Dinosaur Plate

I saw a photo of a plate with giraffes cut halfway through their necks and sprayed pink. While that was definitely not for me I realized I could substitute the color and the animals with my much preferred silver dinos! (This all is a preparation for a different project, I just needed to get the feel for cutting anonymous dinosaurs, you know, to find out if I was OK with it)

You'll need:

• 3 plastic animals roughly of the same size
• a plate (all I could find was a ceramic one, plastic would be easier)
• spray paint
• exacto knife (not as dull as mine, it took ages to cut through!)
• universal glue
• optional: nail polishes for cooler eyes

So, at first you need to take a look at your dinosaurs, compliment them a little so that they start to feel a false sense of security. Say that the measuring is part of their regular health check. Oh, if they only knew... 

 Once you've decided how high or low you want the plate stand or how much body you want to have above, draw a horizontal line all around them so that you know where to cut. This will take ages since you'll be measuring and getting into place where it is difficult to get.

Then, when they expect it the least, attack- stab them and cut them all around. If you have a dull knife, it will take ages as well.

Once the dinosaurs are halved, stick them to the bottom of your plate. Make sure they are evenly spaced. I started upside down to get them where I needed them but then flipped them over so that gravity would help me.

Repeat with the upper halves. Now, doesn't this start looking cosy? :-)=

Get out and prepare to awaken you street sprayer side. I was lucky - it was sunny as well as windy so that narrowed the time of 2 hours of drying per 1 coat to just plain 2 hours for all coats.

I had to spray two coats per side because as you can see here, the primary color seeped through the first coat.

But two coats was enough so all I needed were final touches - the eyes.

Yeah, they look rad :-D= Or red? I dunno. Pardon my English :-p

Aaaand that's it. I'm not sure this is food safe so I decided to let them treasure the keys.

Origami Cranes Suspended from the Ceiling

I was making hanging origami for my nephew and since I didn't know which would be better (a 3D or 2D version) I did both - the 2D which can be easily hung on the wall was taken for my nephew and I was left with the "3D" one for my kitchen. So, this is how you can make yours... Oh, and I suggest you make a less colorful one. This one was primarily for a kid so I believe you want something more color-coordinated for yourself so bear in mind the colors you want to use and buy or make the square papers from that and not from every color of the rainbow with every patter you can obtain.

You need to master the technique of folding the basic origami creature - the crane - for this. Then it goes very smoothly and it is very similar to what I've done with those ceramic birds in one of my previous DIYs. 

Take your favorite origami creature and multiply it. And by that I mean fold like there is no tomorrow. If you've never done this before I suggest you do your research on youtube where there is like a gazillion tutorials (they have YODA there! but that's too difficult). Get your papers ready and just do, don't think of the pain from the papercuts :-)=

Next step is to find a branch. Go for a walk, it's healthy. And find a fallen branch of your liking. Avoid areas with too many dog owners around - the better version is that the dogs bit into it and you don't want a branch with some mutt's dental record, the worse version is that it was peed on. Repeatedly. When you come home, wash your branch.

Then proceed by drilling holes through the branch (I had to make 3 holes for hanging it from the ceiling and then numerous for the strings with birds). 

Then get you fishing rope and hang the birds on it - they are made of paper so it's easy to get it through them. When you have the amount you want, assembly it all together and admire your work ;-)=

Birds hanging from a branch

 Allright, I admit I can't go to any kind of market without buying something. It probably says how inconsiderate and materialistic person I am but I don't care. Even if it's just a little thing I need to buy something.

So, naturally, I couldn't resist the little birds at the annual ceramic market. I had no idea where to put them or what to do with them, all I knew was that I sure would find a way to make them work in my home and that I needed many. 

So I bought seven of them and on my merry way from the market I started forming a plan in my head.

I knew I would hang them (since there were holes in them) but didn't know what I would hang them from. But that was soon replaced by a memory of my forest walks and all those nice branches just lying on the ground. And that's how I knew the rough final look.

So, if you want to recreate this, here's what you're gonna need:

•  winged ceramic beasts
• ropes or some kind of thread thick enough to hold them and thin enough to go through the holes in them
• beads if you want to put more on the ropes
• a branch
• patience of an angel

The aforementioned patience goes first. The beasts are hollow, and therefore the rope is going to tangle inside of them and will never reach the other hole. And don't think you will be able to use a needle. The eye of the needle which is able to take the thickness of the thread is thicker than the hole in the bird so you are screwed and basically you fool around for eternity before you get the thread through. 

