My Doll House: Kitchen and part of Bathroom Part 1

The box consists for a wall or a floor, then a furniture. Or a furniture, then the small parts and pieces (e.g. kitchen utensils). It comes with instructions, which you can compile and place it in a binder. It also comes with a parts' page, like an inventory of the things you get in the box. It also has this mini magazine of some of the things you may do with the parts and/or layout you can come up with.

1. Sample box and parts





2. Assembly

a. Door





b. Folding table









Here are the completed kitchen utensils. Hmmm...I should've made a size comparison...



c. Bathtub

Most of the parts that was done were kitchen things, so having this bathtub is a bit odd. Nevertheless, it's going here on this post as well.



Note. The bathtub is done by my brother.

Okay, I'll stop here. I need to find the assembly pictures of the rocking chair and the cabinet hehehe~

It won't be long now~

Old shoe, new birdhouse

So I found this lurking in the interwebs, and it needed to be posted.

An easy to make and easy to clean out birdhouse. Just undo the laces to clean it out. The boot was thrown in the trash and I rescued it. Screwed the board to the sole, added the roof made of flashing and a raffia shoelace. I love it and so did a Carolina Chickadee family this year.

- Source



I especially liked the part wherein you can untie the shoelaces to clean the birdhouse.

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If you've noticed, I'm not posting as much as I should've. Well, to tell you guys some news, I'm working on some DIY projects. I just don't have the right equipment to transfer the pictures. Those are being taken care of (a.k.a as soon as sister and her laptop comes home haha), I'll post them here.

I'm excited with the projects, and I hope you will too.

Thank you for bearing with me~

Dvorak Simplified Keyboard

The one we're using is the standard Qwerty Keyboard invented by C. Latham Sholes in the 1860s. In 1936, August Dvorak invented this kind of keyboard layout according to how we use the letters and how we type them. He is, after all, a psychologist (educational).



Here are some facts about the keyboard:

1. Letters should be typed by alternating between hands.
2. For maximum speed and efficiency, the most common letters and digraphs should be the easiest to type. This means that they should be on the home row, which is where the fingers rest, and under the strongest fingers.
3. The least common letters should be on the bottom row, which is the hardest row to reach.
4. The right hand should do more of the typing, because most people are right-handed.
5. Digraphs should not be typed with adjacent fingers.
6. Stroking should generally move from the edges of the board to the middle. An observation of this principle is that, for many people, when tapping fingers on a table, it is easier going from little finger to index than vice versa. This motion on a keyboard is called inboard stroke flow.

Though they weren't successful as the mainstream keyboard, it had found its way to newer platforms and ergonomic keyboards.

Source

I just find this fascinating. And then this comic shows up:



Maybe it IS interesting to learn a new keyboard.

MAKI STOOL!!

noji-berlin released a new set of seating and lightning designs, and one of them is the Maki Stool.

The idea for the MAKI collection came to us while eating sushi. The stools are abstract versions of maki rolls inspired by the original. One wants to sit down on the funny little chairs made of wood and felt and enjoy the sensation of being like a child. nojiberlin loves the carefree nature of youth.

I'd love to have one of these in my room~

Source.

I'm thinking of doing something like this:

Okay, minus the nice pumpkin looking thing on top. I'm thinking of buying choco cupcakes, then melting a batch of marshmallows.

We still have some leftover marshmallows from New Year's. It's a nice way to eat them 8D

^__^

Dropped in to greet all of you a Merry Christmas~!

*goes back to her vacation*

Tweenbots

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Kacie Kinzer build a 10-inch robot to walk around New York city in a social experiment about human interaction. I find this a very good concept, coupled with the fun and child-like factor in the form of a robot.

For more information (included the vid where the robot was walking around) click to on this link.



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Me and a friend of mine were thinking if this was done here in the Philippines. Of course it would give different results:

1. The toy robot may get run over;

2. It must be done in parks like Luneta;

3. May be brought home by street kids;

4. What would happen if it was placed in Ayala.

Okay, so we may be pessimistic about Filipinos. Hmm...then again, this experiment is a NICE idea to be set up here. Watcha think?

Bought meself some air dry clay

I wanted to try doing some little sculpture awhile back, but was a bit disappointed at the cost of polymer clay (P700, Deovir). A friend of mine suggested I use Air Dry Clay instead. You don't need to bake it, just let it dry under the sun or overnight. So I bought 1 kilo (P38, Deovir), and tonight I pulled a chunkful to make trial little sculptures.

