Minecraft Craft

One good thing about having little kids in the house is that you are forced to be creative. And I mean FORCED.

My nephew (6 years of age) has been and still is obsessed with Minecraft (the game.) And boys being boys, turns anything long and straight into a sword - his favorite being the Diamond Sword.

To surprise him, I googled a picture and did my best.

1. The cardboard. This was my first step. I tried looking for the cleanest, straightest looking one I could find.

2. Gridding. Since this is for a kid, I did my best to try and scale it to be small enough for his hands. The good thing about Minecraft is the pixels. So I took a ruler and made a 16 x 16 grid, about 1.5 cm per "pixel."

3. Tracing the shape. The picture says it all.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/256353403761058555/

4. Cut. This took a little longer. I didn't want to bend the cardboard and make the sword all floppy. So I slowly cut along the traced shape with a cutter until I can pop it out.

5. Mummify. This depends on the cardboard you used. Mine was the brown, usual kind and the brown would distort the my water colors. I took used bond paper and cut them into strips. This I then stuck onto the shape with glue and water. This also helped strengthen the sword but kept it light enough for a kid to swing around.

6. Paint. I retraced the lines so that I could see where the pixels were then numbered the squares according to color so that I wouldn't get lost.

Here's the final product.

I only had water colors on hand so the colors were uneven. But he played with it nonetheless.
I also off a bit of the handle so that the corners won't prick and my nephew could have a nice strong grip on it.

My nephew also asked for a pickaxe.

This one looked better. Definite learning curve.

And yes, he used it on me too. -_-

Bottled

I promised a closer look of my bottled things. It's fun turning glass bottles into storage containers. So long as they can easily get in and out, you're ready to go.

It's also a cool way to show off the tiny little things that you've got lying around. For example:

Nails and marbles (cracked glass)

I do a lot of crafts and hand made jewelry and I've got a number of charms to keep organized. Plastic containers are nice but how would they compare to these:

 Key charms. Ready to open up new worlds.

Bracelet charms. Bottling love is fine. Keeping it for those who are worthy.

More bracelet charms. Don't just follow dreams. Once you catch one, don't let it go. Keep it near to remind yourself that happiness is not that far off.

Since it's almost Halloween, the bottles look great as decorative items. I've placed nails and metallic bead spacers in these two.

And to store the storage, give the bottles a place to call their own. I made a wooden box with a hinged lid to keep them. It's like my one-stop-shop(box) when I need my beads and charms. And it feels nice to pull out individual bottles like I'm looking for ingredients for a monster potion (my inner witch just cackles with delight). >:)

 (P.S. Consider the bottles, corks and the materials you'd place in them as choking hazards for children. Safety first!)

Snow Queen Pendant

I've been fascinated by wire-wrapped jewelry for a while, and decided to give it a try.

I bought some craft wire and started bending. (I looked up a number of tutorials online.)

And here it is.

I used a cracked marble (12mm) to wrap and it's blue and the "shinyness" of the wires made me think this could be snow queen jewelry material for costumes.


I can't promise tutorials as I am still an amateur at this, maybe when I get better at it? :)

Let the magic start.

I just got me a new bookshelf. And decided to make a little cubicle of it a home for my weirdness. 

Look, I even got a familiar. Isn't she cute? I call her Butterscotch. :))

1. Yes, that is a time turner.

2. The candle's a toy. I won't endanger my books.

3. Tiny bottles!

4. Cracked glass marbles are in them.

5. The pendant is wire-wrapped - made it myself. *wink* *wink*

6. The chest is hand-made too. Inside are more tiny bottles.

7. I didn't edit the picture. The hazy sunlight gives it a more mystical effect. Don'tcha think?

I'll go over them one by one in the next few entries.

"Double, double toil and trouble; 

Fire burn, and caldron bubble. 

Fillet of a fenny snake, 

In the caldron boil and bake; 

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, 

Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, 

Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,

Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,— 

For a charm of powerful trouble, 

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."

-The Three Witches, Macbeth, Shakespear

I've long since been fascinated by this phrase. I've even searched for pictures of newts. Courtesy of Google, here they are:

(This one even looks like a tiny Toothless)

An eye of a newt seems to be a recurring ingredient in a witch's brew so I thought they were sort of mythical. Just one eye is enough. But then instead of searching for the actual newts, I looked for the meaning behind the poem. And according to http://people.howstuffworks.com/is-eye-of-newt-real-thing.htm, the "eye of newt" is actually a code for mustard seeds. And ironically you can use mustard seeds to ward of witches. (Life even for a witch seems complicated!)

But no matter the meaning, an Eye of Newt seems like the first thing you'd need to pocket to help magic yourself into a life that only existed in your dreams. Hopefully I can make this blog magical too. :)