Blog Action Day
In recognition of Blog Action Day www.justbuildstuff.com would like to list some ideas for environmentally friendly building that everyone can and should be doing.
- Reuse scrap from previous projects and turn them into something useful instead of sending them to a land fill. You can refer to this posting for one idea.
- Use something you would normally throw away or send to the recycling center in a new or fun way like the Ghost Milk Jugs.
- Use hand tools, they don’t use electricity.
- Dispose of waste appropriately, especially used chemicals and oils.
- Restore old furniture instead of buying new. Check out our recover a stool project for an example.
These are just a few ideas, there are many more ways to be an environmentally friendly builder. Keep building, having fun and reading www.justbuildstuff.com
The Milk Jug is the Ghost!
Light the way for trick-or-treaters this Halloween with spooky ghost lanterns! I love to create crafts, especially ones I can work on with my daughter. Thankfully, I have a subscription to Family Fun magazine that is loaded with creative and inexpensive ideas. This idea came from the October 2007 edition. I started preparing to make this project a couple weeks in advance as it calls for several plastic gallon milk jugs. After we finished drinking the milk I thorougly rinsed the jugs so we wouldn’t greet our trick-or-treaters with a sour milk smell. Once I had collected several jugs we took a black marker and drew ghost faces onto the jugs. We had a blast trying to make each face unique! *Remember to wear art clothes just in case you get some marker on yourself.
Next we plugged in a string of holiday lights and dropped a bulb down each jug. (In Family Fun, they recommend cutting a half-dollar size hole in the back of each jug so you don’t see the string.)
Not only are these ghosts fun to make, but they are also inexpensive. Furthermore, I think they will help trick-or-treaters stay safe as they will be walking on a well-lit path. Plus it helps put everyone in the holiday spirit!
Steps to Produce a Project
Below are the steps that I follow when I am planning to build something.
- Start with an idea of what you want.
- Study similar things, Look at existing product designs, other types of furniture, or anything that exists in nature for inspiration
- Make a quick sketch of the idea
- Ask for input
- Refine the Sketch
- Add Dimensions
- Choose Materials
- Start building and having fun
- Finish and enjoy
During our future projects I hope to lay out some examples of early planning stages.
Fun With ABC Bath Toys!- A Foam Alphabet
My daughter loves to take baths. There are times when she is so crabby it seems nothing will make her happy, but when I put her in the tub she is singing like a lark in no time. Perhaps this is because she loves her bath toys so much. One of her favorite bath toys is something I created in an afternoon – a foam alphabet.
To make this project I used several different colored sheets of foam (shown below) that can be purchased from amazon.com
I plan to make more foam toys for the tub such as foam numbers, shapes, animals and maybe even some “paper” dolls. Let your imagination decide what kind of bath toys you want to make!
My Play Dough Pumpkin!
This is the pumpkin my daughter and I created using the play dough we made in yesterday’s posting. I think it is one of the best play dough pumpkins ever made. Luckily, I have a LOT of orange play dough so I can make more pumpkins. However, the next time I make play dough I am going to decrease the recipe and make a third of a batch at a time. Then I can make different colors with each batch. For the small-scale play dough user like myself I think this will be more than sufficient. On the other hand, If you have a classroom full of kids, or you would like to make enough play dough to give some away (Halloween is coming) I think the large batch is the way to go. Whatever quantity you choose to make, I hope you have fun exercising your creative muscles while you play with your play dough!
