Last week Ciriana told me that her Sergeant was going to give Ciriana a “good-bye” luncheon.   Although Ciri’s official last day isn’t until May, her last day in the clinic is nigh.   Her Sergeant asked me to send her pictures of Ciriana in a bite suit from a re-enlistment ceremony in Germany.   The photo was mounted onto a plaque that Ciriana received during the luncheon – it is pretty awesome looking.

When her Sergeant told me what she was going to do with the pictures, I didn’t think about getting Ciriana anything just from me, except maybe some flowers.   That is,   until Sunday afternoon.   Remember that episode of Scrubs with the “epiphany toilet?”   Well, I get epiphany’s in the bathroom too, only mine are in the shower.   So, there I am lathering, rinsing, and repeating, when it hits me.   Ciriana wanted a coin display for her challenge coins.   All of the ones I’ve seen are either ugly or just blah.   So… “Why not design and make one myself,” I thought as I scrubbed my nether regions.

My creativity is weird.   It comes in waves… BIG spread out waves.   Once I get an idea, my creativity goes into overdrive.   I could do it this way, or I could do it that way… oh! It would be so cool… etc. etc.   It wasn’t until Monday that I finally had a pretty good sketch of what I was going to do.

Everything about the display means something.   Ciriana and I have an equal amount of good and bad experiences with the Army, which is why I decided to make it two different colors.   Like all things in life, you have to take in the good along with the bad – that’s just life, right?   The coins placed over these two colors are part of the “military life” and bring the two colors together as a whole.   I don’t think the cat and the dog need explaining.

The whole process took about three days – with work being done during nap time and a little after dark as well.   The fun thing about this project was learning how to work with wood.   I started watching wood working podcasts with the hope that I would take up woodworking as a hobby.   Without some of the podcasts and blogs, like The Wood Whisperer, I would not have even known where to start.   I was able to walk into the garage and things just started coming together.   I figured out how to use the tools like the chisels, the Dremel, and more.

While I was getting Izzy ready, I looked at the display sitting on the counter and thought, “Holy crap.   I made that!”   It is a wonderful feeling to create something all on your own, especially for a notorious computer nerd like myself.

I’m inspired to work more with wood and create more crazy stuff.   For now, this wave of inspiration and creativity has passed, and I did say these waves are far apart, so who knows when my next project will be.

Don’t forget to check out the Flickr set for the entire collection of photos I took while making the display.

Just a quick post to explain the latest Flickr images.   The top secret gift for Ciri’s party tomorrow is a Challenge Coin Display.   A custom display, that is.   Made by me.   That actually doesn’t mean anything because without a keyboard and a mouse, my hands are worthless.

Challenge Coin Display

Ciriana has wanted a display for her coins for a long time, but they can get kind of expensive.   It only hit me this past weekend that it would be a great to create one for her.

I only found out about her party last week, so I ran out of time and what you see above is pretty much where I am at as of Wednesday night.   Both pieces have one coat of poly, and only two of the three shelves are ready to go.   Tomorrow morning I’ll put the entire thing together except for the third shelf.

If you look at the flickr set, the template I printed out has Ciri’s name and the Specialist logo on it.   I thought I would be able to take care of that tomorrow morning, but it doesn’t sound like I’m going to have time to locate a Specialist patch and get the engraving done before the party.

I did get pretty far with the limited time I had and with the limited skills I possess.   At least Ciri will get to see it for the first time tomorrow morning, even though it is incomplete.   Either way, I can’t wait to see her face!

I’ll have a full write up on this tomorrow night.   Hopefully I’ll finish up the last shelf and give it one more coat of poly over the weekend.

It’s a been a while since I last wrote an entry, a little longer than I would like.   I have a few posts waiting to get edited, but I’ve been so busy with the kid, the house, and projects that as soon as I sit down to edit my stuff, I start falling asleep.  

For now, I just wanted to pop in and spill some details on the coin design.   The dog bone shape design was picked as the winning design. Yay!   I got an email from the commander expressing his thanks and admiration for the designs.   He liked the coin a lot, but he had some changes he wanted done to certain parts of the design.

I’ve made the revisions and I believe that the final design is, well, finalized.   I’m not sure how long it takes to mint these things, but I wanted to wait on showing the final design until I had one in my grubby little fingers.   I’m curious how big and how thick they will be.   Some coins leave the metal exposed while others have a clear coating over the entire face – I wonder which they will choose.

Anyway, seeing the final design alongside the actual coin would be a ideal.   We’ll see what goes down.

A quick note, I made a light box using Domestic Scientist’s instructions and have gone picture crazy.   I posted the best ones on Flickr.   Take a look and tell me what you think.   I also took this opportunity to take the photos in RAW.   More on that later, though.   See ya.

Whew!   Busy week!   Ciriana forwarded me an email last Friday describing a contest for her commanding unit’s “challenge coin.”   I briefly mentioned challenge coins last week, there is such a long history and tradition associated with them that I don’t really feel I can explain correctly.   Wikipedia and other sites have a good explanation about what they are actually used for.   Essentially, they’re a symbol of the unit and they are handed out to Soldiers by their commanders.

So, not only is it exciting to have the chance to design one of these coins, but it would be a huge honor to actually have my design minted.   At first, I thought, if chosen, the project would be a great addition to my design portfolio.   But after speaking with Ciriana about it, she mentioned that she would love to be given the coin as a good-bye gift.   I decided that I would design the coin with her in mind.   Her military career and her attitude became the inspiration for my design.

Coin - Bone Shape

The commander wanted the coin to depict the missions of the Veterinary Corps as well as some marker unique to this unit.   The first thing I did was research the history of the challenge coin – Wikipedia had me covered on that respect.   Then I started examining some coins that Ciri already had as well as some on the internet.   There are actually many websites that provide coin design services, and their techniques and previous work served as additional inspiration.

After looking over hundreds of coins and reading up on the history, I started sketching some ideas.   I wrote down words that helped me describe what my coin was going to convey with its design.   By this time, it was Tuesday and the design iss due Friday!   I wanted to be working on the computer with my design by Wednesday so that I could start polishing the design by Thursday.   The design needed to be done by Thursday so Ciriana could mail the final design on Friday.   It was a tough week, but I got it done.

This project taught me so many things about deadlines and time management.   Good time management is hard to do when you’re at home taking care of a 10 month old.   I learned, though, that Izzy is my first job, and designing will be a night job.   The design was finished Friday at one in the morning, just to prove my point.   I don’t mind staying up that late, I enjoy creating and designing, but it’s a reality I needed to realize.

Ciriana really liked the final design and we’re both very curious how many designs were submitted.   I have a feeling that not many people within the veterinary corps are designers on the side.   … but… you never know.

Please let me know what you think about the coins I created in the comments.

Coin - Triangle

Coin - Circle