February in Review

This month brought more than a few exciting projects. Back in January, instead of making a list of new year’s resolutions, I made a bingo board on a dry erase board with 25 personal projects I wanted to do by the year’s end. This month I put one of my taxidermy squirrels on a new wooden base and framed my cyanotype prints, but the box I checked off for jewelry collaboration with a friend was the highlight of my month.

I partnered with my friend Marc, who collects fossils all over the country, to make a mold of a fossilized goblin shark tooth from at least 200 million years ago. We created a small jewelry collection and raised $350 for wildfire relief in Los Angeles.

Here is what I have been doing with some of my free time…

Listening

• Song: Jetstream by Kacie Hill (Spotify link) I found Kacie’s music on TikTok a few years ago and have looked forward to every new song she has released. This one has been on heavy rotation as the weather starts to warm up just a bit! For fans of Phoebe Bridgers, The Chicks, and Pinegrove among others, she is a singer-songwriter with a voice like a bell and music with a little bit of twang.

• Podcast: It’s a Clue (website link, available wherever you listen to podcasts) This is a podcast about the Nancy Drew book series and is hosted by two sisters who are re-reading the series. Their modern takes on the plotlines, Nancy never aging, and her terrible boyfriend Ned are hilarious and I can’t get enough. I’m currently around the 40th episode and I definitely plan on binging all of it and then joining their Patreon to get even more.

Watching

• Show: Yellowjackets (IMDB link, just watch it and don’t go looking for spoilers) Sure, I’m late to the party… but that just means I got to binge it, so it balances out. This Showtime series debuted in 2021 and follows a group of girls and women in two timelines — one in the 90s when the plane carrying their high school soccer team to national championships crashes in the Canadian wilderness, and the other in present day as the women piece together their lives. If you like the mystery of Pretty Little Liars and the brutality of American Primeval (which I also watched this month!) you will love this show. Right now the first season is on Netflix or the whole show is available to watch with a Showtime subscription.

• Movie: My Dead Friend Zoe (official website link) This movie premiers TODAY! Jason gets tickets to “blind screenings” of upcoming movies where all we know is what it’s rated, and you don’t find out what film it is until it starts. We thought maybe based on the R rating and the timing that we’d be seeing The Monkey, but what we ended up with was a beautiful and poignant film written and directed by a veteran who wanted to tell the story of two of his platoon members who had died. This film covers themes of war, of course, as well as PTSD, grief, and aging. Zoe is, as you may have guessed by the title of the film, dead. Her titular character is played by Natalie Morales, who I remember talking on TikTok about how hard it is to get funding for small films let alone getting eyes on them after they’re out in the world. If you have a chance, do yourself a favor and go see it — the actors who brought this piece of art to life deserve for you to see their fantastic performances. Starring Sonequa Martin-Green, Natalie Morales, Ed Harris, and Morgan Freeman.

Reading

• Book: Die, My Love (link to publisher website) I’ll be honest, I hated this book. I don’t know if I’ve ever disliked a reading experience more. A short read translated to English, the prose follows an extremely mentally ill woman’s experience with (possibly?) postpartum depression and full-blown psychosis. However, it has been adapted into an upcoming film starring Jennifer Lawrence, Robert Pattinson, and LaKeith Stanfield, who always deliver. I’m very interested to see how exactly they adapt the inner monologue of one unstable woman into a motion picture, so I think (hope!) it will differ from the source material quite a bit but time will tell. Stay tuned for my take on that, I guess!

Eating

• Recipe: Sue Li’s Beef & Cabbage (YouTube link, if you have a NYT subscription you can find the written recipe online) This recipe is a slam dunk, super easy, and works well with chicken too. Yes, I’m eating meat again! I started in anticipation of my trip to Kenya just so that I could fully experience everything that was offered to me.

Looking forward

Make sure you are on my email list for the official drop of my latest creation, coming in my March email newsletter.

That’s all for now! See ya next month!

My Holographic Studio

This spring, after more than five years living in my apartment, I decided that my studio needed a major overhaul to make it a more beautiful and comfortable space to work in. Here are all the changes I made! This post contains affiliate links.

