March 1

Needle-felted Pac-Man Characters

Needle-felted Pac-Man CharactersCan you hear the “bloop bloop bloop”? FuzzyFelties on Etsy is selling this awesome set of needle-felted Pac-Man characters (largest is 1”W x 2”H). You get Pac-Man and four ghosts (love those eyes!) for $32 plus shipping.

Needle-felting has become really popular lately. Crafters are felting everything from animals to food to accessories. With only two tools needed – special barbed needles and a big chunk of foam – this is an easy craft to get started with. Wool roving comes in every color imaginable and kits are readily available. Craftlog has a simple tutorial. A Wii Mii would probably look great in felt.

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February 25

Hand-screenprinted Space Invaders T-shirt

Space Invaders t-shirt This is one geek craft that I actually made myself. I used a $40 screenprinting set I bought at Michael’s to do it. It has 3 invaders on the front right and a single invader on the back in the top middle next to the neck line. I did only one pass with white ink on a black tee and it looks kind of greyish – just like the original B&W Space Invaders arcade game.

I ended up doing about 10 shirts in various ink/shirt color combinations but none looked as good as the black and white. For the invaders, I simply used MAME and took a screenshot of Space Invaders and I enlarged it on-screen to the right size then I printed it out onto transparency paper and used that to make the screen.

It was my first attempt at screenprinting and it really did turn out great. It’s one of my favorites tees – all the better cause I made it myself.

January 24

Woodpixels

Wood Pixels This is an interesting idea – it’s called Woodpixel. It’s a commercial product that lets you create your own pixel art. It comes with 100 wooden blocks with a different wood tone on each side and it comes with a holder to hold the 100 blocks in place. This would be a great way to make some classic/retro video game art. Their site shows a Space Invader, Mario, and a (poorly done) Pac-man Ghost. They are taking pre-orders now – no word on price. I bet it’s expensive though.