm worried that someone who isn't really right for it will buy it, or buy it as a gift for someone who doesn't want it. I can't stomach the thought of it wasting away on some indifferent person's dresser. It should be lit by firelight. It should be worn dancing. It should be bright on the collarbone of someone who loves it.

So if you know someone who loves this sort of thing, or whose friends love this sort of thing, please show it to them!  Thank you :)

Bangle

I made this bangle for myself a few days ago--I want to work on the finish to showcase the contrasting texture better, but I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks! I don't wear a lot of bracelets usually, but this one feels perfect, coordinating with both of the outfits I've worn it with so far.  And I'm really happy with the shiny but patina-preserving finish that I can get with my jewelry tumbler! You just put steel shot and soapy water into the machine and leave it tumbling, and it polishes and strengthens the metal. Neat!