Oh boy more zines! I will be in Denton this weekend for Denton Zine & Art Party 2024! Sunday, September 29th from 2-6PM I will be at the Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios in Denton with zines, stickers, faerie eggs, and a lil’ bit of pottery. See you there!
It’s a beautiful, sunny day out! I’m here at The VORTEX in Austin for Pagan Pride until 4pm today ~
See you soon!
I am all set up at Paper Dragon 3! Come get NEW sparkle stickers, makerzines, and tiny zines.
At the Cloudtree Gallery on 3411 E 5th Street in Austin on September 14 from noon to 4pm. See you there!
Yeek! We’ve got a busy weekend in Austin! On Saturday, September 14th I will be at Paper Dragon 3: Small Press Fair! I’m stocked up on tons of zines and faerie eggs full of tiny zines. 12-4 at the Cloudtree Gallery on 3411 EAST 5th Street in Austin.
If you join me on Sunday, September 15th, I will be at Austin Pagan Pride Day! Always one of my favorite events, delight in the festivities and come stock up on tiny faerie houses, altarware, and my self-published oracle deck. 10am-4pm at the VORTEX on 2307 Manor Road in Austin.
The Newsletter for September is out! (I know, I’m extremely inconsistent in my newslettering, I’m endeavoring to improve!) Are you not subscribed? Don’t worry, I absolutely won’t spam your inbox, and I do my best to respect people’s email preferences. Check out this month’s newsletter here, and click the subscribe button if you’d like more!
Thursday, September 5th is Plano Art Drop Day! I’m participating this year, hooray! I happened to have TWO of my discontinued jeweled cauldron mugs squirreled away; now they’re off to be discovered by someone in Plano. Eeek! How exciting!
For more info on Plano Art Drop Day, check out their Facebook Event page here. Good luck! 🍀
I spent a few weeks working with a gelatin-based printing platen! Join me as I explore using this device steeped in zine history, ramble about defunct technologies, and in general have…fun!
Jellyzine talks about how to make your own homemade version of a jellygraph/hectograph/gelatin press. It’s part of zine history! This version is an imperfect reproduction done on a jellygraph. Darkness of the ink will vary!
8 in stock
Jellyzine talks about how to make your own homemade version of a jellygraph/hectograph/gelatin press. It’s part of zine history! This version is an inkjet printout.
13 in stock
Jellyzine talks about how to make your own homemade version of a jellygraph/hectograph/gelatin press. It’s part of zine history! You’re welcome to print out and distribute this zine without modification.
9 in stock
The Boy Mechanic – 700 Things for Boys to Do by Popular Mechanics – 1913. See page 326.
While these are obviously maker projects anybody can do, this book is filled with projects from the benign hectograph recipe I feature, to dangerous wiring projects guaranteed to burn grandma’s house down. Use common sense and remember some of the chemicals featured are dangerous.
Not in the recipe I put in my zine, tho. They’re all pretty inert; you’re more likely to make a sticky mess or stain things. Note that on page 240, there is a clay-based hectograph, which I have not tried.
Wikipedia Article on Hectographs – Wikipedia is typically a great springboard to start off into a topic. The citations have a link to a Scientific American Cyclopedia with several hectograph recipes. (Hint, it’s on page 262, since the text is not searchable at the time of writing.)
Our Own Devices: Short: Hektograph – A well done short on the history of the hectograph; only 7 minutes!
Iowa University’s Library – A very nice blog post on making and using a hectograph. Chock full of photos and explanations of the demo.
Cheap Copies! – A MOST EXCELLENT book by Rich Dana on the hectographs, mimeographs, and spirit duplicators. Absolutely embodies the spirit of being a maker and zinester. Chock full of sources.
Copying Pencils – Related and of-interest. Pencils made largely with methyl violet for duplicating and non-erasure of documents (pre-ballpoint pen!). I would love to experiment with these, but they appear to be expensive and hard to find.
I won’t provide direct links to products here, but rather specific names and types. Some things you will have to hunt for the best source for you in your area.
