Repurposed Books

I for one own three devices that allow me to read ebooks on the go and I use them with some regularity. However, I own many, many more physical books than ebooks and I hope that never changes. Any book lover will tell you that there is just something about reading an actual book that can't be replaced by an electronic. The biggest downside to books is that they can only take so much before they wear out and begin to lose pages. I have a few books that if I open, I'm pretty sure they will disintegrate. Too much of my love and time have gone into those well worn books and I can't bring myself to just throw them away. So I took to Google and Pinterest to find new lives for my friends and figured I share some with you.

Book Cover for Your Wireless Router from Apartment Therapy

The Modern Library Storage Bin from Able+Baker Etsy 

Book Lamp from HGTV

 Repurposed Book Purse from Amandita Designs

Book Safe from Art of Manliness 

I hope these ideas have given you inspiration on ways to bring new life to your old friends. Happy crafting!

Galactic Goblets

Birthday gifts aren't always easy to come up with. Sometimes you want something that is custom made for someone that fits their interests exactly. For that you want something like these etched cups.

Specially made for the Star Trek, and of course, drinking enthusiast, these cups boldly go where no cup has gone before. The cups have the uniform logo from the original series on one side and Star Trek in the shows special font going up the other side.

Nearly anything can be designed to be etched into a cup like this, so it makes a great gift to make nearly anyone happy.

To start you are going to want to find some good cups. You will want to find glasses with flat surfaces so the image you will be applying won’t be distorted.

Next you are going to want to find the image to put onto the glasses. Keep in mind the more complicated the image is to draw the harder it is going to be to cut out. After that you will want to size out the image so it will fit properly on the cup. After getting the image to size you will trace the image onto contact paper using carbon paper.

After cleaning the glass thoroughly, take the contact paper and place it onto the glass. Do your best to make sure it’s not at an odd angle. Use an x-acto, or similar craft knife, to cut the image out on the glass. Peel the cut areas from the glass.

 Apply masking tape around the glass to cover everywhere but the area where the graphic is going to be. Then apply etching compound to the graphic area. Follow the directions from your etching compound. Most will want to be left on for several minutes.

After the compound has done its job you just need to rinse off the compound thoroughly, remove the tape and contact paper, give the glass a thorough cleaning and then fix yourself a nice drink in your custom glass. Perhaps one of these Star Trek inspired drink recipes used at Quark’s Bar.

d20 Bag

I've put a lot of thought into what my favorite thing I've made is. It took some time because I've been crafting for awhile but after much consideration I've landed on this...

my first attempt at the the d20 bag. For all you non nerds a d20 is a twenty sided dice used mainly in tabletop role playing games. If you want to represent Dungeons and Dragons with just one object it would be a d20. It is the quintessential tabletop roleplaying item and the people at Evil Mad Scientist have given us the ability to recreate it in bag form. Not only have they given us instructions on how to sew your own d20 bag but also how to sew a d12 bag for all your favorite Barbarians and Great Axe wielders.

Now seeing as that particular one was my first attempt at it, not to mention one of the first things I ever sewed myself, it only came out sew-sew (haha get it.) It is floppy and doesn't have the nice edges of the one in the instructions, there are threads hanging out, and places where edges didn't quite meet up but I still love it. I've since learned from my mistakes on the first one and made a new one. 

It came out a lot better this time. As it turns out having a zipper foot for your sewing machine is a good thing to have when sewing in zippers, who would have thought. If anyone decides to make your own I have a warning for you: be aware of what you are getting yourself into. This bag requires you to cut out 60 pieces of material and that alone is time consuming, not to mention dewing all those pieces together. Make sure you use heavyweight interfacing if you want the nice crisp edges but if you like the floppy version just use some light or medium weight interfacing. I hope your first attempt comes out better than mine.