The Latest

I've been working on Christmas stuff lately and can't post any pictures until after they've been opened but here's some stuff in progress that I won't be wrapping up.

I'm giving the coffee table a break. This is an old tv tray table I painted and then carved.

And then carved some more, and painted the design a light blue.

Then I filled it in with resin, which I mixed with photo-luminescent powder so it glows in the dark aqua.

I bought some picture frames at the $1 store and spray painted them red, after stenciling the glass.

I wanted to make something for the new coworkers, I bought some books at a thrift store and cut off the front and back covers.

I used copy paper for the text block, I didn't have the art paper with the grain going the right direction, also I don't know how into blank journals they are so the sections are 10 pages each with 5 per book. 

I did a Ethiopian Double Needle Coptic binding.

I hope they like them. I get over anxious about that but I do know that at least one needs to write stuff down more so hopefully this helps. 

The big Christmas party raffle is this week and other departments are donating some amazing things. I'll post pictures when my stuff is all finished. Super nervous yet again and I don't even have a 2 headed cow to start off with!

New Dremel!

My coffee table was too narrow to hold my square o mdf I paint on. I added a long box with a lid and it works. But then the top seemed boring and I've been dying for a dremel since mine broke. I did get it working but not enough rotation was getting through the flex shaft. So this is the first project and I'd forgotten the tendonitis I used to get. I missed that pain.

So I have this idea.

What do I do if people don't get it?

Caterpillar

It took 4 tries to get this sort of right....

Calvin and Hobbes

I forgot there were some in progress pics. And then some other projects I still need to work on. I have no idea what I'm going to do with some of it, I made too much and can't overdo the Christmas party donations or people there will think I do this nonstop. Which I do.

Merit Badges So Far

71. That's how many I've made. I have a pile of about 30 more ready to paint and every time a friend sees them they give me more ideas. This will never end. I suppose this is for the greater good in the end. I need to get these out of my system so I can concentrate on my Colbert/Zod painting. Which I need to actually start.


And coming soon

Baby Quilts!

I caught up! I started one then changed my mind and went a different direction.  One nephew is so cute and sweet and thinking about him making it helped with the design. 

I've made 71 so far

Plus 10 ready to be painted.  And I have ideas for more.

And More

Audiobook: the Necronomicon. I think up about 5 more working on one.

This is fun.

I'm currently catching up on Doctor Who and running out of teeny canvases.

Merit Badges!!!

It is time. I bought some circle dies and ordered 100 felt circles.  They were sent to my old address though and I'm trying to decide if I should order again and potentially end up with 200. I get remanent fabric for cheap, gesso it and then punch circles out with the die. Which was made for paper so this can't possibly last.

Been doing this for a month now...

I'm about ready to start sewing these art quilts.  I have enough tops for 4 or 5 by now. I only needed 2 but changed my mind partway through so the extras will go somewhere else.

New Quilt

I am excited for this one, but then again I always am. It's hard not to want to give this kid a hug when you see him.

Tardis Diary

 I've tried this one before and the image was just too small and straight to get right. I put it aside and waited until I found a way to make it right. I bought a scalpel online and the rest worked.

 

 

 

I believe this cardboard is from a fruit snack box.

 

I cut out a few layers, going into the cover a bit.

 

Then I brushed it with pva glue, I don't want to deal with loose pieces of the cardboard whilst embossing the images so a solid piece was needed.

 

 

I got the fabric at a thrift store for cheap. I think it's linen -but the color was perfect. This is T minus 5 minutes into embossing with a bone folder.

 

 

This takes a long time. Find an hour long tv show and get comfy.

 

 

Almost finished.

 

 

 

 

The final product. There are 5 sections with 60-lb paper.

A Better Hinge

The hinge on the right is just waxed linen wrapped around the top and bottom holes. Opening and closing was putting a lot of pressure on it and I didn't want it to break for a very long time so I needed a better solution.

 

 

 

The left side is what I came up with. Instead of wrapping around in an O I did an S with the linen. I got the idea from book binding- Ethiopian Coptic Stitch. It works so much better and even looks pretty cool.