So while they're drying (a lamp is hung overhead, turned on), I'm making this post. Here are some things I noticed while using this type of clay:

1. It's gray. Ugly gray. The saleslady said I can paint acrylic over it, so clay color doesn't matter.

2. You need to put water on the clay to make it malleable. I was adviced to mash it first before using (I think this is an SOP on clay substances. I'm not sure though).

3. Putting too much water will make it a slippery gunk of mud.

4. Mold it in any way you want when the clay is just moist.

5. When your done, you can coat it with water to make the outside smoother.

So far I have made what I call a "Cat Set:"

1. Cartoony cat. At least one inch in height.

2. Two bowls, one for food and one for milk/water.

3. Fish

4. Cat food (I don't know what it looks like, and I don't really care, so I got an unused pen, and stabbed the surface with it to make it...chunky)

5. Toy mouse

6. A ball of yarn.

It is also important, and I reiterate IMPORTANT to put plastic over your workspace. Although they can clean off easily, the clay is still pretty messy.

I'll post pictures when I'm done (or I can find the opportunity to transfer picture files from my cellphone).

DIY Rock 'N Roll Bracelet

A small project I cooked up the other day. This one is how to make a rock n roll bracelet.

Materials

1. One inch thick black garter (this one I found in Marikina. Costs me at least P13 for a yard)

2. Black thread

2. Needle

3. Two buttons (you can put as many buttons as you like, with any design that you want. You can also put in safety pins with beads)

4. Scissors

Procedure

1. Cut the garter using a pair of scissors according to the size of your wrist. Make some leeway for sewing.



2. Make small folds on each end, press them against each other, then sew them together. This is to prevent the ends from fraying.





3. Sew the buttons near the sew line. This is to avert the attention on the line by hiding it using the buttons. You can also put any other buttons you want, and other decorations you like to put as well.



Just to show the buttons in relation to the sew line:



4. And your done! Enjoy!

RF Bellato Guild Master Female headgear props

Above. Gray accompanying me while I work. Not what I expected though.

This post is about a headgear I made as part of the costume of the Female Bellato Guild Master. They were photographed a bit too late--they're still in separate pieces though, and is just about to be assembled.

There were three main parts of the headgear, and was constructed out of left over rubberfoam, and some parts using a used illustration board (talk about recycling). I did this overnight because I didn't have enough time to make this on that week. It was a busy week in the office.

1. The main base which was composed of an octagonal box constructed from a thin ply of rubberfoam, and a thick one (at least half inch) as foundation. Then the rest of the small octagonal parts were glued on top, then painted using silver acrylic as the main color. I used at least two coats of paint. It didn't have to be too silvery because the effect I was going for was metallic silver. Black acrylic was used to paint the outline detail.



The one hanging off from the table was made out of cut illustration board, then glued on rubber foam so it'll flap like that.

The Indian feathers-looking things protruding from the back were also made from illustration board. Both painted using silver acrylic.

2. This one is made out of rubberfoam, and the trickiest to assemble. It should be made from one single rubberfoam, which turned out okay on this one. The extension is made from a pattern done beforehand, then glued together.


Note: Since I didn't have time to make corrections, the final product ended up with hexagonal sides instead of octagonal.

3. My favorite piece of all. It was said that when you need to brainstorm, you need to be pressured. Or something like that.

My main problem on this one is making the dome shape in the center. What I did was I cut one of the dishes (from a set of six, small size). It doesn't need to be perfect because you'll be covering it with a rubber foam outline. Paint the outside with red acrylic paint. When it's dry, paint it with glue solution (50% glue, 50% water) carefully to protect the paint and to make it quite glossy.

And then glue it under the rubber foam outline, and now you have a quick orb thingy.



Since it's hard plastic, I used my dad's utility Leatherman and sawed the paint dish off. You have to be careful not to cut yourself.

Once you have assembled the three main parts, you attach a strip of garter under the main base and the flap-thingy on the side (measure beforehand on the model).

And this is the finished product, worn by the model, Chepot:



On another related note, see the necklace Chepot's wearing? That's made out of felt cloth, then painted the details on.

I'm not particularly proud of that. Especially if I have to sew the whole thing in place on the model. After she cosplayed, she had to cut the ends off to free her from the necklace.

In any case, here are some pics:

1. Cut out a strip of yellow felt cloth. Painted the details on using gold and red acrylic (gold to make it more...shinier and sparkly).



2. Rubber foam painted gold (two to three coats). Then painted the details after the base paint has dried.