Make Your Own BB-8 Glitter Globe!

bb8globe

This is definitely the droid you’ve been looking for.  Kelly Knox over at Geek and Sundry has a delightful little tutorial on making your own BB-8 Glitter Globe, and it’s the perfect DIY holiday gift (plus it’ll give you something to do while waiting with baited breath for the movie to finally open)! The tutorial includes pictures and detailed instructions for making your own cute little droid. A few clever modifications, and you could probably make this glitter globe into a cute ornament too.  Be sure to share pictures of your glitter-tastic creations!

More Links of Interest

 

Geek Girl Brunch + Comic Book Ornaments

Geek Girl Brunch

I don’t think I’ve yet shared the awesomeness that is Geek Girl Brunch. I discovered it via the Female Geek Bloggers G+ Community, and was immediately intrigued. Ladies getting together to share brunch, drinks, and geek-talk? Sign me up!

The group started in New York City, with its own meetups. They had so much fun together that they decided to roll out chapters, not only across the U.S but worldwide! Sensing I had found my geek tribe, I signed up to be notified about news of the Kansas City chapter. I got an email a few months later notifying me that chapters were forming, and would I like to be an officer to help launch the KC chapter? Because I love my hometown and want to nurture its geek culture, I said yes!

We had our first brunch in July – an informal meetup at the Cheesecake Factory, followed by Star Wars Day at Barnes & Noble. In September we gathered at the Renaissance Festival and strolled the grounds together. Other chapters have enjoyed a wide variety of themes, from a Zombie Crawl to a Xena-themed yoga session to a Pixel Perfect ode to video games.

Next week is KC’s third event, with a “Let’s Get Crafty” theme. My co-leader, another brunchette, and I are each leading a geek-craft. My craft is comic book ornaments, as seen in the examples below. I figured it was an easy introduction to decoupage, but infinitely customizable to whatever comic brunchettes might favor, along with whatever ornament base they might choose.

Comic Book Ornaments by Angie Pedersen

Basic instructions:

  1. Select ornaments in shapes that will showcase an identifiable amount of comic art, in shapes that should be easy to cut out.
  2. Page through your comics for images that will fit your ornament. TIP: If the image you want is too big, you can scan it and resize to fit your ornament. That’s what I did for the Dr. Horrible cube above.
  3. Place the ornament on top of the comic page and trace around it. Cut out with scissors.
  4. Brush Mod Podge (I used matte, but glossy would also work) on the ornament and position the comic cut out on top. Smooth out any wrinkles (a brayer helps here).
  5. Brush a coat of Mod Podge over the surface of the comic image to seal.
  6. Optional: embellish the edges of the ornament with decorative washi tape (see Buffy example above) or acrylic paint (see TARDIS example above). For the Dr. Horrible cube, I colored the top of it with a bronze metallic Sharpie (top not shown).

I hope you will check out Geek Girl Brunch and join in on the fun! If you’re in the KC area, stop by and say hi!

Links of Interest:

Make Space for These Beauties in Your Knitting Queue

Orbital ornaments by Laura Chau

Got some baby geekcrafting in your future? Check out these stellar space ornaments by Laura Chau! Hung all together, I think they would make a great mobile for a baby’s nursery. Or leave them as individual projects to hang on a space-themed tree for the holidays.

Laura is also a prodigious designer of other knit wonders – check her out on Ravelry, too.

Have a Merry Geeky Christmas

Well, I can hardly believe it’s December already (so many presents to finish!), but ’tis the season for Christmas trees and ornaments. Luckily for you all, I have found the perfect way to geek up your home for the holidays! These would make great gifts for fellow nerds, or keep them for yourself!

First up, for all of the Captain America fans, make sure your tree is appropriately patriotic with this lovely felt tree skirt! Crafted by the great folks over at With Our Powers Combined, they took a Dollar Store tree skirt and turned it into the Captain America shield. It’s amazing what you can do with creativity and a few yards of felt.

Captain America tree skirt

Next, for all you Potterheads out there, adorn your tree with the Golden Snitch! Made by Gabrielle from Tiny Apartment Crafts, this Snitch is made from a gold ornament, some acrylic paint, and some glittery wings crafted from wire and tissue paper. Beautiful and shiny, it’s a perfect addition to any tree!

Golden Snitch ornament
Every time a Snitch gets its wings, Gryffindor wins!

Well, no matter what day you celebrate, here’s wishing everyone a great holiday season!

Picard garland

So, are you like everyone else in the United States,  jamming up the halls of your local Micheal’s in search of holiday craft items this weekend? Are you stretched to the max between cookie baking, merry making, gift shopping and card swapping?

Via Twitter comes this lovely, simple idea from @janineveazue about how to get your geek craft on when you just can’t fit one.more.dang.thing into your schedule.

As tweeteth  @janineveazue “You were once a pile of smirking Picards, but now you are a festive holiday garland! ”

Take that, Captain Kirk fans.

Goomba’s Shoe Luigi – Flickr Thursday

Since it’s been a while, let’s refresh your memory. Once a week I go into the Geek Crafts flickr pool to find and share an awesome photo with you. This cannot be done if you don’t join the group and submit your geeky crafts. No, seriously. Go do it now. It’s okay I’ll wait…

Are you done? Okay good!

This week’s find is called Goomba’s Shoe Luigi. Submitted by Danny_8bit, I’m pretty sure it’s a tree ornament. There’s a blog post all about  but not speaking Japanese myself, I still don’t know. I do know, however, that it is awesome!

Check out Danny 8bit on Flickr

Join the Geek Crafts Flickr Group (Did you know we had one?)

More Mario Bros. on Geek Crafts