My studio is a small space attached to the back bedroom of my apartment. Previously used as motorcycle storage, it has linoleum over cement floors, stained ceiling tiles, dark and oily hollow paneling on the east wall, and when I moved in it had many layers of sloppy multicolored paint and really rickety wood windows. A while ago my landlord replaced the windows but I still didn’t do anything with the space and it was used mostly for storage of so. much. stuff.

I hated it but never wanted to spend the time or money on a rental. Given the current housing crisis it really sunk in that I’ll be here awhile and may as well finally get comfy! So after five years, I gave this room a coat of fresh white paint, a set of lockers, hung my framed artwork, added brand new window treatments, a bar to hang macrame plant hangers, and covered up this godawful paneling with the cheapest and easiest fix I could… an iridescent photo backdrop meant for bachelorette parties etc.

Here is what it looked like before. Just a LOT of stuff everywhere and sooooo much on the walls.

South side

North side

Northeast corner

East side

I took all of my stuff out (except the workbench, which I can’t move more than a few feet) and did a bit of KonMari organizing to shed the things that I really didn’t need to carry forward with me. Here is what it looks like now! It’s hard to take photos of such a small space so please excuse any warping — I promise I don’t live in an actual funhouse.

North side. Yes, the sign does actually help remind me to stay organized!

South side

Northeast corner

Southeast corner

I love these lockers but wanted to add a self-closing element, so I bought a 12-pack of bar magnets. I use 3 per locker at the top, middle, and bottom.

I love having all of my jewelry and specimens out and on display!

Adding clean-looking iridescent shelving to my north wall that matches my iridescent display risers from my south wall helps tie the room together. Not sure if you can tell, but I love things that cast a rainbow in their shadow! I installed a strong, adjustable curtain rod to hang macrame plant hangers (which come with appropriate hooks!) from, and I protect my plants from sunburn with budget cellular shades — I wasn’t about to drop serious coin on window treatments for a place that isn’t mine so I used Factory Direct Blinds.

I used removable hangers made specifically for sawtooth hangers for these frames. I use a variety of jewelry display items which are sometimes available and sometimes not. The brand I like is called Oirlv and you can find it on Amazon and AliExpress to varying degrees. Here are a few links: necklace tray, wood risers, necklace display, ring display.

In the evenings, the sun streams through the west-facing windows and hits a my window sun-catchers and my iridescent wall covering just right, casting rainbows across the whole studio!

It feels so, so good to have a work space that suits my needs and which I actually WANT to be in! When the sun gets too bright, I pull down the shades and turn the whole room into a giant soft-box (gentle white photography lighting). It’s so nice!

Here is a comprehensive list of the items in my studio for those wishing to make a purchase.

• Jewelry and insects are my work! Buy them right here! Custom order anything you want by using this contact form.

• Workbench (Which I LOVE, it has a shelf and a lighted hood. Don’t read the reviews bitching about assembly. It’s not that hard. I am basically made of spaghetti and I did it by myself without any issue.)

• Acrylic risers

• Magnets for lockers

• Macrame hangers

• Iridescent wall shelves

• Pegitz peg board locks

• Necklace tray

• Wood risers

• Necklace display

• Ring display

• Long power strip with flat plug to fit behind the lockers because I only have one outlet and it’s not where I want it to be

• Cable clips to keep the power strip going where it needs to go

• Iridescent curtains

• Hook for holding flex shaft

• Curtain rod for hanging plants

• Hangers for sawtooth picture frames

• Lockers available in several colors. These are way less than Amazon with free shipping and there are quantity discounts when purchasing multiples. Unfortunately these lockers are no longer available through this seller.

• The plastic pencil boxes are from Michaels, but they do not update the stock on their website and you have to visit a store to see what’s available.

• The trash can is old, from Ikea

• The chair is a bar stool from Target, the perfect height for this workbench. Other chairs felt way too small and/or uncomfortable.

• I use a wooden crate under the foot pedal for my flex shaft to make it an appropriate height for my foot to reach. I think it’s from Michaels — again, old.

I think that’s basically everything but if you see something that I didn’t link, feel free to hit me up!

Insect & Invertebrate Specimen Repair Glue/Adhesive Comparison Guide

This is a comparison of all of the adhesives I keep in my studio for making repairs in my work. Entomology art is so fun to make, but insects (and other invertebrates) are fragile and sometimes accidents happen. Whether you received your specimen with a broken antennae right from your broker or you got really excited about a huge beetle and made your boyfriend take your picture holding it and you broke off two legs in the process (who, me?), you’re gonna need some glue. This post contains affiliate links.

