Pirates and Dinosaurs

There are dinosaurs at the zoo and pirates at the science museum, so I drew these. 

Free Poison Dart Frog Coloring Sheet

Today I had an opportunity to teach some kids about animals! It was quite fun.  As part of the lesson, I had them design their own poison dart frog.  It was extremely satisfying to see something I drew be used as classroom materials.  If I have time this summer I think I'm going to try to draw a series of coloring sheets.

If you would like to print a copy of this, click on the image (to make it bigger), then right click and select 'view image' to get the full size file.

Anklyosauring Spondylosis

Single succulent terrarium with Zebra Haworthia

This is a small terrarium I made for a friend last fall.  I had a glass bowl at the house, and thought it needed to be put to good use.  I purchased a zebra Haworthia succulent, and found some old rocks, dirt, and sand at my house.  That's all you need!
For all my succulent garden and terrarium posts, click here.

First I put some rocks at the bottom of the bowl to allow drainage.  You don't want a succulent to ever sit in water, so the rocks in theory help keep the plant sitting above any water that pools at the bottom after watering.

Next I put in some sand, then dirt, then the succulent, then some more dirt.  The idea is to get loose, sandy soil.  You can make this all simpler by just using succulent/cactus soil instead of mixing sand and dirt.

Lastly I added finishing touches: polished river pebbles and some seashells.  Done!  The plant has been doing quite well for half a year so far.  You don't need to water these very often, which makes them easy plants to have around the house.

DIY Picture Frame Terrarium

I saw this project awhile ago and really wanted to make one myself.  The basic idea is to make an enclosed glass terrarium using old picture frames with the backs removed.  You screw the frames together, add a few hinges and paint, and voila!  I ended up using the countryliving.com directions, rather than the original, so mine has a hinged top.  I also didn't have any access to plywood (or even a saw...) so I used thick cardboard to make the triangular wall tops (we'll see if they rot or not). There is no bottom to either the countryliving or the blogspot versions, so they aren't air-tight, but still hopefully keep in some humidity. 

This is where the project comes from and complete directions.  theupcycler.com is the original, countryliving.com is the fancier version that they then published.

http://theupcycler.blogspot.com/2009/04/picture-frame-terrarium-mini.html

http://www.countryliving.com/crafts/projects/make-terrarium-0410


The hinged-top version (countryliving) has the benefit of being easy to use (you can put plants into it rather than having to pick up the entire box and set it over the plants) but you lose more humidity.  I use mine mostly for decoration, and also as a handy way to keep the cat from eating plants.  Currently I am giving it a trial run with an orchid and a peace lily plant to see whether it keeps enough extra humidity around to help them grow.  Here are some pictures of construction and the final project.

I first foolishly tried to put the screws into the frames by hand.  This led to splintering the frames beyond recognition, so I changed to a drill and life was much easier. 

The four frames making up the top of the case did not sit very flush, so I used Popsicle sticks, wood putty, and hot glue to seal it up a bit.  In the end though, it was a hefty coat of paint that covered most of the little gaps.   

I put the glass back into the frames after the paint dried, and used a bit more hot glue to make sure they stayed in place.

 The little poison dart frog is from an earlier project you can see here. 

DIY St Patrick's Day Irish Temporary Tattoos: Caran D'Ache

Some easy, quick temporary tattoos to make St Patrick's day a little more green!
For the basics of how to use Caran D'Ache face paints, click here

Clover: Start with the black outline.  A four leaf clover is essentially 4 hearts pointed in at each other, each taking up 90 degrees (the base of each heart makes a right angle).  Fill in with green.  Add accents with a lighter green.  Add further accents with white.  Go back over with the original green color to blend.  

Irish Flag: Start with the basic outline of the entire flag (I include one 'wave' in it).  Fill in green, white, orange.  Add a little black then blend it to gray to make one side of the white section of the flag appear to be behind the other.  You'll notice I ended up switching where my 'wave' line was.  I also blend a little black into the edges of the green and orange. 

Celtic Cross: Start with the cross itself.  I imagine the center corners as full circles.  Add the back circle next.  Fill the cross in green and the circle yellow.  Add white accents.  Blend in with green and yellow. 

Lyre:  Start with basic outline.  Add accents and strings.  Fill in yellow.  Add white accent, blend in with yellow.  In the past I've also used orange to make these slightly more fancy, but yellow and white is plenty. 

Mission Style Jewelry Rack/Box Lamp!

 This is a jewelry rack I made from a lamp! I spent a long time looking for inspiration for how to make a jewelry box/rack/storage device that could hold a large number of necklaces but display them rather than shove them in drawers.  I ended up finding a neat lamp at Target that fit the bill perfectly (with some adjustments of course).

Supplies: Lamp (see link below), metal screw hooks, card stock and permament markers, CFL lightbulb.  

I started out with this lamp from Target.

I knew I would need to replace the lamp shade with something smaller so that each side could be used, and of course I had to install the hooks for hanging jewelry, but the overall shape is nice (not too big) and the lamp aspect of it is a fun bonus. 

 First I put in the hooks.  They are about an inch apart, and I was able to screw them in mostly by hand, so not a lot of difficulty there.  One of them did break at the neck when I over tightened it though, so don't try to go too far.  I have all the hooks pointing outwards for ease of use.  I debated putting hooks along the sides of the columns, but decided that would look strange (can always add them later if more space is needed!).   


 Here you see the lamp with the shade removed (it just slides out, not attached in any way). 

Next I drew a pattern for my lamp shade.  I wanted to do a Mission style cover, so I drew a bunch of straight lines and colored in some boxes (just search 'mission style glass' for inspiration).  Fine line between Mission and Modrian. 

The lamp shade was made drawing permament marker on cardstock (110lb wt).  It is two 8x8 inch pieces (each side of the lampshade is 8x4 inches) which are taped together, and a 4x4 inch base piece that has the center cut out of it to go around the light fixture.  Having the lamp shade only 8 inches tall allows you to access all the hooks at once without having to rotate the box.  To tape the pieces together, I first taped them together along one edge, then folded them both in half and put tape on one side and then 'shut' them together.

Note: DO NOT use a regular light bulb with a paper lamp shade! I used a CFL bulb, but still do not leave it turned on when I'm not around (not sure how hot it gets).  Make sure the paper is not directly touching the bulb!

And that was it! It actually took me two tries to make a lamp shade I liked (the lines were a bit wavy the first time around), but overall it was a fairly simple project.