Man Made DIY

Pentax has released some crazy digital SLR cameras, including a bright red one and a weird robot version, but they've got nothing on this Canon 7D, which looks like it was sprayed with a hose full of Nerds and Skittles. … read more

The cover of my tenth grade chemistry book was amazing...it featured three graduated beakers full of blue liquid, into which bold, colorful liquids were being dropped, blooming and swirling wih clouds. I used to stare at it during tests when I'd forget my stoichiometry; perhaps to calm myself, or maybe because I was hoping I'd magically absorb the info inside.

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I have fifty-four cans of spray paint. Seriously, I just went to the basement and counted. Years worth of specific projects, a couple of content campaigns with the awesome people at Krylon, and it's really become quite a collection.

And I still don't have all the colors I need. See, while spray paint is often the best tool for a specific task, your options are relatively limited. Compared to cans of wall paint, which you can get mixed in thousands of colors at the hardware store, and artist paints like oils and acrylics, the color of palette of spray paint is limited to those determined useful by the manufacturer.

When I was a kid, my sister always battled to be the one to put the angel on top of the tree, but my favorite part was always finding where our family had boxed up the bright red nutcracker, and place him somewhere where he could guard our presents against any potential evil mouse kings.

Any the best part? Our nutcracker could actually crack nuts. Nowadays, a functioning nutcracker is nearly impossible to find, and the ones availble in craft stores are kinda junky, poorly assembled, and not something that would fit in any sort of contemporary decor.

So, I decided to give that classic shape a clean and contemporary makeover. And you can too!   … read more

For our latest True Value blog squad project, we decided to tackle our fireplace. In our 1960s-ish family room addition, the fireplace takes up a lot of visual attention, and its size and placement make it clear the previous owners built it as a focal point. Here's what we were dealing with:

(Note: this picture is about four years old)

Last year we decided to paint the fireplace white, but it still lacked some appeal.So, it's not surprising we often chose to 'hide' the fireplace by stacking our daughters various toys in front of it:

The list of things we didn't like about this thing would go on and on. Here are a few photos that are wo… read more