Things I Found Interesting in September 2026

For some reason I can never get Blenders' mesh->knife project to work correctly so I'm writing this to help me remember.

• in object mode select the shape to be cut on.
• select to edit mode
• ctrl left click on the object you want to do the cutting.
• align your camera, this is how the projection figures out how to cut.
• select mesh->knife project and and it should have cut your surface. (if the surface is a plane make sure to subdivide it so you have triangles to work with.)

I wanted to do this so I could project an SVG (top shape) on a shape (bottom cube) and start cutting it out:

Simple image collage creator. Drag in some images and create a gallery image. Launch the app here

Just like a big city, my desk has room for vertical growth, but not horizontal growth, so I'm building up. I wanted a small table to go over a pile of scrap paper, but I didn't want to buy something from Amazon; instead I grabbed a sheet of the scrap paper, that was patiently waiting for it's new home, and started sketching out some design options. One of the options that seemed fun, was to build a tinker toy like shelf from 3dprinted parts. I fired up freecad and started modeling different parts that dowels could fit into.

Why do I need a stack of paper on my desk? Because it's sad every time an idea dies, or you don't scratch down some problem because there is no paper nearby. I know you, reader, would never talk yourself out of doing something just because it involves getting up and looking for some paper, but not me. This also solves the eternal struggle of: what sketchbook do I use, which is the best, how do I organize it, how do I keep like projects together. All that tomfoolery goes away when you just draw on loose paper and keep the pages you find useful. Having piles of paper also solves the "this isn't good enough to add to my sketchbook" problem; it doesn't matter anymore, it's all just loose paper, throw away the junk, keep the good stuff; don't worry about anything else.

Loose paper gives you the freedom to draw the worst things you can, and then improve on them instead of being to scared to put something "bad" in a bound collection of paper. The only reason this tinker toy desk shelf exists is because I was putting down messy ideas on a piece of paper until this idea popped up.

The joys of rock tumbling ; I added some sea glass in also (not in intial picture) it got ground down pretty good, along with some of the rocks that were pretty much completely ground down to nothing.