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.
MAKE Flickr photo pool member Kalanda has a photo set of the DIY video projector he made from an old overhead projector and a LCD screen. It’s a pretty low tech creation, but the results appear pretty good. The design also includes two little PC fans to keep the LCD cool while it is running. Link. Bonus link: There’s also another LCD projector project on the photo pool too here.
There are a few services out there that allow you to make your own postage stamps and here’s a new one from Yahoo! In a few simple steps you’ll be configuring your stamps online with our simple customization tool. In days, you’ll receive your stamps in the mail, ready for use! All you need is a Yahoo! Photos account. I’ll eventually try this out once they allow you to use Flickr photos, I really want a LM555 timer chip stamp to send to friends, or other geeky stamps. [via] Link.
Stunning photos of the Orrery clock from Make pal Jacob Appelbaum. The Orrery is a ten foot tall planet tracking display. The lower half is a mechanical binary calculation engine. Each layer is calculating the orbit if one of the six human eye visible planets (Mercury through Saturn) to 28 bits of accuracy. The Orrery is primarily made of monel (a nickel copper alloy), and stainless steel. The planet spheres are ground from natural stones that resemble each planet they represent. [via] Link. More information about the clock here.
Here’s a simply HOW TO on making little charms to hang off wine glasses to help identify which glass is yours. While I don’t think I’d make ones like these, I do think it’s a neat idea to put really odd charms, like weird bolts, electronic chips, cell phone trinkets (like Natalie made) and lots of other things you wouldn’t expect to see hanging off a glass but bound to start some conversations. Link.
One of the hardest parts of sewing is making sure patterns fit to your body shape. Here’s an article online from Threads Magazine that shows four quick, easy, and cheap ways to make your own dress form. “With a few pins, some muslin, and 20 minutes, you can explore more pattern tweaks (and learn more about fitting) on a custom form than you could in hours of flat-pattern investigation on paper.” These DIY dress forms can be made out of duct tape (there are 2 ways!), molded paper-mache, or paper-tape. Link.
Make pal and Make faire participant Mark writes “…an extensive insight view of how I transferred my old digital camera (which would probably fetch only $30 on ebay or such) into a infrared camera. The whole idea is just that a lot of people probably have old cameras laying around, collecting dust, so why not make one of your old cameras an infrared one?” Link. Excellent how-to and documentation.
Matt writes “CVS changed its firmware in more recent versions of the one-time-use camcorders, apparently to stop hacking. The old mathods/applications don’t work, so the camerahacking kids have been trying to sort it out. Here’s one tricky hardware method that some ppl have had success with.” This clever hack just uses a wire, then you’re all set to download the videos again. Link.
