Moveable Paper

I've always loved paper crafts, like making the Dot-bomb icosahedron and such, as well as pop-up cards and books. I somehow ran across The Flying Pig this week which has some really cool kits for animated paper projects and pop-up critters you can put into cards and letters to surprise someone. This art is known as kirigami and there is a good book on the subject titled, Kirigami: The Art of 3-dimensional Paper Cutting. Another book has a more practical approach for engineers who want to understand how pop-ups work, Elements Of Pop Up : A Pop Up Book For Aspiring Paper Engineers. However, some pop-ups take more than simple paper engineering to create :)

I wish people would send more cards instead of email for the holidays and maybe even ones of their own design. For some reason, I suspect that people think that making cards is for kids and not adults because adults are supposedly never in possession of enough free-time to do anything that might make them look like they have any free-time.

permalink Ω 23 October 2003, Helsinki

Good Things™ for the craft impaired

Martha has a project in the December issue of Martha Stewart Living that doesn't require a live-in staff or maximizing your time by crocheting snowflakes for months whenever you sit in the loo for 5 minutes or more. Behold the pinup wreath where all you need is a 14 inch wooden embroidery hoop which you can obtain at any craft store, 15-20 small wooden clothespins and a bottle of wood glue. A bit of festive ribbon to hang it with is a nice touch as well. Simply glue the clothespins onto the hoop in 1.5 or so inch intervals while alternating direction, let the glue dry and hang. It's a cool little idea as Christmas cards don't look quite right on the fridge and this will display them in rather festive fashion :)

permalink Ω 21 November 2002, Helsinki

Bunny slipper mission redux

Undaunted by the unavailability of adult size bunny slippers I decided to make my own just like McGuyver would do if bunny slippers could be made from Duct tape. I had considered Titanic slippers for my enormous size 10US/41EUR feet but I couldn't control my lust for bunny cuteness. :)

So, should you wish to make a pair for yourself, it's pretty easy to do.

I. Materials

• A pair of boiled wool slippers from Garnet Hill [ product #4664 ]
• 2 black 1-1.5 inch pom-pons
• Felt for ears in a matching colour to slippers and pink. I used needled cotton batting for the ears since I couldn't find any nice wool felt.
• 20 guage copper wire for bendy ears
• 1 skein of black DMC crewel thread
• 1 skein of pink DMC embroidery thread
• 1 skein of ecru or dark grey embroidery thread to match slipper colour
• 1 crewel needle
• 1 embroidery needle
• 1 pencil or fabric pencil
• 1 pair of scissors
• 1 tube Goop Crafter's contact adhesive
• a couple of pins

II. Attach Tail and stitch nose and eyes

• Take pom-pon and attach it to the back of the slipper with a length of the black crewel thread.
• With the pencil, mark a nose shape and two dots for eyes onto the slipper.
• With the crewel needle and the black crewel thread, cover the nose area completely using a satin stitch.
• The eyes are made of French knots
• The whiskers are made by taking a double strand of the black crewel thread and looping it under the nose and tying it off on the edge threads. When tied off, you may cut and style.

III. Making The Ears

• Cut out 8 pieces shaped like an almond of the felt in the colour that matches your slippers and 4 pieces slightly smaller in the pink colour.
• Take the Goop adhesive and the copper wire and attach a piece of copper to the middle of the almond shaped felt. Do this for 4 times and set them aside to dry.
• The remaining 4 pieces of matching felt and the pink felt should be stitched together using a back stitch down the center of the pink felt piece using the embroidery needle and 2 strands of the pink embroidery thread.
• Using a piece of ear with the copper wire, coat the felt [ copper side up ] with Goop Adhesive and place the piece with the pink felt attached on top of it with the pink felt up.
• Sew up the edges using the embroidery needle and 2 strands of the matching thread with the blanket stitch.
• Now you should be ready to attach them to the slipper using the same needle and thread using a back stitch.
• You now have bunny slippers, enjoy! :)

permalink Ω 28 April 2002, Helsinki

Warm up the glue gun!

In the spirit of the old VAX Tap, ReadyMade Magazine has an article on How to turn your PC into a Coffee Table along with geek accessible crafts ala Martha Stewart.

permalink Ω 18 April 2002, Helsinki

Dot bomb icosahedron

All the Dot Bombs these days have left me with a large collection of useless business cards so I decided to do something with them to salute the bygone era; I made an icosahedron ornament. You can make your very own by following the steps and illustrations below. They make lovely parting gifts for the recently downsized or just a fun activity for the unemployed slacker with lots of time and a box of old business cards to play with.

Dot Bomb Icosahedron Project

Time: Appx. 1 hour
Cost: Free if you snag office supplies, about $3 if not.

