Miss Cuddlefish at craftster made this Mario Bros. Zen Garden for her boyfriend’s birthday.
With the Invincibility Star on the outside and a teeny Mario and a Koopa on the inside, to keep you company while you tend your garden, this is one set sure to bring out the Buddhist in any geek.
I’m growing tired of summer and am totally ready for the Fall to begin. So, I’ve been hunting down more and more Halloween craft ideas. When I ran across this one, I knew I had to share it with you guys. I haven’t tried this yet, but the instructions make it sound super easy, and the effect is delightful. Can you imagine a half dozen of these man-eating beauties on your porch this year? Check out the full tutorial by Shirley Bovshow in the Garden Crafts section of the Eden Maker Blog. And be sure to share the results of your fabulous Halloween decorating!
More Links of Interest
Did you know that in geometry, a tesseract, also called an 8-cell or regular octachoron or cubic prism, is the four-dimensional analog of the cube? According to Wolfram MathWorld, in Madeleine L’Engle’s novel, A Wrinkle in Time, the characters in the story travel through time and space using tesseracts. According to Google, Tesseract is also probably the most accurate open source OCR engine available.
Of course, in the Marvel universe, there is yet another use of a Tesseract – as an Infinity Stone, one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe. It can open rifts in space, which ties in nicely with Madeleine L’Engle’s use of it. While Odin keeps watch over the Tesseract in Asgard, you can create your own replica based on this quick project by Venessa Baez (complete with 3-1/2 minute video). With an acrylic photo cube, a few swipes of paint, some LED garden lights, and waxed paper, you can have a great geeky decor item for your desk or bookshelf.
If you could open a rift in time and space, where would you go? And would you make the “Vwoop, vwoop!” sound effect like a TARDIS?
Thanks to Pinterest, I recently stumbled across the most incredibly detailed miniature Bag End from Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Maddie Chambers-Brindley made it for some college coursework on “the importance of play.” She drew upon her experience making Warhammer miniature scenery and models to create the Bag End model.
Check out the level of detail – the top of the “hill” comes off to reveal the interior, and inside there’s a fire in the fireplace, a miniature area rug, hand-tiled floors, portraits of Belladonna Took and Bungo Baggins, the Baggins family tree, and a wee vegetable garden outside.
In this post Maddie talks about her creative process.
Have you ever worked with miniatures? What fantastical world would you like to take on to recreate in mini-form?
Links of Interest:
Are you looking forward to the new Pokémon games already? I can certainly say I’m thrilled with every bit of leaked news from badly-scanned Japanese magazines! The recent addition of Mega Evolutions throws something new to the mix and I can’t wait to find out awesome the even more powerful Pokémon will be in the games. As an European, the worldwide release date makes me a happy panda. To ease the wait til October, here’s a Pokémon craft.
While hats are not entirely in season, you’ll never know what the weather is going to be like in September, so you might want to start stocking up on them. (I mean, can you ever get enough?) I would surely recommend this Pokémon-inspired fleece hat by Higginstuff. For this beauty and more fleece hats and plushes, I direct you to her etsy shop.
Help! My house is being Space Invaded!
Alright it isn’t – it’s just clever camera trickery in the form of flash stencilling. But it’s a pretty neat effect and a lot of fun, so I thought I’d share with you how it can be done.
You will need:
