May 13

Mario LEGO sprites

mario lego sprites

Last week, Jenny showed you how to use make sprites with hama and perler beads. This week, I’ll share a tutorial with you to do the same thing, but now with LEGO.

sherrycayheyhey created Mario sprite mosaics from small pieces of LEGO. She posted some highly-detailed directions at Instructables.

May 7

Link’s Awakening Sprite Stitch

links awakening sprite stitch

Crafting and 8-bit video games are a perfect combination. You can use beading, quilting, and of course, cross stitching to spark a bit of life in your favorite characters.

At Sprite Stitch, it’s all about geeky stitching. User caslzelda created this scene from Link’s Awakening. I love the colored heart in the center of the piece.

May 4

Hama bead sprites

bead sprite

Brian Nelson on Techerator posted this fantastic tutorial for How to make your favourite nintendo characters with perler beads. I love perler beads (actually, I use hama beads, because that’s what’s readily available in the UK, but they’re exactly the same thing so…) and I haven’t made anything out of them for about 10 years, so I bought myself a load of hama beads in all different colours, and put the tutorial to the test!

Being as it’s been so long since I did anything with hama beads, I started with something really simple –  a mario mushroom! I also put several rows of beads around the edges of the design to make a coaster! (I love my creations to be functional!) See my attempt after the cut!

Continue reading

April 30

Tutorial: Lucky Origami Nintendo Stars

Recently I had to have a late-night conference call for work. It went for two hours and ended at midnight. However, thanks to the wonders of hands-free kits I was able to do some geeky crafting at the same time, so it didn’t feel like much of my evening had been swallowed up by work stuff after all!

Tiny Origami Nintendo Stars

Itty bitty paper Nintendo Stars are really easy and quick to make, and the more you make of them the better they look. If you don’t know how to make these tiny origami stars, keep reading for a quick tutorial.

Continue reading

March 17

Life-Sized Papercraft Zelda

zelda_life_size_papercraft_2_by_minidelirium-d5x1ptd-e1362692038410Zelda’s come along just in time to make sure your life size cardboard Iron Man doesn’t get lonely!

“Minidelerium, a Swedish papercraft hobbyist, made this kickass Zelda figure in 126 hours, which is three weeks of working 8-5, Monday through Friday. (She then gave Zelda away, which seems so sad.).” But never fear…if you need your own life size Zelda and want to take a crack at it, it looks like you can get Minidelerium’s template from Paper’s Juke.

You can see more of Minidelerium’s work over at Deviant Art. “I build papercrafts to keep myself occupied, relax and keep my fingers nimble. all my papercrafts up until Midna has been with 80g/m paper, so I’d say I’m pretty good at this by now. ^_^ however, I’ve now started to work with thicker paper and I’m loving it! it’s so sturdy and easy with the thicker paper. I wouldn’t recommend thin paper if you want good and durable results. it buckles too easy.”

March 14

Nom nom – International Pi Day!

Nom nom - International Pi Day

Today is the 14th of March and that can only mean one thing. No, I don’t mean the birthday of Albert Einstein and Johann Strauss, I mean International Pi day! According to the Pi Day website:

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th (3/14) around the world. Pi (a Greek letter) is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159.

Continue reading