The Real Obsession

People I know think that I'm obsessed with Star Wars and that's not true. The movies are more accessible so I do more from them because I know more people will be into it. The real obsession is with Hellboy but more than that it's with the art of Guillermo del Toro. I love most of what he does and Hellboy is the favorite.

Last year I wanted to make the Right Hand of Doom for the work Christmas raffle but ran out of time and kept getting sidetracked with projects for nieces and nephews.

http://creatureshop.com/


I'm still behind on a lot but I also started watching Jim Henson's Creature Shop and got a lot of ideas starting with a better way to make the hand. I knew that starting over I could probably articulate it, one of my bottlenecks last time was how the fingers were going to lay and this is a much better option. Plus when I bring it to work all of my coworkers can take turns flipping each other off with Hellboy's hand. Sigh.

 

I carved the spirals into the foam with a soldering iron.

 

 

This is black and red enamel spray paint, a much faster way to do it.

 

Crimson acrylics with a paintbrush. Applied liberally.

 

Hit it a few more times with the spray paint. I had to take this piece out because it was too big with the hand to look right.

 

The rest is in progress....

Recycling

I posted this to another nerd blog I do but it fits in here:

The Swamp House: more pics of the process and final project by John Henry

 

 

 

 

I am in love with automatons. I want to know how they work so I can make my own weird creations. I have books and kits and papercraft kits so it's going to happen. Soon....

 

 

Watching this one is kind of hypnotic so I started to wonder how much this alligator was making based on the apparent speed of the gif. It makes ~$.125/second or ~$450 an hour. Normally you are supposed to take an average of multiple measurements but I don't think the gif will speed up at all.

 

@10 seconds I counted 5 quarters or $1.25/10seconds = ~$.125/second

 

$.125/1 sec * 60 sec/ 1 min * 60 min/1 hour =~$450/hour.

 

Not bad.

 

 

 



An Explorer Kit

I started here: http://makezine.com/craft/gift-idea-diy-explorer-kit/ thinking it would be a cool fast project that I could duplicate for birthdays this year. I still maintain that possibility. I needed a table saw which I can't afford but I do have a circular saw and there are a ton of tutorials on turning it into a table saw. So I did that. It's really not that safe but it did the job. Next big project is to make it safe.



Diresta made a box in the most awesome and duh way possible. He put it all together all sides on one box and then cut the entire thing out on his table saw. Oooh that was a good idea. Now it will fit perfectly! Except my 'table saw' isn't exactly straight so the box isn't square but that's ok this time around.

 

 

I started out with this, the wood is 1/4" so too thin for screws or nails. I used wood glue. Next up is to age the box. For that I crumpled up tissue paper and glued it, let it dry and then sanded the entire thing.
 

 

Next I spray painted it black, let it dry and then stained it with a cherry mahogany stain. I did many coats of it so it would look like old leather.

 

 

 

 

The black keeps it dark and the wrinkles show off the stain. Since this was the first one I made a lot of mistakes which I will show here so others don't make the same. I sectioned it up for the goodies.

 

 

I wanted leather straps around the whole thing but didn't want it to come unglued so I criss-crossed it with linen yarn. To make that work I took out the panels and drilled holes on either side of the 2 leather straps. There was some sanding after the drilling. But this is what the inside looks like. Yeah I should have done this in a different order. I stained the yarn too.

 

 

 

 

Now it needs hinges and I was too lazy/cheap to buy some hinges and I had more leather so why not use it. This caused some problems with the inside needing to be sanded again. Drill your holes first!

 

 

  

 

And I did a handle the same way, I had to sand even more. Doh! Ok onto the inside. I added some explorer toys and some plastic bugs. There's even a book that says 'Field Notes' on the front.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 He liked it, the kids liked it, there was fighting to look at it. It was the most popular gift until the Magic 8 Ball was unwrapped.

 

 

Not my greatest woodworking but it did the job. I think I can do more. I just need to make my table saw survivable now.