Battle Chic DIY Chainmail

Thanksgiving Feast: How-To Brine & Roast a Turkey

3-Armed Baby Costume

Gomistyle's Urban Window Garden

Our very own Michelle Hlubinka, MAKE's Educational Director, is quoted in this Daily Californian piece about the celebtrational insanity of Russell Street, in Berkeley, known for it's elaborate decorations and large, costumed crowds.

Below is one of the yard decorations Michelle's family put together. Their theme was "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes." I love the Dixie cups for monster teeth.

Halloween Revelers Flock to Russell Street

I love this. Instructables user wholman has gathered together a bunch of scrap wood from "dumpsters, back alleys, vacant lots, abandoned buildings, recycling yards, and architectural salvage centers" and laminated it together using all-thread. Then he's very carefully smoothed and polished only one side of the finished block, leaving the underside rough to show off the process. Beautiful.

CRAFT Video: Hemming Pants

Meatloaf Hand

Cocktail: Dark and Snow-Stormy

Favorite Halloween Costumes from the CRAFT Editors

Laser Engraved Skull in Dollars

Reader Dave Adams submitted this cool Pac Man pumpkin display, complete with ghosts, dots, and fruit. Shown immediately above under regular and UV light. [Thanks, David!]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

There's still three days left to enter the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Deadline is November 3rd. Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Halloween wouldn't be complete without a Katamari costume or two. Donovan and Ashly show off their Katamaris in preparation for the ensuing festivities. [Thanks, Donovan!]

I'm in the June [polka dot] outfit. Ashly is the Prince [in green]. I made the heads and my outfit. Ashly was in charge of her own dress. The primary materials are foam, posterboard and foamies, these 2mm thick colored foam sheets. That's what I used for the dots and the coverings on the heads. I liked the dimensional quality it gave rather than just using paint or paper.

More:

• Homemade King & Queen of All Cosmos Katamari Damacy costumes


• Life-size Katamari controller


• Katamari Damacy Queen of All Cosmos earmuffs


• Crochet Katamari Prince


• Katamari Wedding Cake

Halloween is so two days from now. Which might as well be last week on the internet. I'm moving on to Xmas. From Berlin artist Oliver Fabel. [via Neatorama]

Start out your monster-making experience by reading the DIY hand-sewn, free-range, monster tutorial found in CRAFT, Volume 06. Next, crack open the DIY Mini Monster kit and make your first adorable little monster. When you're all done, use the included Maker's Notebook to sketch out some new designs.

So, the stuff inside the balloon that makes the web is called HI-FLOAT, and it's a commercial product actually sold for injecting into helium balloons to make them retain their helium longer. It forms a skin on the inside of the balloon and keeps the helium from diffusing out so quickly. The "web" effect is created by applying the HI-FLOAT and letting it dry at one pressure, and then deflating the balloon, stressing it, and then re-inflating to a higher pressure, causing the film to detach from the walls (which, of course, means it's not working as a sealant anymore, but whatevs). I'm pretty sure this trick was developed in-house, by the company that makes it, to sell more HI-FLOAT. Still, it's pretty cool.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Fast, easy tutorial from Lenore of Evil Mad Scientist Labs. I wonder whether you might not use polystyrene beads as an aggregate to reduce weight?

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Established on June 29th, 2009, HMSBeekeeper focuses on local honey, gourmet single source and infused honeys, pollen and propolis, locally made soap, candles, balms, and lotions, as well as exceptional yet economically priced beekeeping equipment.  If it is made from the hive, we are likely to carry it.  We also hold classes periodically. Our most popular classes are Mead Making, Soap Making, and Introduction to Urban Beekeeping.  Please consider signing up to our mailing list to keep informed of our offerings. We also sponsor a monthly SF Beekeeping Meetup, please consider joining!

From Etsy seller studiokmo:

four paper panels, each panel measures approximately three feet by four feet (overall dimensions, six feet in width x 8 feet in height) and exposes city blocks of brooklyn, manhattan, queens, and the bronx. the panels fit together like panes of a window and all four pieces must be sold as a set. image one would located in the lower left pane. image two located in the upper left pane. image three in the upper right pane and image four in the lower right pane. image five shows the delicacy of the pieces.

[via Dude Craft]

Very detailed build thread from Haunt Forum user beelce describing the construction of these awesome simulated fire baskets from mostly dollar-store stuff--cheap baskets, out-of-season holiday lights, LEDs, a fan, some nylon fabric. The results look great.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

What do you do if you don't have a vacuum former, and need to make a part for your robot body? Well, Vadim Ryazanov over at lets make robots has a simple solution: make them with papier-mâché! By using paper and a 1:1 mixture of wood glue and water, he was able to make a hemispherical shell for an upcoming project. Great idea!

Janet Echelman's Her Secret is Patience

Shoe Repair Tips + Interview with Vince Pacheo

Headless Marie Antoinette Costume

Chocolate Human Skulls

Fairytale Fashion: Deployable Structures

Grant Thomas, of Making Visual Narratives, pointed us to this free, printable papercraft Zoetrope, featuring the famous motion photos of Eadweard Muybridge.

