Dad's are the kind of people who appreciate a good tin. Whether they're filling them with nails, chocolate-covered coffee beans or the batteries from the remote control so no one can turn over during Doctor Who, they do love a good tin. A tutorial for a Father's Day tin seemed in order and this one is rather hardcore.
The idea behind the Crayon Etching on Metal Tins from Roots and Wings is that you create a tin with your wee one's art scrawled upon it for all time. The cool bit is that you get to wave around a heat gun and then you get to electrocute the whole thing to seal in the scrawling.
It screams adult supervision but it's also a really clever way of making something that will last. I suspect that most Father's would be falling over themselves to join in with the making part too.
Try not to blow anything up or electrocute any pets or people in the process, eh?
The fabric and frills monster that is London Fashion Week has sashayed, swirled and pouted across the city this week. So when I stumbled across a jaw-dropping 3D shoe on Make and its shoe-like accompanying outfit I thought I would pass it on.
The shoe was crafted virtually and then made up by a process called selective laser sintering (read as lasers fusing all kinds of matter to make the finished project). It was designed and made by Souzan Youssouf and Naim Josefi, two upcoming fashion design students.
It's fully wearable apparently. Not sure it's one for going out on the town in but it would certainly turn some heads.
Check out our sister sites Catwalk Queen and OSOYou and Shoewawa for more London Fashion Week fabulousness.
Tiny versions of every day things are always fascinating, so it makes sense that an entire tiny house full of tiny things would be a must-see. The Call of the Small site doesn't disappoint.
Created by blogger Callsmall, the tiny worlds on Call of the Small are a wonder to behold. There are teeny tiny versions of everything from a crafty table complete with scissors, glue and a sticky tape dispenser to the utterly awesome tiny cut out wood scene in the Curator post, made by Daspuppenhaus.
Many of the items are bought rather than crafted (though they must have been crafted by someone) but the craft here is how Callsmall sets it all out and adds extra touches. Aquarium plants, Japanese erasers, origami paper, beads; all feature in her minuscule creations. Her houses are tiny worlds of crafty beauty.
Total miniature craft genius.
Everybody knows that pirates are just about the coolest things ever so why stuff them into the Halloween pigeon hole (or should that be crow's nest)?
You can be pirately at Christmas too and a scurvy way to begin would be with a barnacle-blasting pirate stocking to collect all your Christmas booty in.
The stocking is as quick to craft as running someone through with your rusty pirate sword so you'll be able to whip it up in no time. It also has a few flowery options for pirate wenches out there who like to lure people into a false sense of harmless girlie security before threatening them with a plank walk if they don't hand over all their chocolate dubloons.
For the full how to see the tutorial on Extremely Crafty and get a bit of yo ho ho into your ho ho ho this Christmas.
Knit knit knit knit knit. Sigh.
Christmas knitting can be a panicky affair as you strive to get everything you promised yourself you would do done. But there is an easier way to get crafty with your yarn for a bit of Stitchmas spirit around the festive season. Why not wrap yourself a fibre-fabulous yarn wreath to welcome folks into your home the woolly way?
The simple tutorial on Craftstylish gives you a list of materials and also gives you an idea of where you can get hold of said materials online (though the links are for Americans, not for us Brits. Still we're a Goggle-savvy bunch).
It's an excellent way to use up that 'what shall I do with these random leftovers' yarn and it adds to your crafty Christmas in a manner that doesn't leave you worrying about dropped stitches and casting off in time.
See the tutorial on the Craftstylish site here.
Lisa Lichtenfels's is a fabric artist with a bit of a difference. Rather than draping models in her fabrics creations she makes her models from fabric and the effect is eerily lifelike.
Starting her career studying Illustration and Film, Lisa worked at Disney Studios as an apprentice animator. She developed three-dimensional figurines with posable skeletons for stop-motion animation. Twenty-five years after leaving her work in film Lisa is still working with the nylon fabric and says she feels she "has only barely begun to realize what is possible in the medium".
Stretching moldable nylon over her skeletons she creates fabric art that has the illusion of living flesh. Her lifelike characters have real personality and colour. A look through the gallery on her website is an adventure in the possibilities of fabric art from her fin-footed wistful mermaid to her to more controversial pieces such as her Nursing Madonna.
With that much inspiration in fabric you may never throw out a pair of laddered tights again.
The force is strong with this one. Maybe a little too strong. I mean there is a love of Star Wars and then there is a love that borders on obsession.
Witness the majesty of the planet Hoth's indigenous Tauntaun in costume form. This amazing, but slightly unsettling, Star Wars Tauntaun costume is jaw-droppingly time consuming but surely worth the effort. Yes, you too could become your very own steed with the help of a bit magic, some wood and some fake fur.
You can admire a video of its maker, Scott Holden, stalking about his garden Tauntaun style here.
I'm not sure how much good the costume would be at a house party though. I can see that learning the Jedi Mind Trick might be useful. Incidents where you destroy the entire contents of the mantelpiece while throwing a few Tauntaun dance moves to a bit of Christmas tune after too much mulled wine will be instantly forgotten.
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