Making bags.

Just a quick shot here of the work area I clear off my trashed computer desk when I’d rather not be down in the workshop away from the television. Ya know, when History or something has a programme about the P-51 Mustang or something equally awesome.

I’m working on a batch of bags for a customer, and here you can kind of see them in various stages of completion.

I guess I do my bags a bit differently than most. I like them a little more flat on the bottoms when they’re fully stuffed with dice or whatever. So I used a ton of expansions in the first few rows, Here it’s 16 on the queen ring, then 24, then 36 and a few rows of 36 before I contract back down to 30 ring sides. This has the effect of keeping the bottoms more or less squared off rather than hanging in an arch.

These in particular are 1.6mm stainless steel with about a 6.4mm ID

While I have a confessed hatred of expanding circles, bags like these are a very simple project for beginners. Especially fellow gamer geeks. If your dice start to outgrow your bag, you can always add more rows at the mouth, or get ambitious and scale the entire thing up by adding more expansion rows for the bottom. With a nice tight weave they’ll hold coins just as easily. I even made a large one to carry my pliers and a couple of pill bottles for rings for travel projects.

Have fun
--Charon

Technorati Tags: Stygian Chains,bags,gamer,dice,maille,chainmaille,work in progress,crafting,stainless steel,weaving,beginner tips,projects

You want to know how to impress me?

  The short version. This:

The long version. I put in a small order for some beads with Artbeads.com because they had Swarovski in colours I couldn’t find elsewhere. And they offer free shipping in the U.S. I like free stuff. The image above were the contents of the shipping envelope exactly as I opened it. Yes that’s their business card secured in the tissue paper, nice touch. Inside the gems were in compartmentalized little capsule thingies, bagged individually, (in resealable bags even) and labeled. Then wrapped in a layer of… that flexible foam stuff that should be bubble wrap, because bubble wrap is more fun. Lack of happy popping notwithstanding, these little touches of presentation and attention are what make me want to come back to a company.

There was no question I got what I ordered, and it arrived quickly, and with free shipping. I like free stuff. Other companies, even home businesses, (myself included) could take a few hints from this to evaluate their packaging and shipping and labeling.

I’ve dealt with companies that cram unlabeled bags of whatever in a box, stuff contents list inside, and send it off. I’m thankful as all hell for a list of contents since half the time I can barely remember what I ate yesterday, let alone something I ordered a week or so before. The trick when it arrives, is figuring out what’s what without having individual bags labeled. Had I ordered rings in the same dimensions, in two similar looking materials, like Stainless and Aluminum, it’s that much extra effort to judge them by weight, make a label, and integrate them into my storage system (storage system, me? Yeah that’s a laugh, I have tchewbs, lots of tchewbs everywhere.) If a few more companies learned from Artbeads.com we could spend less time cutting open heat sealed poly and figuring out what’s what and more time putting nice labeled baggies in their place until their contents are needed for stuffmaking.

--Have fun,

Charon

Note, tchewb is the phonetic pronunciation of tube if you’re Australian. Ask any of them, ‘struth.

Technorati Tags: beadwork,beginner tips,suppliers,tchewbs,shipping,packaging,marketing