I love tiny things. And even better than tiny things is tiny geeky things! Lauren of The Clay Collection makes amazingly detailed itty, bitty polymer clay goodies. She even takes custom orders and it looks like she can handle just about anything. Check out her Etsy shop too see all her ready-made goods. Here are a few of my favorites:
ArcadeControls user griffindodd made this sweet Donkey Cong cocktail-style cabinet using a old wine barrel! Now, who’s ready to roll this bad boy around an abandoned construction site?
“Every time friends or family see my builds they always say the same thing “Oh you should make these and sell them”, to which my answer is always the same “It’s just not worth the man hours for what I could charge”. With that being said there are people quite successfully making bar tops and selling them on a regular basis, and, I assume, turning a profit of some kind,” griffondodd wrote.
Here’s his breakdown of the project:
Costs so far
Used Oak Wine Barrel – $87.00
17″ 4:3 Monitor – $25.00 (Craigslist)
Craftymech SLG Scanline generator – $23
Power Strip – $6
Amplifier – $19
Power Socket – $5
4x PCB Feet – $2
Power Supply – $18
2x long shaft zippy sticks – $16
Jamma Wiring Harness – $10
4x Regular Buttons& Switch – $4
3x Player Start Buttons – $3
Speakers – $15
1/2″ Bevelled Glass – $84.00
Laminated Control Panel art – $38
Bezel Artwork – $22
Paint – $6
Stain – $13
Shipping to date – $19.00
Total Build Cost – $415
Hours Spent Total – Approx 20 hours
Sourcing/Ordering Parts – 2 Hours
Vector Artwork Barrel Top – 1 Hour
Wood cut templates – 1.5 hours
Build in general – 15 hours
Because it is the #1 paid app in both the U.S. and the U.K., perhaps I should feel some geek-shame in admitting that I’ve never played Angry Birds, and in fact don’t even have it installed on my iPhone. I have only a few computer game addictions (my family calls me the Great White Chuzzle Hunter), and Angry Birds hasn’t made the list — yet.
But I know both my son and husband really love it, along with scores of others, including Punk Projects blogger Katie. She created a set of Angry Birds magnets, and kindly put together a super easy tutorial so you too can have your own set.
You could of course adapt this idea to pretty much any platform game, such as Mario Brothers or Donkey Kong.
Links of Interest:
Perler beads are perfect for recreating 8-bit video game characters and scenes. They can be used for all kinds of amazing geeky crafts and are so easy to use, anyone can do it. Below you will find 10 incredible examples of the things you can do with Perler beads.
Danny_8bit makes some elaborate Perler bead art. This little scene from Super Mario Brothers is attached to a briefcase.
The Float Eye Boss from Final Fantasy has great shading. Faith9990 really got the details in on this one. Is it just me or does this guy look like an evil version of Mike from Monsters, Inc.?
I know my eight-year-old could tell me who all these little guys are. For now, I’ll take Fashion’s word that they are Pokemon and they are an impressive collection.
Here at Geek Crafts, we seem to always end up back on Star Wars. Flickr user Copy + Waste made this huge R2D2 from Perler beads.
I’m not a big Star Trek fan, but this is the second Star Trek craft that I really like (the other was the Spock apron). blakewest did a great job capturing the look of the original illustration.
Here’s another one from Danny_8bit: a very elaborate Donkey Kong/Burgertime combo scene – not sure why the two games are mixed, but it still looks great!
Wow – what an incredible likeness of the evil Sinistar himself. Awesome job done by CoderKev. “Run, coward!”
Faith9990 does it again with these little Space Invaders keychains. They aren’t attached yet, but if you look closely, you can see that a bead is purposely missing from each one to attach the keyring to.
I love the dimensional Perler bead crafts. Doctor Octoroc used what looks to be three layers of beads to make this Gameboy Color 3D.
And one more by Doctor Octoroc: Samus Aran vs. Omega Metroid. I think this is the most detailed Perler Bead art I have seen. Details + shading + size = pure awesomeness. (I don’t think that’s a direct quote there from Samus)
