Film Candle Holder Project

Image: photojojo

A few weeks ago I posted an article on mini polaroid magnets. This was for the people who don't normally print their digital photos.


This post is for those of us who use to bring our roll of film to the chemist and get them developed. Sometimes not knowing if any of the photos would turn out. 


When they did come back, and the odd time they were blank, due to some random fault or other, we were also handed the negatives - also blank, just to remind you and flaunt it in your face - you screwed up! 

But this was only sometimes.

The rest of the time, you got back all your photos with the all important negatives in case you ever needed another copy. These negatives always ended up going into some large white envelope and stuffed into the back of some side cabinet, the envelope growing exponentially with each passing  holiday. Probably never seeing the light (even if its red) of a darkroom again. 


So, here is a great way to reuse some of those old negatives. Courtesy of Photojojo.

Image: photojojo

Here's what you will need.


1. Photo negatives (black and white or colour - it doesn't matter)
2. Glass candle holders (or any small jar that would hold a tealight candle)
3. Glue or double sided tape


Step 1. Measure
Use your negatives to measure around your glass holder to see how many frames you will need. 
If it comes up a bit short just add a frame or two from another negative to fully wrap around.

Image: photojojo

Step 2: Glue
Put some glue (the photo below shows the person using glue dots but regular pva or craft glue would work) or use double sided tape on both ends of your negative.
You may only want to use a small bit of adhesive to make it easier to switch around different negatives later. Use more adhesive if you'd like to make it more permanent.  

Image: photojojo

Step 3: Lights
Stick the negatives around the outside of the candle holder. Pop the candle in and that's it.

Image: photojojo

What if you have no photo negatives on hand, or don’t want to risk ruining the photo negatives you do have? 


Fear not! Print out your digital photos - in black and white or colour - on transparencies or on vellum, to fit the candle holders.

Image: photojojo

Go on, do something positive with those negatives!

Paper Birds Project

My 15 month old son has figured out how to use my wife's mobile phone. He's a genius!

When I say 'use', what I mean is, he can unlock it and push any random number of buttons and 9 times out of 10 successfully connect to someone in Australia.

Because of this my wife has downloaded an free app called ibabyplay that allows him to slide photos (without fear of deleting) and also bang on the touchscreen, making bleeping sounds to his hearts content - which, lets be honest, is so much more entertaining than the plain old house mobile he's had to play with all these months. The poor deprived child.


In fact, he has just become very much mobile himself.
He has started walking (or more accurately - bouncing from wall to wall) and I realise how quickly he is growing up, especially after being reminded of his first mobile (see what I did there) when I saw this idea on Pointless Pretty Things.

Wonderful paper birds that would make a beautiful suspended mobile for a baby's room.

Image: Pointless Pretty Things

It's such an amazingly lovely idea.

Jump on over to Rachel's site for the instructions and some other great ideas.

If you are looking for a great way to suspend the paper birds over a cot then check out this link to 25 free DIY baby mobile tutorials, I'm sure you'll find a few solutions here.

Image: babble

Button Monogram Project

Last Sunday I was at the Peas + Pods family market where there was some amazing stalls, wonderful people and great products on offer.

From handmade crafts to kids furniture, along with tons of children's clothes and jewelry. There was artwork and quilts and handmade cushions. But if you missed out there's no need to panic. There is another one before Christmas on December 4th. Same place: Newmarket Square. Same time: 11am - 5pm.

One of the stalls, Camilleon Kids, which is run by Agata and Stephanie, had some really lovely pieces. They had some great vintage school desks that they had restored and painted but it was one piece in particular that caught my eye which was a heart made out of buttons and mounted on a small canvas. It was really lovely and it reminded me of a tutorial by Jen Jockish I had once seen on American Crafts Studio

So I have to thank Agata and Stephanie for reminding me of this.
(By the way, you should check out their Facebook page as they have photos of their items for sale.  I think they are back at the Peas + Pods market also in December so if you see anything you like you should be able to pick it up there.)

Image: American Crafts Studio

Here's what you'll need:

(Actually, just before I tell you what you'll need there is one element to this project that is glaringly obvious. Loads of buttons. I know. The average person* doesn't have the odd one or two or possibly hundred spare buttons sitting around but you can pick up mix bags of buttons at any fabric shop like Hickeys for a few quid)

And so, on with the materials.

1. Printer

2. Scissors

3. Card stock
4. Pen or Pencil

5. Adhesive

6. Buttons and Brads

7. Frame without glass

Here are the instructions: 

To create your monogram, begin by cutting card stock large enough to fit in your frame. 

Next, you will need to print out a letter. Play around with it and print a few to find the size and font you want. (Jen ended up using Helvetica font at 700 font size. Keep in mind that you want thick lines in order to fill them up with buttons and brads.)

Then cut out your letter and place in the center of your card stock, tracing the lines onto the paper.

Image: American Crafts Studio

Start placing your large buttons and/or brads onto the card stock, keeping them as lined up with the edges as possible.  

Once you've filled up a large portion of your monogram, it's time to start doing the filler. For this, just use smaller buttons and different size brads. 

Begin with the smaller buttons, then it's time to start with your brads. You can use all different sizes of these, you just need a small spot to poke it through, and then it can overlap with the buttons which adds a lot more dimension.  

Image: American Crafts Studio

Once you've covered your letter with buttons, place it in a frame. 

Jen used an IKEA frame and just removed the glass since this isn't flat.  

