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Itsa Me! Darth Cleavage!
Jennifer Belgin

I am extremely thrilled to have a growing following on social media that has more inquiries and commissions requests headed my way on a daily basis. I thought it was time to do a quite write up about myself, my business, and what you can expect if you make a purchase from my shop. My name is Jen and I'm a single mom of two teen boys. I have a full time 9-5 job and do this in my free time because it helps provide me with some fun money to fund my own costumes. It's also a great artistic...

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The Nuts and Bolts (and Belts and Other Parts) of 3D Printing
Jennifer Belgin

“People are usually on either end of the spectrum. They assume it’s a simple process or they’re too intimidated that it’s too complicated for them to try.”  - Yupcat I've lost track of how many times I've been asked something along the lines of, "Which 3D printer should I buy?" or "Can you give me a quick explanation of 3D printing?" on one of my social media accounts. Since this is not a quick answer type of question, I decided it was finally time to sit down and do a write up that will hopefully shed some light on the...

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You wanna see my GCode?
Jennifer Belgin

The thing I learned early on about the 3D printing community is that everyone has a preference and they tend to be pretty damn dedicated to it. So, as usual with any of my tutorials, take from it what you will and leave what doesn't work for you. I've moved to a family of Creality FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) printers because despite their different bed sizes, they have the same mechanics and use the same parts. This means I've been able to really get to know my machines and only have to keep a set of backup parts on hand....

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So You're Buying a 3D Print...
Jennifer Belgin

When I first started Darth Cleavage, the standard for costuming was largely resin cast and vacuum formed parts. The process of sculpting, molding, and casting or forming takes a lot of time and tends to be expensive so it somewhat limited the options. However, after a bit of trimming and sanding you had a paintable item. With 3D printing, the modelling still takes a substantial amount of time, but the production is faster, items are scalable, and this has allowed for a wider variety of options. However, if you want an item with the smoothness of something cast or formed,...

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The Star Wars Craft Book
Jennifer Belgin

While I've always been a fan of a galaxy far, far away, The Clone Wars allowed me to share the joy with my boys. I was pulled back into the wonderful world of Star Wars and discovered the larger community of fans through costuming communities and on social media. This eventually led me to Bonnie Burton's Star Wars Craft Book and opened up a whole new world of crafty activities. I didn't own a sewing machine at the time but that wasn't an impediment to making my boys a pair of bantha plushes. I can't say exactly how many of the...

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So you are thinking about moving your store...
Jennifer Belgin

My feeds have been filled with a great deal of angst today regarding Etsy's new advertising policy and many have expressed their desire to open up shop under a new platform. A good portion of those are considering Shopify so I wanted to take a moment and offer some details about why I made the switch and why I love it. I figured I'd also share my favorite apps as well. First and foremost, let me make it clear that I am not endorsed by Shopify in any capacity. Anything I'm saying here is simply because I appreciate what they...

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