Geek Crafts

December twenty-eighth came and went, and most New Yorkers went about their lives, blissfully unaware that their city had been taken over by ten sultry, lingerie modeling, miniature monsters. For the next several days, these monsters would hide out in random, unassuming spots in the Big Apple, awaiting discovery–and when they were discovered?  Well, they did what any well meaning monster would do, they directed the finder to Find A Monster where they could find out their monster’s name, basic information, biography, and a coupon for Bare Necessities!

Find A Monster is taking guerrilla marketing to a new, and pretty geeky level. This was the first Find A Monster experiment, lasting a few days–but if you follow @findamonster on Twitter, you’ll be the first to know about the next Find A Monster campaign and get clues to discover a mini-monster of your very own. Why monsters, though? JPD Studios, the marketing company responsible for the New York City monster invasion wanted to combine art and guerrilla marketing–and why not monsters? When Krista, from JPD Studios spoke with me she said,

…we chose monsters for this project because there’s no predefined idea of what a “monster” is. This allows for the artists’ creativity to be fairly limitless and we can easily tailor the monsters to a specific theme. Our monsters range from scary, funny, silly, cute, pretty, sexy, evil. Plus, everyone loves monsters!

And isn’t that the truth? I can’t wait to see what the next Find A Monster campaign is, and what they’ll be wearing!

• Find A Monster
• Bare Necessities

If you’re like me, anything that glorifies geekdom is awesome, and if it glorifies geekdom in a hilarious way that may or may not feature a Battlestar Galactica toaster, then…it’s even more awesome! DoAFlip posted this great Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock Cross-Stitch featuring the game of internet fame and a quote from the Big Bang Theory episode that brought it to the world. Haven’t seen it? Well the rules are simple:

1. Scissor cuts paper
2. Paper covers rock
3. Rock smashes lizard
4. Lizard poisons Spock.
5. Spock smashes scissors
6. Scissors decapitates lizard
7. Lizard eats paper
8. Paper disproves Spock
9. Spock vaporizes rock
10. Rock smashes scissors.

Easy enough, right? And this great cross-stitch is perfect for reminding us that there is always an amicable way (that includes Spock) to settle an argument.

• Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock Cross-Stitch

The Super Colossal Crafty Wonderland sale is coming up this Sunday in Portland, Oregon, and there will be some fantastic geeky crafts for sale!

My Imaginary Boyfriend will have her screenprinted + embroidered robot ornaments there (I bought one from her at Felt Club two years ago and it is one of my all-time favorite holiday finds),

Berkley Illustration will have plenty of superhero artwork (like this Captain Burnside print),

Leethal will be selling her excellent Game Knitting ebook,

and Bread and Badger will have astronaut etched glassware!

If you’re not in Portland, no worries, all of these crafters have their work available online as well - click the photos or see the list of links below.

p.s. If you are coming to the sale, please stop by the craft demo area between 1 and 2:30 to make a set of button hairclips with me! Maybe some evil buttons?

• Crafty Wonderland
• Robots from My Imaginary Boyfriend
• Superheroes from Berkley Illustration
• Game Knitting from Leethal
• Astronaut Glassware from Bread + Badger
• Button Hairclips Craft Demo

Two years ago, CRAFT: did a fun round-up of quick and easy Halloween costumes to make for kids, and Diana Eng made a fantastic Lego costume out of a cardboard box!

You could easily adapt this to an adult size, or make a whole flock of them in different colors for you and your friends — and how cute would a toddler be Lego-ized?

For more Halloween costume ideas for kids, check out CRAFT:’s other tutorials for pirate, bee, sushi, and monkey costumes. I made the monkey one with my nephew in mind, and it’s one of my favorite projects ever!

• CRAFT Halloween Costumes for Kids
• Lego costume by Diana Eng

Weddings are supposed to be all about the bride and groom, right? Well, if the bride and groom are total word-nerds then this awesome Scrabble Wedding Cake from Pink Cake Box is the most awesome cake around. Mrs. Hummingbird posted this, with a load of other Scrabulous wedding ideas at Weddingbee, and I’ll be honest, I am a bit inspired.

I love the freedom that comes with the modern wedding, a friend of mine had a little Dalek bride and groom hanging out on one of the tiers of his wedding cake, and other geek-themed weddings are popping up all over in pictures on the web.

The great thing is, even if wedding bells aren’t ringing in your near future, you can use the ideas at Weddingbee’s Scrabble page to throw the best Scrabble themed party anyone has ever seen!

• Scrabble Wedding Cake
• Pink Cake Box

If you are a word-nerd like me, this Scrabble Board Picture Frame is probably lifting your spirits as I type. Kelly Jensen from photojojo submitted this awesome picture frame project to us and I was too busy digging through my garage for an old Scrabble board to post it before now.  Check out photojo for more ideas using different board games and a couple of definitions of those weird “Scrabble words” that the real pros use.

• Scrabble Board Picture Frame