These are my five adhesives. I mixed the methyl cellulose in a pimento jar, and it lasts a long time.

These adhesives can be used to fix a butterfly wing, reattach a beetle leg, secure a cicada’s head back onto its body, and even if your insects are already perfectly intact these glues can also be used to put your specimen(s) into a shadow box!

I work in large batches and if specimens break I set them aside in my Dead Bug Hospital™ and then I do repairs in large batches. This worked out perfectly for writing this adhesive guide because I was able to use one right after the next for a great comparison rather than writing this from memory. Here are all of the insects I fixed.

I keep five glues in my studio right now. If I experiment with more I will add them to this guide. Without further ado, here they are. Reviews, notes, and more are below.

• LocTite Gel

• BioQuip Insect Repair Adhesive

• Lineco Methyl Cellulose

• Elmer’s

• E6000

Now for the reviews!

Glue type: LocTite Gel, a brand of super glue (cyanoacrylate glue)
Consistency: Gel toothpaste, under eye cream
Odor: Acrid chemical smell
Application type: Comes in a squeeze bottle with a tiny applicator tip
Color when dry: Mostly clear with a whitish cast depending on the thickness
Reversible: No
Where to buy: Amazon, Michaels, hardware stores
Notes: Super glue comes in a number of consistencies but I always buy the gel kind so that I have control over the flow. This is the most caustic of any glues I will mention here and it dries very very brittle — so if you repair something but it gets bumped, it will snap again in the same spot but with the addition of dried glue. If you repair it a second time with super glue, it may be very noticeable. I would only use this glue for non-visible repairs, like attaching a head back onto a body. It works great for securing pins into shadow boxes but if I had the choice between this and E6000, even just for shadow boxes, I would choose E6000 every time. More on that below.
Super glue from any brand gives off fumes for a long while after application. Ensure that it has dried for quite a few days before sealing it under glass, because the fumes can bloom and create a dirty-looking cast on the inside of your glass. It’s easy to remove but wouldn’t it just be better to not have to do that in the first place?
Overall rating: 3/5

Glue type: BioQuip Insect Repair Adhesive
Consistency: Liquid, like watered-down dish soap. Just slightly more viscous than plain water.
Odor: Knocks your socks off, acrid chemical smell
Application type: Comes in a vial with a glass rod attached to the lid, the rod is the applicator
Color when dry: Clear and shiny
Reversible: No
Where to buy: BioQuip
Notes: This repair adhesive is PERFECT for small repairs. Torn wings? Yes. Detached antennae? Yes. Gotta fix some cilia? Yes. Use very sparingly. What I like to do is let most of the glue drip off the glass rod back into the vial and dab the tip of the applicator along the edges that need to be repaired until I can just barely see the adhesive. I use tweezers or forceps to replace the missing part in its correct position and blow very, very gently until the glue seems to hold on its own. It dries quite fast. This is a nice glue to have on hand for minor repairs of small invertebrates, but I would not recommend it for very large repairs because of the consistency. A more gel-like glue works better for large repairs because it has the volume to fill up cavities and stay in place, rather than dripping out. I would also not use this glue to secure any insects in their shadow boxes.
Overall rating: 5/5, will always stock this in my studio

Glue type: Lineco Methyl Cellulose
Consistency: Initially, powder. Once mixed, chocolate mousse, complete with airiness
Odor: Not noticeable at all
Application type: Brush
Color when dry: Clear
Reversible: Yes
Where to buy: Amazon
Notes: This is a very interesting adhesive. The container contains cellulose-based powder, which you mix with water according to the package instructions in a separate container. A little powder goes a long way so this glue is worth the investment. Leave for one hour or overnight and it magically turns into glue! This adhesive is acid-free and archival, originally formulated for creating and repairing books. Once mixed and left to set, the glue can be lifted out of the container on your brush in small pieces and pushed into the areas where you need it. It does not flow and does not have a liquid consistency at all. In my experience this is best used for larger repairs (missing heads, fallen legs from larger insects) rather than very tiny repairs given that it stays in place and will not flow smoothly to fill in gaps for repairs like antennae or small tarsi. I do like this adhesive a lot and it dries quite nicely, but remember the consistency of the original powder and keep in mind that this type of adhesive does not have shock absorbing qualities — I do not use this glue to secure insects in their shadow boxes.
Lineco Methyl Cellulose is reversible with water.
Overall rating: 4/5

