Tattoo Artist’s Incredible Disney Villains for 8-Year-Old

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This entry actually comes from a non-geeky place: Yahoo! News, in an article by Makenzie Koch. 8-year-old Hope Laliberte has been wearing leg braces for the past four years, but not just any leg braces. Her first pair had skulls and crossbones on the back. Her second pair featured Batman and Spider-Man.

When it was time to get new braces, Hope didn’t even consider princesses or hearts and rainbows. She only wanted one thing — Disney villains.

Hope wanted braces that showcased Ursula, the evil sea witch from “The Little Mermaid,” and Cruella de Vil, the fashion foe of “101 Dalmatians.” But the brace clinic at Boston Children’s Hospital where Hope has her braces fitted didn’t carry such designs, only a limited sample book from which children can choose from. “They offer all different types of little girl designs, but she wasn’t having any of that,” says the mom.

So Laliberte-Lebeau turned to family friend and tattoo artist Aaron Guillemette to make Hope’s wish come true. She ordered light pink braces, and sent them to Guillemette, who owns tattoo shop Up in Flames in Fall River, to do a custom design.

The light pink braces are made of a resin and acrylic plastic, which made the process difficult when Guillemette tried to apply paint directly to the braces, according to a story published recently by The Herald News. Instead, he drew the characters on sticker paper and painted them with acrylic paint. After several drafts, he attached the papers to Hope’s braces and coated them in polyurethane to protect the art work.

Hope’s new braces now have her two favorite Disney villains on the back complete with evil eels, Dalmatian spots, and Hope’s name.

TARDIS Upholstered Bench

tardis bench

Class, this morning in Geek Upholstery 101, we are going to learn about the many forms the TARDIS can take.

Allofthefrosties posted this album to Imgur recently. It’s a look at the before, during and after of a bench refinished to look like our beloved TARDIS. The bench was left in Allofthefrosties home when he/she moved in, and the previous owner never came back for it. With a little wood glue, paint, dowels (to create the window panes), rubber cement, foam and fabric, Allofthefrosties has shown us how the most mundane piece of furniture can be TARDIS-ized.

The Geek Crafting Gods Have Smiled On Us

Remember my post about the lamp featuring Obi-Wan Kenobi fighting a Great White Shark? Someone has made another great action figure lamp!

avengers lamp

downtwobane posted an album of the process on Imgur. His sister bought a cheap Avengers playset ($10) at the Disney Store for his birthday. He had seen other examples of action figure lamps online and decided to make one with these figures. The lamp was $2 from a thrift store, and he Super Glued the figures to the lamp base.

And as a thank you to his sister, keep scrolling through that album to see the Frozen lamp he made for her.

Did you ever wonder what the Doctor’s closet might look like?

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SheepBlue, a craftster from Ann Arbor, MI, decided to craft up a tiny version of the Doctor’s very own closet.

She repurposed a simple wood box from Michael’s, and gave it an uneven Tardis blue staining. In the closet, SheepBlue included a spare spare key, emergency party bananas, a copy of Summer Falls and An Angel’s Kiss, *gasp* TWO Weeping Angel children (how did they get there! Don’t blink!), River Song’s party heels, a tropical umbrella (you never know when you’re going to need festively bright umbrella), a portrait of River Song, Vincent’s hat, the Doctor’s fez, an extra Christmas tree decoration, an extra psychic paper book, a copy of the Don’t Blink tapes on disc, oh, and a sword. Because the Doctor might need a sword someday…for some reason…

Be sure to take a look through the posting over at Craftster to see everything included in the Doctor’s closet.

Making science fun with paper roller coasters

Paper Roller Coaster by Andrew Gatt

My grade school days are so far behind me, I remember very little about any sort of science experiments. I vaguely recall something about adding food coloring to water to turn white carnations different colors. BOR-ING. If I had Andrew Gatt for a teacher, I think I would have some pretty epic science memories.

As the lower school science specialist as a school in Raleigh, North Carolina, Andrew started building paper roller coasters in the late 90s as an activity in his 5th grade classroom. He continued refining his designs over the years, and started making presentations of his designs at teacher conventions and eventually started selling the templates and directions.  These days, he teaches science to 7th and 8th graders and uses the templates with his 7th graders each fall. The templates are available on his website.

Homeschoolers and science aficionados rejoice! Andrew offers three lesson plans to use with the paper roller coasters, which are available for free download on his website, PaperRollerCoasters.com. “The lesson plans show how paper roller coasters can be used to teach about speed, acceleration, potential energy, and kinetic energy,” says Andrew. “It’s also a great structural engineering lesson in which students have to build a sturdy structure that will hold up the tracks.”

See videos of paper roller coasters in action on Andrew’s YouTube channel!

Up to the challenge of building your own coaster? We’d love to hear about your efforts and results – feel free to share a link to your creation in the comments below! Go forth now and SCIENCE!

Links of Interest:
Andrew’s site, PaperRollerCoasters.com
More science crafts on GeekCrafts
Science category on GeekCrafts