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Monday, November 23, 2015

Safe Cactus needles

How to make safe cactus needles.


First I started off with some fun foam.  These can be picked up at all different kinds of stores.  I got these from Hobby Lobby.



I cut out a rectangle piece roughly 2 1/2 to 3 inches long, and cut two triangles out of them.



Then I rolled the base, making the three needles stick out at different angles.

I used a phillips screwdriver to make a hole in the styrofoam.






Filled the hole with some school glue.

Twisted the base of the needles into the hole.



and let it dry.



Ta Da!


Here is a picture of the finished cactus.


Monday, October 26, 2015

Anger costume from Inside Out

After a while of discussion my son decided he wanted his Halloween costume to be
 Anger from the movie Inside Out. If you haven't seen it, then you need to.  It is a great movie.
Anyway he wanted to wear his costume to a fall festival.

This is Anger.  He is one of the emotions that live in your head.
So with a deadline of the fall festival, I had only a weekend to start and finish this.



I started by gluing some foam in a cylinder.  (I forgot to take pictures of this step.) Then I cut a V shape out from where his eyebrows would come together.  I added a piece of foam for the eyebrows that went up and over the head.  
I drew out a picture of where the eyes and mouth would go. (From here on I took pictures. I think)
Here he is with the model from Disney Infinity 3.0

I cut out the mouth.



Then I formed a wire that was just slightly bigger than his mouth.  I needed the mouth to stay open as well as hold some shape to the rest of the head.  

I glued the wire in the mouth by using rubber cement.  I dabbed some rubber cement on the inside of the mouth, then once it was dry I put the wire in. I pinched the two pieces of foam around the wire sealing it inside and making a very professional looking lip.


Here is the mouth with the wire all installed.


I did the same thing to the bottom also.


I needed to know where the eyes would sit once I covered them with foam. So I cut into the foam about halfway.  


Then on the eyeball side I did the same glue & pinch technique that I did on the mouth and bottom.  This made the eyeball sit just inside the lip of the eyelid.



Since the head was supposed to be the same on both sides, I wrapped the fabric around the head inside out. (Inside Out, get it?) So it was in a cylinder again. Then I pulled it tight and pinned it together along the back.  I pinned it anywhere it wasn't tight.  I pulled the whole thing off the foam and sewed along where I had pinned.

I pulled it back over the foam and cut out the mouth.  I made sure I had at least and inch of fabric all the way around.  I pulled the fabric inside and hot glued it to the foam. I did the same for the bottom. It ended up looking like this.



I cut out some white fun foam into the shape of teeth.  I ended up redoing this and cut them again leaving them connected in one long strip.



I hot glued the teeth in place. Then I glued a piece of black semi-sheer fabric to the foam inside the head.  I also glued the black material to the backside of the teeth.  That took a lot of care, because for some reason all glue guns get covered with glue and drip at the wrong time.  I will tell you I nearly became anger a few times during this.


The next step was the eyes.   I cut out the eyes out of the white fun foam.  I sewed a long strip of material into a tube.  I turned it inside out (there is that Inside Out joke again) and began gluing it on the eye.

I did the first one and learned from it so I am showing you the better of the two.
I ran a bead of hot glue on the edge and glued the tube around it.  So the edge was covered from both sides.  I only did this around 3/4ths of the eye because the eyebrow would cover the other part.

I hot glued the eyes in place, and pinned them there till the glue cooled.



My wife found a close up picture of his eyes and printed them off in 4 different sizes.  The biggest ones are the ones we used. We cut them out and put spray adhesive on the back of the eyes and glued them in place.  I also sewed some gloves which I forgot to take pictures of because the time of the fall festival was nearly upon us.  My wife took one of my old ties and put tape on it.  We used one of my shirts and rolled the sleeves up.



It was fun seeing Anger go down the inflatable slide.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Monday, June 8, 2015

How to make an easy vine for VBS

How to Make a Vine




This is a simple vine I made for a jungle VBS.




I started out with some Backer Rod.  This stuff is used for filling large gaps before caulking.  It makes  it so you don't have to waste a large amount of caulk on a big hole.  It feels like a very long and thin pool noodle.


I got some green fun foam and cut it into the shape of leaves.


\
A whole bunch of leaves.



Next I used a pencil to make a hole in the backer rod.  I pushed it in at an angle so the leaf would go that direction.



Next I put a drop of glue in the hole.



I rolled the leaf's bottom end and pushed it into the hole.



I also found that I could use the pencil to push it deeper into the hole.


Lather, rinse, repeat.


You could have leaves pointing in all different directions if you want.
 I am OCD (I like to call it CDO that way they are all in alphabetical order) so all of mine are going the same direction.




Ta Da!