I. Gather Supplies

1. Dot Bomb business cards or postcards
2. Elmer's paper craft glue gel
3. Small paintbrush
4. Exacto Knife
5. Craft/Exacto mat or cardboard square
6. Sharp Scissors
7. Ruler
8. Pen or pencil
9. Compass
10. Little binder clips or tiny paper clips
11. Hole Punch
12. String
13. Glitter Spraypaint [ optional ]

II. Marking the Cards

1. Set your compass to have a radius of 1cm to 2cm [ example has 2cm ].
2. Draw a circle with your compass on the business card or postcard.
3. Take the pointy end of the compass, place it on the circle you just drew and tick a mark with the pencil on the circle. Move the pointy end of the compass to that mark and repeat until you have six marks on the circle. Connect every other one to make a triangle. [ I'm aware this isn't exact but we aren't building rocket ships here, relax ]. I make this triangle out of heavy cardboard to make folding the edges faster and easier later since this step would only be done once.

III. Preparing the Discs

1. Take the scissor and cut out the circles you drew on the business cards. You will need 20 circles/discs for each isocohedron.
2. Fold flaps up for each of the 20 circles.
3. Take 5 circles, the paintbrush and the glue gel and glue two of the circles together by painting glue on one flap and holding them together. Add another to the side until you have a 5 sided top object like this one.
4. Make another top so that you have two and set them aside to dry.
5. With the gluebrush and 5 more circles, make a single row attaching them on 2 sides by gluing the flaps together.
6. Use your gluebrush and coat the top flaps with glue and attach this row gently to one of the tops. Use the little binder clips to help the glue set and dry in the right position.
7. Repeat the 2 previous steps with the remaining 5 circles and attach to the still available flaps on the ball-in-progress.
8. Pick up the other top piece and put glue on the 5 available flaps and attach it to the 5 available flaps on the ball-in-progress.
9. Let it dry for a little while.

IV. Finishing

1. Punch hole in a flap for hanging.
2. Put string through so that the ball can be hung.
3. Spray glitter paint on it for a nice sparkly touch.

permalink Ω 12 April 2002, Helsinki

Just Born Peeps

In the long line of quintessentially American foods behind Jell-O, Velveeta and SPAM lies the Marshmallow Peep. They used to only come around Easter time, which is March 31st this year, but they have expanded to be year 'round treats. The Just Born history details the little critters evolution. Even Martha Stewart has a Marshmallow treats kit so you can make your very own if you have lots of time and homemaking on your mind. Jarkko made me try herring in Finland so I'm working my way up to feeding him Velveeta by way of the peeps and I don't think Peeps would be a hit in Helsinki. :)

permalink Ω 27 February 2002, Helsinki

Good Things™

I have this dirty little secret: I subscribe to, read and actually like Martha Stewart Magazine. I know, I think it's rather odd too but I like her simple tastes even if I don't have a staff of 50 in the house to make my home look like hers. I sent in a suggestion for them to do an article on the 'brightening up the basement server farm' and 'wireless networking in the home and base station camoflage techniques' but haven't heard back from them just yet.

Two years ago I bought one of her Noah's Ark cookie cutter sets as it had a camel and made christmas tree ornaments last year. This year Martha has a 3rd set which include a Llama, owl and monkey. I think ORA and Martha should get together and release an ORA animal menagerie set of cookie cutters so that geeks can bake cookies and such in all their favourite animal shapes :)

permalink Ω 2 November 2001, Helsinki

Good Things™ for Halloween

Halloween is my favourite holiday of the year probably because it involves candy and no family or religious obligations. Last year I carved up a pumpkin and extorted a few photos out of Jarkko for fun and giggles.

This year I thought I'd embrace the Martha within and share how I made the 'Perl pumpkin' so you too can terrify everyone on your block :).

1. Purchase a resonably large and smooth skinned pumpkin. This is a key step :)
2. Remove guts of pumpkin. Save goo for later to torment the obnoxious kids in the neighborhood or drunken adults trick-or-treating when they show up at your door.
3. Print out 2 copies of the pattern and tape one copy on clean and dry pumpkin. You may need to make vertical slits along the sides to make pattern lie flat on pumpkin.
4. Get out your tools. You will need an exacto or box knife, sharp utility knife and a speedball linoleum cutter found at most art stores (unless you live in MA which seems to be devoid of linoleum cutters) or you can order a really deluxe set of tools from Martha. I'll confess to owning this and it is a really nice set if you are into carving pumpkins. Some stores carry a cheap-o set of tools from the pumpkin masters but they are frustratingly cheap and you are better off carving the pumpkin with a dremel.
5. Use the exacto or box knife to trace around the white areas. Do the inside of the P and the E first, then the others. After these are all done, leaving only black paper, trace around the edge of the black.
6. Look at your 2nd copy of the pattern and take a black marker to mark the parts that are black on the pattern as a reminder which parts are going to be scraped.
7. Get out your speedball linoleum cutter and start from the right side of the design and, in clean vertical cuts, start removing the skin. You need only make one pass per cut since you seek only to remove the orange skin and give it a woodcut-like appearance.
8. When done scraping the marked areas, use utility knife inside the pumpkin to carefully cut away a bit of the rind in the area of the design.
9. Use drill or other instrument to create air holes in back or on on the bottom of the pumpkin for the candle
10. Insert candle, display and watch those neighborhood kids run screaming from your house.
11. If a guy with long hair calling himself "St. Ignucius" shows up at your door, hand him an AOL CD and point to the pumpkin before shutting the door. :)

permalink Ω 14 October 2001, Helsinki