What I made
921
days ago

Diaper sniper

Diaper sniper - crazy machine

While I put the finishing touches to my next craft tutorial (another upcycling project – all you’ll need is an old fork and a good set of muscles) I thought I’d share the above illustration with you. I’ve named it Diaper Sniper, for my U.S. readers, and Nappy Slappy for my U.K. visitors (if you can think of a better rthyme let me know!). I’ve used it to illustrate my About me section, which has been updated (with the aid of my Mother’s editing skills). Here’s a larger version – just in case you want to see more of the ‘sloppy’ details.

Mark Frauenfelder at Boing Boing just pointed me in the direction of Roy Doty – a cartoonist famed for creating beautifully detailed contraptions like this one. I love this sort of illustration – I’ve even had a go myself, check out my Twitter Factory.

What I made
936
days ago

Scary shark mouth container

Fimo shark mouth container - pencils

1) Sharks will eat anything…

Fimo shark mouth container - cheese straws

2) …especially cheese straws.

Fimo shark mouth container - fish

3) But they love fish the most!

Phew! This craft project has been a bit of a monster (excuse the pun) – I finished making the shark 3 weeks ago, but it has taken me ages to complete the hand drawn tutorial. Anyway, it’s all done now, and I hope you like it.

The Shark is made from Fimo – a polymer modelling clay manufactured by Staedtler. This is the first time I have used a polymer clay, it’s great fun and easy to use, and of course the best thing is you can harden it by baking it in the oven. You can also use wire to support your model, which is really useful, and made it possible to create the shark shown above.

My original idea was to create a toast rack where the shark looks like it is eating the toast. That didn’t really work out (I couldn’t make it big enough) however it works really well with cheese straws, bread sticks and even pencils. Oh… and for a bit of gory fun I also made a half-eaten Fimo fish to hook on to its teeth.

How to make one

Shark mouth - how to diagram

Please note: You will obviously still need to ‘bake’ your model to harden it. Also, there are several makes of polymer clay, I used Fimo, which is readily available in the UK, and I think, available globally.

Download project files›

Includes:
1) Collectable instructions – they are useful and they look good
245 downloads so far, thanks everyone!

If you are not very familiar with Fimo (or with polymer modelling clay in general) check out Maddy Hill’s Mad Imaginations blog, she has a whole category dedicated to her Fimo creations.

What I made
943
days ago

Shiny new Facebook page

Work bench illustration

Firstly, apologies for not posting my next craft project – I’m still working on the hand-drawn instructions (they takes ages to draw).

One of the main reasons I’m running behind is because I’ve been updating my blog – as you can see I have added a Featured on page, a Twitter link, a Shopping cart (the shop is coming sometime soon) and last but not least a new What I Made Facebook page with accompanying ‘Like box’ for my blog.

I’ll be treating my Facebook page like a virtual ‘work bench’ – a place where I can share and discuss the techniques and ideas behind my craft projects. So go check it out – and feel free to show your support by clicking ‘like’!

I may not have a new project to offer, but I did recently revamp my out of this world marble run post – it now includes downloadable hand drawn instructions. Why not go check it out?

Dotted lines
Dotted lines