handmade clock

Few days ago me and Ann, we made a clock. It wasn't very difficult because Ann had bought mechanism and other parts earlier. We had to only:
- cut out rectangular shape out of a piece of plywood
- do it straight along the line
- not to cut ourselves
- paint the wood
- put in the mechanism
- get the battery :)

Ann found some plywood in her storage room so we had some free meterials.




















At first I had some problems with keeping the line straight, but evetually I learned how to use a jigsaw. We thought that the worst part was over when I had finished cutting, but we were wrong :) Painting took a lot of time to get the effect which was Ann's aim. We had only 3 basic colours of paint, plus white one so we had to recall how to mix them to get for example beige.. That was fun :P





















After painting I drilled a hole in the center of this piece of wood. It turned out that we should have a thinner plywood for this clock mechanism to screw it onto the wood (you have to put a piece of mechanism into this hole and screw a cap and the hands on the other side but for us this part was to short). Eventually we glued everything together and added the hands.

This is our clock:

It will hang over Ann&Luke's TV :)

GREAT TUTORIAL

Recently on threadbanger I found great tutorial about "how to resize your t-shirt". You can see it here. Watching it I resized one of my newest tees which I had bought in Iceland. I didn't make the braid effect but even without it my old-new fitted t-shirt looks amazing.

It was first time I sew the sleeves (I was always to scared to do it :)) and now I know it isn't so difficult. Try it yourself! :)

Pipe lamp idea

Hello hello,

I'm back :) Again.. I know I hadn't been here for a while.. Well maybe even longer. But you have to get use to it - I'm not good at systematic blogging. :)

Today my (in fact our - mine and my husband's) project. It's a floor lamp made out of pipes, elbow connections and few other known to plumbers parts.

We used some those parts (all 3/4''):

You can see usage of most of them here:


You ask why we wanted to make a lamp out of pipes? Some of you surely ask a question "why not buy a pretty, maybe even cheaper lamp?" We answer: "To make something!" :)

We hit on this idea after I found an old lamp shade which had been thrown out by someone who lives in our building. I decided to take it. It was very dirty, ugly coloured, but had beautiful shape. I tried to wash it, but it didn't work.

Picture before (after taking off the strings which stretched the material over the framework) :


We bought a piece of yellow fabric in the second hand shop and I sew my first lamp shade using the old one as a pattern. I had problems with stretching new fabric because it wasn't stretchy but with a little help of my husband, I succeeded.

And taaadammmmmmm!

And this is how our new lamp looks like next to most comfortables of our furniture:


This is ofcourse only a general idea and I didn't want to give you full tutorial how to do exactly this lamp. You have to try it yourself :)

The best part of this project was having fun and trying to dovetail all parts in the shop. Other clients had a laugh :)


Our inspiration were works of http://www.kozo-lamp.com/

Help me to win the contest please

In my company there is a contest on our company blog for the most popular article.

This is my post:
http://www.imagineblog.pl/dry-kiss-czyli-trudna-sztuka-dobrego-programowania/

Please click to help me win this contest :) I don't know the prize - it's a suprise from my boss :) But I reeeeeaaaaallllllllly want to win :D

Edit:
I WON! THANKS SOOOOOOO MUCH!

DIY reupholstery

Last weekend with my friend Ann, I tried once again to reupholster two Ann's pouffs. First time wasn't very succesfull but now we are proud of our work.

"Before" they were very worn out. They were upholstered with some leatherette, made in PRL years. This picture was taken just after cutting off the buttons:
Not very pretty, huh? Ann decided to do something with them or to threw them out. But fortunatelly we managed to give them new look :) They were worth our time and effort. And "after"? Taadaaam:

Voila! :D

Fabolous, aren't they? Ann is considering if buttons are necessary, but with or without them pouffs look stunning :)

We bought some fabric in second hand shop - it was long curtain. Ann spent about 10 pln for it. When we came to Ann's apartament, it turned out that it's perfect color - exactly the same as Ann&Luke's couch!

We plan to upholster my coat hanger. If we'll find time.. :)

what's new?

well generally nothing.. time is what i lack of and nothing more. i work, write, sleep and again work...

i'm tired of computer, my back hurts.. but i will prevail! hopefully.. cross fingers!

i don't have time for crafting...

old&new crafts

well, some time ago I made a pair of felt slippers. I used old felted striped sweater. Although they don't look as amazing as those from japanese craft magazine, but they are very soft and warm - i love them :) recently we moved to "our flat" and we wanted to change some simple ikea furniture to "our ones", slightly different than those straight from the shop. So we glued some wallpaper to the bookshelf, and now we have shelf with mesh networks pattern (kind of network topology for those who doesn't like computer science). I know that someone, who designed this pattern wanted to achieve some kind of star or floralish pattern, but for us (2 computer scientists) it looks more like network topology than like some flowers. :D


This weekend my sister was a bridesmade on his friend's wedding. She wanted to have pink handbag. She couldn't find suitable design in the shops so decided to make it herself. Our parents helped her: dad made a framework from 2 plastic flowerpots joined together with sticky tape (he developed barrel shaped container) and mom sewed the material, which my sister liked, to this frame.
And voila!
last but not least - a table that I made with my mom in 2000. It is made from broken tiles, glued to wooden circle. Now it is standing on my balcony - I can eat breakfast or read a book there. :)

spring pictures

hello hello!
me again :D no time to write, just beautiful pictures of polish spring :D


we tried to make some metheglin this weekend in Jarosław. It has to stay in this big bottle for at least 8 months.. I hope it will be good :D:D:D
and our delicious dinner - scrumbled eggs with some raddish and spring onion. :) Mmmmmm...

my MA thesis?... working through it.. :D