Tag: diy

My Geeky Valentine: A Photoshop How-to

With Valentine’s Day mere days away, you may be wracking your brain for ideas for that perfect way to share how you feel with that special person(s) in your life. Well, who can say it better than you? Why not make your own Valentine? And since we’re of the geeky sort, why don’t we dial up some digital goodness in Photoshop, hmmm?

Star Trek Valentine from HowtoGeek.com  Firefly Valentine from HowtoGeek.com

HowtoGeek.com offers a full step-by-step tutorial on how to create your own customized geek valentine in Photoshop. They also have very thoughtfully put together 11 geeky valentine images, all zipped together and ready for you to download.  Pictured above are my two favorites from the set, but other images include references to the video game Portal, Star Wars, multi-sided dice, and Futurama.

Which one do you like best? Or what custom Valentine would you like to make?

Fan-tab-stic Chain Mail


I own a purse made from soda pop tops (or pull tabs or whatever you want to call them). It’s somewhere between this Socorro design (it’s a shoulder bag) and the Masha design (not a messenger bag, but it has a flap closure). I did not, however, pay upwards of $100—I lucked out and bought it at Goodwill for a mere $8. Best. Purchase. Ever.

So I’ve been thinking about other things one might make out of soda tabs, and it appears I’m not alone. There are projects galore (complete with handy tutorials) geared toward both fashion plates and Ren Faire nerds. Thought it’d be worth posting a roundup of some of the more interesting projects and different techniques I’ve come across thus far. Oh, and they all seem quite manageable, as long as you have patience and access to a vast quantity of pop tops. Here are a few of my favorites:

NES Cartridge External Hard Drive

Nostalgic. Stylish. Practical. These are just some of the words that I would use to describe 8BitMemory‘s portable hard drive made from an NES Legend of Zelda cartridge. 8BitMemory can put an entire terrabyte of extra space (or 500GB or 750GB if you prefer) into pretty much any old cartridge!

Alternatively, if you’re feeling that DIY itch and want to give this a shot on your own, cr0ybot on instructables has a breakdown of how to put together something similar.

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Harry Potter Wand DIY

Harry Potter Wand DIYACCIO LAPTOP!  (oh man, I wish that would have worked…)

These Harry Potter inspired magic wands are AWESOME!  Your Life Uncommon has a very easy to follow tutorial using only plain white paper, hot glue, and paint.

Oh, and with only 138 days left until the release of Deathly Hallows Pt 2, who’s excited?!  I feel I have to show my true geek colors and make one of these before the final movie premiere…  can’t wait to break out the supplies!

• Harry Potter Wand DIY

• Harry Potter on GeekCrafts

DIY free clock upgrade

DIY free clock upgradeIt was a week full of projects in my home, and I thought I should share one with you all!   When I moved into my apartment over the summer, I purchased two cheap-o $4 wall clocks with the intention of upgrading once I had decorated my new space.  Well, I’ve lived here for more than half a year, and can NO LONGER stand the ugly clocks… what’s a girl on a budget to do?  Get creative!  Here’s what you need:  A Sharpie (I had a package of @ ! { &  stickers on hand that I purchased on clearance and was waiting to use, but you could easily draw the same characters), opaque paper, screwdriver, and a clock.

This project actually took me under 5 minutes from start to finish.  Simply unscrew the clock frame, pop off all 3 hands, cut the paper to fit, draw your characters, and reassemble! Happy crafting :)

• DIY free clock upgrade

• BlackPixel on SmugMug (shameless plug)