This is also when the beads come in. I wanted the birds to perch on something so I put a bead under each of them. A little branch would look cool as well, I'm sure. So you know the drill: get the rope through and put the beads on wherever you want them till you get to the point where you have all the birds hanging on a rope.

You should wind up with a bunch of ropes of different lengths------->

Next, you just take a branch or a piece of wood or metal or just whatever you want to hang it on and prepare it. I found mine in the woods so I cleaned it, treated it with sandpaper and sprayed it with clear paint.

All that was left was to get the ropes on the branch. I wanted to drill holes through the wood but unfortunately I couldn't find the right size of the screw so I was forced to choose the less prettier version of hanging the birds - the knotting technique ;-)=. I just wrapped the thread around and made a knot. 

Then I took a wire and tied it at the ends of the branch to make a loop to hang the whole piece from.

And that was it. I installed it later above the kitchen table (the lousy picture at the top of this article) and that was it.

Doorknob Necklace Holder

Here's the thing. Whenever I am totally stressed out (yup, they make you feel like that twice a year at the university), somehow from the middle of nowhere my inner DIY genius emerges. My mind is immediately flooded by thousands of DIY projects I could do. And of course, since anything is better than studying, I do not feel like denying my inner DIY genius. 

Now that I am a blogger (oh yeah) I even think of taking step-by-step pictures of the stuff I create to share. However, my old (and now oficially senile) camera has forgotten to store my pictures in its memory so all I can show you is the result. 

But in case you are wondering how to do that:

1) scavenger hunt list: a piece of wood, two colors (red and white), sandpaper, drill, doorknobs, nails or anything for hanging it

2) measure where the holes would look appropriate and drill

3) after introducing the sandpaper to the wood, follow by applying red color

4) when it is all dry, the white color can be sprayed on it (three coats)

5) after drying, take the sandpaper again and just try to uncover the annual rings and basically fool around until you are satisfied with the outcome

6) one top coat of see-through paint and let it dry

7) screw in the doorknobs

8) get rid of the too long screws from the doorknobs at the back (yup, cut the excess off)

9) hang it on the wall

10) surprise your mom on Mother's Day

And this is how it looks like once my mom hang all her necklaces on it.

Melted rainbow necklace holder

I've decided to make a hanger for my ever-growing collection of necklaces (damn you, cheap Ebay things from Asia!). At first I wanted to buy just a regular key holder or something like that (one long piece of wood with hooks in it) but then I decided to go the more difficult and artsy way.

And honestly, it would be a nice picture, too. Just use your imagination.

So, here's how I've done that:

 First, I obtained a base - you can use any type of wood, plastic etc. in any shape. It's up to you, really. What I have here is called OSB.

Then I bought a wooden frame - this particular one is used for framing floors, but who cares? It was the cheapest option and I didn't mind the thickness of it - my holder was gonna be huge so a thin picture frame wouldn't do anyway.

The next thing to do was to cut the frame. Beware of the pattern on the frame and cut it in a way it will fit once put together ;-)

Impatient people, people with dull saws or with no upper body strength will have to file the edges.

Try if your measuring was correct.

Now, next part is to glue the frame to its base. Since the glue takes a day to harden, you will need these to hold the frame to the base - no idea what these suckers are called.

Yeah, like that... There may be a chance of slight imperfections (or gigantic holes) where the two pieces of frame meet. In that case you have two options. Either let it be (like I did) or just fill the holes with some putty/paste or whatever they give you in the shop where they know what they are doing.

Now it's good time for dealing with your stress. Just hammer the nails in like there is no tomorrow ;-)

Matte black spray layer one drying...

Crayon test - how many will fit in?

Melting test (that should be done BEFORE you buy a gazillion packages of crayons) - a quick tip here - you need WAX based crayons.

Undress them - I know you want to!

Now here is a tricky part. Use a glue gun to pin the crayons to the base BUT put the glue only in the upper part of the crayon plus be precise - the glue melts the crayons so you don't want them to move aound much. (I had to break one white crayon because I decided to drill a hole through the base for easier hanging so naturally I didn't want the hook to be stopped by that crayon later when hanging it)

And now the melting begins. Be patient. I takes forever with a hair dryer. Also, you need to have the picure in some angle - letting the gravity to do its thing.

My idea of "I'm satisfied with how it turned out to be"

And now all you need to do is use it. And find out where you have gaps so that you can add more nails...