Jen then adhered the piece to the frame on the back just to help keep it stable, the paper is fairly heavy once finished. 

Image: American Crafts Studio

Average person*: OK, so YOU are not an average person. You actually have bags and bags of leftover buttons from previous projects and this is a fine way to use up all of them or you really want to create this piece exactly as shown and would love to know EXACTLY what buttons were used.

Well?

Well, Jen has been very kind to provide that information which you can find below.

Variety Buttons (85509), Fabric Brads (85520), Assorted Brads (85521), Mini Pearl Brads (85516), Mini Pearl Brads (85508), Large Jewel Brads Primaries (85300), Large Jewel Brads Pastels (85301), Large Jewel Brads Metallic (85304), Large Pearl Brads Primaries (85315), Large Pearl Brads Pastels (85316), Large Perl Brads Brights (85318), Medium Jewel Brads Primaries (85218), Medium Jewel Brads Pastels (85286), Medium Jewel Brads Neutrals (85291), Mini Jewel Brads Primaries (85270), Mini Jewel Brads Pastels (85271), Mini Jewel Brads Tropicals (85272), Large Glitter Brads Tropicals (85362), Large Jewel Brads Brights (85363), Medium Glitter Brads Primaries (85345), Medium Glitter Brads Brights (85348), Medium Glitter Brads Tropicals (85347), Mini Glitter Brads Tropicals (85332), Mini Glitter Brads Pastels (85331), Mini Glitter Brads Brights (85333), Medium Brads Brights (85393), Medium Brads Tropicals (85392), Medium Brads Baby Girl (85397), Mini Brads Brights (85378), Mini Brads Tropicals (85337), Mini Brads Primaries (85375)

Mini Polaroid Magnets Project

It seems to be that these days very few people actually print out photos or so I keep being told by my mother.

Everything now seems to be digital and it's just so much easier to email photos or post images on Facebook & Twitter, Flickr & Photobucket or Picasa for friends and family and the whole world to see.

In fact, last week I actually went through a large box of old photos searching for a specific picture that I wanted to scan and upload to this very site.

Immediately after I did it, I though "hey, I should scan all my old photos."
This is a great idea. I could have all those old pictures on a hard drive and I can access them when ever I wanted. Then I remembered my son threw my last hard drive across the floor just to see how far it would travel. Surprisingly it wasn't very far as he was only a year old and it's a pretty heavy drive for a one year old.

Not surprisingly though, throwing it "not very far" can still cause the absolute most amount of damage possible.
Everything on it was lost.
My movies, my music and most importantly every photo of my son from the day he was born.

Thankfully I had a backup of all digital photos but as I said earlier - or should I say, as my mother said earlier - "nobody actually prints out photos anymore".

So here's a great reason to select a few digital pictures to print out before they all go kaput on some drive.

Mini Polaroid Magnets.

Image: Ambrosia Creative

This tutorial comes courtesy of Ambrosia Creative who was inspired by this post at How About Orange.

She pretty much followed the tutorial with a few modifications.

What you'll need is:

1. A4 Photo Paper.
2. Craft/pva glue.
3. Craft knife.
4. Piece of cardboard (the back of a notebook/sketchbook) - preferably a used one.
5. Magnetic tape - you can get some from Arts & Crafts co. or check your local art supply shop.
6. A white marker or Tipp-Ex.

Using this link to a Polaroid frame, or just using the jpeg below, crop and scale down your digital photos to fit inside the frame.

Alternatively, you can use the photoshop template provided by Ambrosia Creative.

Jennifer then scaled her Polaroids down to about 0.8″ wide and then printed her selections on photo paper.

Image: Ambrosia Creative

Using craft glue, she mounted the printed sheet to chipboard (she used the back of an old spiral-bound sketch book) and then she laminated her mini photos by laying pieces of clear masking tape on top.

You should be able to pick up clear masking tape in any stationary shop.
Important: The paper glaze in the How About Orange tutorial won't work for this project as it will cause the ink in the photos to run and bleed.

Once the mini Polaroids were cut out, Jennifer used a white opaque marker from Martha Stewart’s craft line, and colored in the edges but you could use Tipp-Ex if you can't find an opaque marker at your art supply shop.

Image: Ambrosia Creative

Then you just need to attach some strips of magnetic tape on the back and you have a great little set of mini Polaroid magnets.

Image: Ambrosia Creative

Image: Ambrosia Creative

So, for the sake of my mother and little boys who like to throw hard drives.

Go get printing.

Movember Project

Image: WonderHowTo

Movember season is here, and if you haven't already started growing your moustache then there is still plenty of time.

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in Ireland and around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer.

There's just one rule.
No beards or goatees.

Here are the complicated instruction on 'How to grow a Moustach'

Step 1: Keep the shaver away from the area between the nose and upper lip.
(Important note: Some say if you shave more, the hair on your face becomes thicker, this is not always true)

Step 2: Let the hair grow and shave around the area of the upper lip.
(Face hair fact: Facial hair appears first at the corners of the upper lips. Do not be alarmed. It will eventually cover the entire upper lip. As the moustache becomes thicker and more noticeable, a process called 'trimming' will begin.)

Step 3: Decide what type of moustache looks best on you.
(Top Tip: Smaller faces need small moustaches. Larger faces need larger moustaches.)
You heard that here first!

Image: reddit

Step 4: Tend to your moustache daily. Keep it trimmed and combed as it grows out and gets thick.

Step 5: December 1st. Shave off your moustache and go back to a normal life.