From traditional crafts to modern crafts, we’re covering news and interesting projects to educate you and keep you inspired. Design trends and pop culture related projects are here to inspire.
Here’s a great way to take old books and make them new again. Find some of your old children’s books, scour used bookstores or garage sales for unique covers and convert it into your own personal journal or sketchbook. Deborah Merlo takes her favorite Nancy Drew book and shows you how to do it yourself step-by-step. Link.
John writes “Stereo From the Air – I just finished a short tutorial on how to take 3D stereo photographs from on board of an airplane and thought I’d share it with you guys. It’s a fun little project for when you’re pretty much bored out of your skull and stuck in a tiny seat at 33,000 feet.” Link. Here’s another how to I wrote awhile back on making 3D images too. Testing for cosmic rays also passes the time.
Nat sent in a link to his brother-in-law’s Flickr photo set of the a great Cigarbox guitar construction. In MAKE 04, we have a fun article on how-to build and play a sweet-sounding 3-string instrument in an afternoon – Link. Bonus link – here’s MAKE Editor-in-Chief Mark Frauenfelder playing a version he made, right in your browser or in iTunes (QuickTime).
The “Spiral Rainbow Island” created by Richie Sowa is an island is anchored off the coast of Mexico, close to Cancun. The island is made from over 250,000 recycled plastic bottles, packed into netting. Link.
“The Musical Instrument Makers Forum, an interactive forum for the discussion of musical instrument construction, design and repair – Acoustic guitar building, electric guitar making, archtop guitar building, violin making, dulcimer making, mandolin building, banjo building, or any other type of lutherie; pickup winding and rewinding; drum making; flute and recorder making and repair; brass instrument building and repair; and more. For makers of all instruments at any skill level from expert to wannabe.” Thanks Dave! Link.
Pink haired and heavy-metal lovin’ Zach, was an 11 year-old 6th grader last year in Bre Pettis’ art class. At the end of every year, Bre gives his students a chance to work on an independent project. “Zach already knew how to knit and brought in some string to knit with and he needed some knitting needles to being his project,” Bre recalls. “I remember him saying something like ‘I could have used pencils, but this is cooler.’ ” Zach ended up with a cool looking wristband, originally intended to be a scarf. Bre’s video blog, I Make Things, makes us wish we were back in school in Room 132 for art class. Thanks Bre! Link.
“Silent Bob records all incoming music, streaming or otherwise, from the soundcard. When the user decides to record and pushes the button, no problem Silent-Bob has already started the recording 2 minutes earlier! Never miss the begining!” This could be handy for podcasters or anyone looking to record sounds to make their own ringtones. [via] Link.