Free Printable Papercraft Eadweard Muybridge Zoetrope

More:
Laser cut & animated Muybridge horses
Grotesque Menagerie

Daniel sends pics of his laser-cut/engraved ouija board - the hand-painted fills add a nice touch!

Subscriber Michael Williams wrote in with this clever modification of the traditional pumpkin incision. He explains the logic:

For years now I've been unhappy with the choices for cutting open a pumpkin for Halloween. If you cut the top off in the traditional manner, you end up with singed hand hairs (at best) when attempting to place/light a candle. If you cut the bottom off, you can get the candle in OK but you're stuck picking up nearly the whole pumpkin each time and it never sits quite right. This year is different - I've found the perfect pumpkin cut!

Thanks Michael!

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Here's what looks like a great, culturally sensitive way to tear down old buildings. D-Build, a project started in Syracuse, NY, is aiming to document and catalog entire decommissioned buildings as they are taken apart.

All well and good, but what does this have to do with makers, you ask? Well, the other half of their equation is to provide a market where you can purchase the raw materials taken from the houses, and even sell things back that were made with them.

This seems like a excellent way to recycle usable building materials, that would probably otherwise just end up in a dump. [via core77]

Beautiful photographs by Tina Buescher of Jim Donnelly's orrery based on the mechanism known as "Ferguson's mechanical paradox." Good information about the orrery is provided by Ian Coote's page. As for the "paradox," well, it boils down to this: the three apparently-identical stacked gears on the end are driven by a single gear, yet move at different rates, which, of course, would be impossible if they were truly identical. News flash: They're not. But I'm sure it was harder to fight boredom in the 18th century than it is now, and the build is undeniably gorgeous.

Or is it "carton-pierre?" Anyway, it wins. "Ghostess" Deanna did a great job documenting the process of building "Goliath," who is based on the eponymous character from Disney's Gargoyles cartoon. Hard to believe he started out as glue, craft paper, and PVC pipe.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Alan Parekh of Hacked Gadgets made this really nice looking gear clock using a PIC microcontroller, a scavenged stepper motor, and a bunch of wooden gears that he cut out on a CNC router. The concept is pretty straightforward, however I really like the clear design, where each part is a functional piece of the clock mechanism. You'll never have to wonder what is inside this thing that makes it tick! [via Hacked Gadgets]

I'm not sure exactly what it means to be "hell bent for leather," but I am sure that this is the outfit you want to be wearing while you're thusly engaged. Prince Armory is (mostly) Samuel Lee, who goes by *Azmal on deviantART. Beautiful craftsmanship. [via Geekologie]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Pedrobrito shares some footage of his Arduino powered Flor Automata responding to changing light levels. Nice construction! - see more of his structural explorations on Flickr.

Inspired by Lenore Edman's awesome D12 and D20 dice bags, Jessica Winter decided to make this D6 felted dice bag.

Dice Bag Project

More:
Knit a pirate dice bag
How-To: D12 and D20 Dice Purses
How-To: Make a handbag of holding

Rachel @ CRAFT writes:

This collection of space-inspired quilts from artist Jimmy McBride have left me breathless. What really has me excited, though, is his post about his next project. I'll give you a hint: Pillars of Creation. Check out the diagram and fabric selection he's put together. Amazing.

OK, I admit it: I was pretty excited about getting to use the word "corpsification" in any context. But that doesn't mean this tutorial from the folks at Yard Haunt about how to make a clean, sterile, white plastic skeleton into a nasty, rotting, reeking bag o' bones is any less cool. In case you're wondering, the "Bucky" skeleton referred to in this and many other haunt prop tutorials is a brand name of Anatomical Chart Company, which sells serious anatomical models to educational institutions but also does a tidy trade in "4th quality" seconds on the Halloween market.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

By deviantART user ~tallydragon. [via CRAFT]

Pretty amazing yard art by YouTuber koUNit1. [via Geekologie]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Last Thursday evening I had the pleasure of attending my first Dorkbot Austin, at Cafe Mundi on E. 5th St. At least fifty were in attendance, and six people presented original work, most of which I'll be blogging over the next few days. First up, I wanted to mention this luminous flowerpot clock, with LED pistils and modeling-clay petals, by Flickr user Spyderella, aka Sharon Cichelli. It flip-flops two of seven LEDs to mark the hours, and gradually illuminates the remaining five at 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 minutes past. It's controlled by an external Arduino for prototyping purposes, but eventually will be entirely self-contained. There's video here. Sharon credits Syuzi Pakhchyan's Fashioning Technology for inspiration.

In the Maker Shed:


Fashioning Technology
Ready to take your craft projects to the next level? With "smart" materials, unorthodox assembly techniques, and the right tools, you can create accessories, housewares, and toys that light up, make sounds, and more.