Gelatin – You want powdered gelatin, it’s typically found in the grocery store near the Jell-O, boxed pudding, and baking supplies. Store brand gelatin is just fine, no need for fancy Knox brand.
Glycerin – This is a liquid. You can also usually find it in the grocery store, near skin care products. Pharmacists will know where it is if you can’t find it. Fun facts, glycerin can also be used as a sweetener and helps skin to retain moisture when applied topically. Note! You can make a jellygraph without glycerin. However, it may be wetter and have a poorer constitution with pure gelatin. Experiment.
Transfer sheets – The most popular brand are known as “Spirit Transfer Sheets” as they also are used by tattoo artists for transferring art to skin in order to tattoo. There are many no-name brands of transfer sheets with people stating varying degrees of success and experience with their quality. These are essentially sheets with a very thin layer of methyl violet-based dye on them, and work like carbon transfer sheets. They work with both hand-drawn pressure, and with thermal printers.
Inks – For folks who don’t want to use transfer sheets. You can get powdered methyl violet in small quantities from science companies who provide for schools and home enthusiasts. In the Popular Mechanics article listed above, there’s a recipe that calls for using methyl violet. I have experimented with gentian violet, obtained from my local pharmacy. It has much of the staining quality, but isn’t especially dark as compared to the transfer sheets. In my exploring, I found that some tattoo supply companies carry “hektograph ink” which, supposedly is the same formulation as was used in days of yore. I have not purchased any at the time of this writing, so cannot comment as to its efficacy.
Thermal Printer – Honestly, while I’ve not had any issues with my postage-label-sized thermal printer, or other receipt-sized printers I own, letter-sized thermal printers seem to be rife with mixed reviews and issues. My advice? Hunt down a thermal fax machine. It takes time, but you can rescue one from the landfill AND get a thermal bed that works great for various maker projects. It took a while, but I tracked down a Brother Intellifax 775 for $10, and only had to drive 10 minutes from my house. They’re out there, be patient.
I know I know, it’s 5 billion degrees out how can we POSSIBLY think of Autumn right now? Well I am! 🍂
For you witchy-types, I’ve already got some pagan events on the docket. More events are lined up, pending application acceptance! For now I hope to see you at:
🍁 Austin Pagan Pride
September 15th in Austin at The VORTEX
🍁 East Texas Samhain Meet and Metaphysics Expo
October 26th in Tyler at Bergfeld Park
🍁 DFW Pagan Unity
November 11th at Arlington Unitarian Universalist Church
I’ve been quiet online, mostly because I’ve been playing with the latest tool in my toolbox, a fax machine! No, I’m not passing along chain letters and bad jokes, but rather using the thermal printer component of the machine for creating stencils from Risograph masters. This year I already tried purchasing a cheap thermal printer, and subsequently discovered it is utterly inadequate for my needs; it was chucked back to the Amazon Overlords the same day. After a few months of daily checking for fax machines in my area, I managed to snag one for $10. Granted, it’s not as compact and store-able as the portable thermal printers, but thus far it has spit out a perfect stencil every time. It doesn’t rely on battery/USB-C power nor do I have to finesse inconsistent Chinese printing software to get it to do my bidding.
I’m almost finished with an upcoming video about experimenting with hectographs, of all things. Hopefully it’ll be done soon!
I’ve made lots of “Maker Merit Badges” for my local makerspace in the past. In making them, it was my intention to release them into the wild, free for anyone to use. Today they are officially available for makin’ stuff!
They’re all in .svg format, so you can vinyl cut, 3D print, laser cut, CNC, embroider, etc. your own maker badge to show off your maker creds. 😎
Visit the repository here on Github; my friend Tommy and I welcome new badge contributions. Share and share alike!
Holiday7 products 
The Hive Oracle11 products 
Magick Potion Bottles10 products 
Shrooms32 products 
Faerie Houses9 products 
Divination5 products 
Mugs & Cups12 products 
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Hangings9 products 
Stickers19 products 
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