Studio and Life

Dev Diary

Sunday 1st March, 2026

Last of the Iris, all flowers have been cut and collected now. Not sure what I'm supposed to do.

I'm drying them here, but I suspect what's going to happen is all the colour is going to be sun-bleached out of them as they dry. I'm probably supposed to boil them, but I don't have any of the equipment yet, and I'm pretty sure Nixie will be annoyed if I use the food prep saucepans 😁

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Saturday 28th February, 2026

Crocus doing well. The white ones aren't going to make for good ink, obviously, I doubt the purples ones either, but I'm enjoying having them around. Next step is figuring out where to stick 'em in the ground.

Meanwhile the Marigolds I planted last week have already started sprouting, keen!

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Thursday 26th February, 2026

Enjoying my writing desk even more, smells like gardening. I have no idea if I'm supposed to dry or boil these flowers to make ink.

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Sunday 22nd February, 2026

Yeah, more greenhouse. Mainly I'm just delighted I have this spot I can sit and write in. I thought it was going to be all about growing flowers to turn into ink, but really it's about mental health. Who knew?!

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Saturday 21st February, 2026

More bulbs are starting to flower, and soon my journal writing desk will be very colourful and making me very happy! Progress.

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Monday 16th February, 2026

The studio has been getting out of hand, stuff on every surface. Got around to putting everything away where it's supposed to go today and feeling a lot better, like I can get on with things now.

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Sunday 15th February, 2026

Still cat-sitting this one, also, it's my birthday today!

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Saturday 14th February, 2026

Crocuses and the bulbs are doing really well. Bit of a mild update I know, but you know, I like to report in now and then.

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Friday 13th February, 2026

Cat sitting this one over the weekend.

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Sunday 8th February, 2026

Things are definitely growing in there!

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Thursday 5th February, 2026

Swapped studio for the day. I tend to be over in the Riso studio on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but I needed to have a quick meeting so I popped upstairs to Sam's studio.

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Sunday 1st February, 2026

Pretty sure this "Studio and Life" project should just become; Daniel's Gardening Blog.

As some point it'll converge when flowers get turned into watery ink and I stick them into fountain pens in the drawing machines.

But until then, sometimes it'll be the studio, and a lot of time it'll be flower progress. Until I inevitably split them out anyway swearing I should have done it soon.

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Tuesday 27th January, 2026

Some of the seedlings are "leggy", that's probably bad, and it means I've been a bad seedling parent, but at the same time I don't like seeing the seedlings growing all sideways and everything.

So I 3D printed these little supports.

I do have some wooden stakes, but they are too big for seedlings and as it's still winter and damp they keep having mold growing over them, they are wet wood after all. But plastic is pretty neutral.

It's super cold in the studio so I had trouble 3d printing them, they kept separating from the base plate. I've ordered a new base plate that's supposed to run better cold, will see if it makes any difference.

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Sunday 25th January, 2026

The Iris Harmony bulbs are doing well, not sure what I'm supposed to do with them yet, but you know, here they are.

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Saturday 24th January, 2026

I've been down to London the past few days, and took a moment to pop Tate Modern on the first evening. But after that it was all very busy and I didn't have a chance to do much else. I only just managed to take one photo each day for my photo365 project.

Also, the kettle had a fun face!

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Saturday 10th January, 2026

Snowy and misty morning to start the day!

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Monday 5th January, 2026

Perhaps some more stamps for the "Cattaloguing" system.

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I also loved how the light hit the Vestaboard today.

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Sunday 4th January, 2026

Hello! We had a bit of snow!

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Friday 2nd January, 2026

3d printed some small clips to help the seedlings keep upright as the deal with the swing between sub-zero temperatures and back. Seems to be working for them.

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