Man Made DIY

NPR's All Tech Considered blog takes a look at Noel Dickover, a hobbyist pumpkin carving master, who's created some amazingly detailed Star Wars themed jack-o-lanterns. "For Halloween and Star Wars geeks alike, it's truly a harmonic convergence of awesomeness."

As Noel says, "There's a difference between carving a pattern on a pumpkin, and a pumpkin sculpt.  In the case of R2-D2, or the Deathstar, for instance, the pumpkin "is" the object, not just a portrait.  So in thinking about carving R2-D2, I absolutely had to have a fairly tall, completely cylindrical looking pumpkin.  I found one that weighed in at right around 40 lbs. Without this, there's no way I could have gotten the detail I was looking… read more

No fancy talk. No clever intros. Bookshelves are cool, and these are some of the best we've seen.

With the exception of Ed Wood, I do my best to avoid Tim Burton movies. (Well, and PeeWee's Big Adventure, but that doesn't really qualify). Sure, they've got the visuals down, but dude can't tell a story...After six minutes, I'm boooooooard.

Thankfully, Burton's first animated short, Vincent, last's just that long. It's a stop-motion treatment of a Burton's eponymous poem about a macabre little boy obsessed with Vincent Price (who narrated) and Edgar Allen Poe. No surprise there, but it's quite fun to watch each year around… read more

Artist David Hockney began experimenting with painting fresh flowers on his iPhone when he first got the smartphone and the Brushes app in 2009. Soon, his closest friends were receiving email attachments of original digital nature, including curator Charlie Scheips. Now, with over 600 "paintings", Scheips has arranged for a gallery show of Hockney's work.

As a how-to maker and writer, I regularly drill holes in walls to set up photos to try to make things look their best. And it regularly creates lots of dust and a huge mess. So, when I saw this photo make the blog rounds yesterday, I thought I'd give it a try.

The idea is obvious: the post-it note captures the dust at the source (more or less), before it goes everywhichway. The walls along the perimeter of my house are concrete, and the internal walls are gypsum (drywall), so I gave it a full… read more

If Halloween is for anything, it's for putting stuff in your mouth you wouldn't go near the other eleven months of the year. I say this, of course, cause I totally wanna make some of these worms...like,… read more

Which came first? The Lego-Created MakerLegoBot, or the MakerLegoBot Lego-Creation?

Engadget reports, "The machine takes input from a PC running MLCAD, a sort of industrial design tool for blocknauts, and then churns out anything you like -- so long as it is comprised of 1x2, 2x2, 3x2, 4x2, and 8x2 bricks. These are fed by the machine and methodically placed in exact position, as shown in the video… read more

There's not too many toys that make me wanna to live in them. Barbie's dream house is a definite no-way, and while I definitely wanna visit Castle Grayskull, it seems kinda dank and drafty.

But I might be convinced to enter a miniaturizing ray chamber if my ultimate destination were this: The Sunday Barbecue Cut Out Set by Argentinean illustrator Maxim Dalton.

We love the idea of putting something cool and digital, like a CD, inside a rustic, hand-hewn leather home. As the designer and author Elizabeth says, " This is an instance when my excessive love for prettiness wins out over practicality, utility, and common sense. I already had a CD case - a perfectly good one I'd had since high school. But its cover was nylon and plastic and - well, not hand-tooled leather. This is a makeover, and an impractical one at that - not a made-from-scratch project - but it sure is nicer to reach for a 'How to speak Italian' CD in the car now." 

Just in time for Halloween, Nicola Tedman and Sarah Skeate offer Zombie Felties:How to Raise 16 Gruesome Felt Creatures from the Undead . It's an awesome collection of scary, disgusting softies makeable with minimum sewing skills.

From the product description, "Nicola Tedman and Sarah Skeate awaken their inner George A. Romero and focus their creative attention on the malleable, fuzzy softness of felt inside Zombie Felties: How to Raise 16 Gruesome Felt Creatures from the Undead. Inside, crafters will find instructions for more than 15 zombie creatures, including a Romero-esque Day of the Dead Zombie. Additional Zombie Feltie projects include: Zombie Bride, Zombie Puppy, Vampire Zombie, Zombie Bunny, Folklore Zombie, Zombie… read more