DIY recycled business cards

Just quit your job? Still at your job, but haven’t figured out what you’re going to do with the other 849 business cards that are stuffed in a desk drawer somewhere? Well I have a solution. Just take all those old business cards with your name and wrong/old phone numbers and e-mail on them and flip them over to the back. See? A brand new blank business card, ready for your creativity. Now you can name your job title as you really are, not what cubicle you sit in. (Dad, Adventurer) in my case.

So I had all these extra business cards that I still wanted to use, but I’m not with that company anymore. Easy, flip it over, search through the closets untill I find my old typsetting kit  from when I was eight, and BLAM! New business card. I threw in a shark and celtic knot for good measure, because I like both of them, and now that I am using the cards for myself, I don’t have to be quite as professional anymore. Here’s how they turned out. (I blocked my phone number because I’d rather not have people from teh intarnets calling me up all the time, no offense)

More Tribal designs

These are a few more of the tribal style tattoos I’ve designed over the years. If you decide to get a tattoo based on one of my designs, I’d love to know…and see some pictures. Thanks!

Make it Pretty

My wife loves to entertain but one of her rules about food is that you have to make it pretty. So I thought I would show some of her prettier (and tastier) displays.

little red riding hood

Awesome reimagined take on the story, cool music, slick design

My future faucet

The temp and pressure change with the position of the metal ball.

The snooty world of luxury pens

I just got a catalog in the mail yesterday from the Paradise Pen co.

$3,000 pen

In a word, snooty. The first pen on page 2 is on sale for the low low price of $1,115. There’s another one half way through that goes for $3,000. Yes, you read that right. You could buy 12 pens for $4 at Staples, or you could buy one pen for the price of a decent used car. Don’t get me wrong, these writing instruments are works of art, but who can afford one of these things? As I kept looking through the pages, my righteous indignation increased along with my distaste for snobbery until I got to page 44. “Hey that looks familiar.” I said. I think I have that one. Whoops! There goes my high and mighty attitude. I went to my art pouch and pulled out a German made LAMY fountain pen that I had received as a gift, years earlier. I looked at the price and saw that my model was only $30. “Well at least that’s reasonable for a well made fountain pen.” I thought. Others are nice to look at but the price tag is far too high. And the truth is, how much writing do we do now with ink and paper? I’m not writing this article out by hand before I post it, I’m typing on my laptop. Is writing a lost art? Here are a few of the other ones that caught my eye.

I am designing a new product

I play penny whistle at church. I have a few different keys that I need for different songs so I just have to stick the other whistles in my pockets or on the ground when I’m not using them. When we were praying, I gently propped one of them on the guitar stand and it fell over and clattered against the others on the ground causing a ruckus. I thought, “All right, that’s it. I need to make some sort of holder.” So I drew it all up and my friend who works at a metal machining plant will fabricate it for me. It will be solid aluminum, but the materials will only be around $40. I don’t want to give away too much of the design because I think there could be a market for it and I could make some chop. It is totally different than the picture at the left and would be marketed to the performing musician rather than a display rack. I’m excited.