Glue type: Elmer’s School Glue or Elmer’s Glue-All. See also: Aleene’s Tacky Glue.
Consistency: Runny, like melting ice cream
Odor: Old milk
Application type: Cap pops up, squeeze from the bottle
Color when dry: It says it dries clear, but it’s more like a milky color. There’s a milk theme here with this glue and if that grosses you out, I’m so sorry. To be fair it does have a drawing of a cow on the label (a variant of the character Elsie, because Elmer’s used to be owned by Borden) and used to be made from bovine and equine (cattle and horse) parts. You can read all about the strange history of Elmer’s here. Today it is made of PVA (polyvinyl acetate) and no animals are used in its production.
Reversible: Maybe, with water. The glue will soften and you could peel your parts away from each other and reattach if necessary. Keep in mind that this could become extremely messy.
Where to buy: Amazon, Michaels, and basically everywhere else in America. Even your grocery store probably sells Elmer’s in the office supply section near the paper towels, etc. so it’s easy to find in a pinch.
Notes: Elmer’s is an easy to find glue that is “good enough” to get the job done but it’s not amazing. As mentioned above, it does dry clear-ish with a white cast. This means you need to be quite sparing with it when it’s being used in a visible spot. It dries slightly flexible but still brittle. For the most success, squeeze out a “baby dot” of glue (the size of the head of a pin) and apply more only as needed. Wipe away excess before it dries if possible. I do not usually use Elmer’s for repairs unless literally nothing else is available. I do use it for securing pins into shadow boxes. If you do like the texture and are looking for an archival version, try finding rabbit skin glue made for bookbinding. Yes, it’s made from real rabbit skin.
Overall rating: 2/5

Glue type: E6000
Consistency: Thick gel, like silicone caulking or Vaseline
Odor: Mild chemical odor
Application type: Tube
Color when dry: Clear
Reversible: Not really, but you could try with acetone. Keep in mind the effect acetone may have on your specimen.
Where to buy: Amazon, Michaels
Notes: E6000 is my favorite glue and I have a lot of thoughts about it. While not considered to be archival, it is my favorite and I use it the most often out of all of my adhesives. It is very useful for making larger repairs such as attaching a head back onto a beetle or reattaching a cicada leg. It is not very useful for reattaching very small parts like antennae or mouth parts. The texture when it dries is somewhat soft, flexible, and rubbery. This is a positive attribute because this glue is shock absorbent compared to other adhesives — so if you ship your insects, or you move homes, insects repaired this way are much more likely to “survive” (that’s a joke because the bugs are dead) being jostled around on the journey.
E6000 comes in many sizes. At first glance, buying many small tubes seems more wasteful and less economical. However, this adhesive has a relatively short shelf life once opened. Even if you seal the cap completely, eventually the entire tube will harden into a weird gummy bear consistency which can still be squeezed out of the tube, it is slightly sticky but will no longer operate as an actual adhesive. For this reason, I choose to purchase the small tube sets and open one at a time. To create a very small opening, when I remove the cap I poke a tiny hole in the seal so only a small amount comes out at once. If I don’t use the whole tube immediately and it does the weird gel thing, I can just toss it and open a new small tube. If I did this with the large tubes I would be spending a lot more overall because I’d end up throwing away much more.
E6000 is easy to remove if you get it on your hands, just let it dry until it is tacky and then rub your hands together to get the glue off before washing. If you get E6000 on other surfaces and don’t notice until it dries, it can be cleaned off with acetone (check that acetone is safe to use on the surface you are trying to clean).
Once again, I repeat that this is not archival but will definitely last your entire lifetime. If I only have to fix something once, but there’s a slight chance it will erode from acid in 200 years, does it really matter if a piece of art I made for myself has a tiny bit of non-archival adhesive on it? I don’t think so. Long live E6000!
Overall rating: 5/5, will always stock this in my studio

Do you have an insect repair adhesive you like using that wasn’t mentioned here? Let me know in the comments, I would love to buy it and try it!