| How-To: Sewing Pattern from Packing Tape You can make a sewing pattern for anything by covering it with packing tape (after putting a protective layer of plastic bag over it), cutting it off into pieces and tracing onto paper. Instructables user megg shows us how while making a cover for her bike helmet.Read this article | Comment on this article blog.craftzine.com |
100% Reuse: Industrial Pallet Sectional Couch for Outdoors 100% Reuse: Industrial Pallet Sectional Couch for OutdoorsBy Wendy TremayneWith more people recognizing the value of scrap materials it can be hard to find great stuff in the waste stream. These days I rely on the surplus store as much as the curb. Surplus stores often carry industrial waste materials: tough, oversized items that come in mass, like 4' diameter round metal dishes, human-sized wooden cable spools, or a gross of 1'-tall iron springs, to name a few.Last spring I ran across half a dozen 2'×3' clay-colored plastic pallets at a Surplus City in Albuquerque, N.M. They were likely used to ship a high-end non-consumer item. When I saw the pile of them, weeds grown over the top and wedged under a giant machine that looked as if it may have come out of New Mexico's Sandia Labs, the image of a sectional couch for outdoors flashed in my mind. I had wanted to build one for my porch but had not yet found the right materials in the waste stream. As is often the case in surplus yards, I tried to find an employee to help me dig it out and then got my work gloves out of the trunk and freed my future couch from the clutches of further decay. Then I turned to my little Maxima and wondered how I would get these babies nearly 200 miles south to where I lived. I crammed three of them into my car: one in the trunk, one in the back seat, and I jammed one up front with the passenger seat pushed all the way back. I was a tad nervous that the spiders living inside the pallets would lurch out and find me while I was driving home. A stick of Nag Champa incense that I keep in the ashtray of the car, lit periodically along the drive, helped transform the musky mold smell of the junkyard into the musky smell of a yoga studio. The bounty made it home safe and sound.Last week I went back to Surplus City and found the fourth and last pallet to complete the set, and I made the couches. Here's the project, easily adapted to any industrial pallet you can find.Read this article | Comment on this article blog.craftzine.com |
How-To: Papercut Portrait Paul from Dude Craft has created a wonderful, thorough video tutorial for creating these cool papercut portraits. I can't wait to try it! Read this article | Comment on this article blog.craftzine.com |
The Harbinger Co. Laser-Cut Jewelry Last weekend, at Bazaar Bizarre in San Francisco, our CRAFT table was neighbors with Yvonne Hung, the maker behind The Harbinger Co.'s incredible line of bamboo laser-cut jewelry. As soon as we rolled in and I laid eyes on Yvonne's work, I was enthralled. I must say her designs are some of the freshest and most original I've seen. With MAKE so near to my heart, her geometric lovelies had my full attention. And she crafts them using a laser cutter to boot. The hardest part was choosing which design to get, and I chose the Bamboocomb earrings, pictured above. I love them! They remind me of an earthy tribute to Q*bert. Read this article | Comment on this article blog.craftzine.com |
How-To: Chocolate iPhone Andrew Lim was sad he broke his iPhone so he used the packaging to make a new one out of chocolate. I agree: "delicious!"Read this article | Comment on this article blog.craftzine.com |