PapeRanpu

As hinted in the previous post, I spent a few months trying to do something without much success. Here I’ll explain why it was so and what finally came out of these semi-vane efforts. It started with a meeting with a fellow creator, one much more experienced and successful than me. He, who shall remain nameless in this post, generously let me pick his brain and gave me a lot of great advice. One of the good ideas he planted in my mind was that I cannot carry my exclusive lamps (to presentations, on deliveries, …) in a plastic bag or something similarly profane. The packaging must be representative at least as its content because it forms the all important first impression. The idea was great, what I did with it not so much.

As per regular procedure, I first started searching the web for “exclusive wooden box”, or something similar, and after some meandering stumbled onto Matt Estlea’s free online woodworking school. It looked really promising so I started watching the video lessons. Very soon I was enchanted. Matt really knows what he’s doing, is a great educator, and seems to be overall a very cool dude. After enjoying watching through three projects that make up his school, unfortunately I concluded that there is no way I could pull out anything resembling his handicrafts. Not without investing heavily in tools and spending a few more months learning and working an hour here and there that I manage to steal for this hobby. This will have to go into the bucket list, to be done once I the kids move out and I convert their room into a full fledged woodworking workshop!

But that left me with a huge sunken-cost-feeling, some low-grade boards I bought for the case at the onset when enthusiasm was still high, and no case to carry my lamps around in. I did the most reasonable thing in such a situation and tacked a case in the most straightforward way using a hand saw, accu drill and a bunch of screws. The result is a far cry from Matt’s works, not even a good example of a simple screw-assembled box as everything is a bit misaligned, crooked, slightly damaged in the process. In short, sloppy work. That is why I will not post any photos of it, only this video made with the help of my curly elf.

On the positive side the case is finaaally done and it is still way better than a plastic bag. That means I’m able to come back to what I was supposed to do this whole time, and that is making wood-and-rice-paper lamps! One more positive aspect of this whole exercise is a lesson I learned (once more…), and that is the importance of focus and the peril of over investing in the non-essential.

Now, let me make a lamp…