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Computer Scientist, Data Munger, Doctor (PhD), Math Geek, Bargain Hunter, Baker, Budding Photographer, Crafter, Domestic Diva Wannabe and 
Posts Tagged ‘Christmas Crafts’
January 7, 2017
Our First Gingerbread House
Daddy’s contribution.
One of the things we wanted to do this past Holiday season, and never seemed to get around to, was decorating gingerbread houses. We bought the kits on Black Friday (and saved $1, wahoo!), and they’ve been on our kitchen counter ever since.
No time like the present, right? It’s not like the kids care that the holiday has already passed.
Nicole has been asking about the gingerbread kits since they first appeared on the counter back in November. She’s always had a love for all things creative. Combining crafts with candy? Pure perfection. The first thing she asked me this morning was whether I remembered promising we would decorate the gingerbread houses today. She was not going to let me forget!
Nicole and I set up while Alexis was napping. Mommy was on construction, while Nicole inspecting the quantity and quality of the different types of candy. When Alexis woke up, Nicole ran to go show her that everything had been set up and we were ready to start. I asked Alexis if she wanted to decorate the gingerbread house. Alexis replied, “No, Alexis eat it!”
Both kids had a blast. I wasn’t sure what to expect (besides copious candy consumption). I was really impressed with the ideas Nicole came up with. She made a Christmas light strand out of mini gum drops, and put holly in the windows. Even Alexis got into putting candies on her house and not just in her mouth, eventually. I predict a start of a new tradition.
Lessons for next time:
– Use a knife to shave down the sides of the ginger bread prior to assembly. I have vague recollections of doing this when I was growing up. It didn’t occur to me to shave down the excess gingerbread along the edges until the first time a house collapsed. The excess gingerbread prevented all the edges from touching at once, making it harder to hold together the house while the icing set.
– Assemble overnight and give plenty of time to set. The instructions indicated the icing only needed 15 minutes, but that wasn’t my experience. Over an hour after assembly and decoration I moved the houses so I could take a photo of each of them. As I was moving Nicole’s it collapsed. Nicole heard my “oh no!” from the family room and came running. I was really proud of her for not getting overly upset. She didn’t cry, and understood it was an accident. I’m not sure I would have had that level of maturity at four.
I did manage to get it back together, but it’s a lot harder once the icing has partially set, and it collapsed a third time on me.
– Extra candy is not really needed. At least not when one of your kids is just two. Another vague recollection I had from decorating gingerbread houses as a child was that the candy the houses came with wasn’t enough, so I bought some extra candies. My fear was premature. Alexis could really only eat the gum drops that came with the kit, so we supplemented her with left over holiday m&ms. That meant there was a lot of extra kit candy for Nicole. I plan to hold on to the supplemental candy set for next year since there’s no expiration date. It may get a little stale and maybe even chewy, but the kids won’t mind.
– Extra icing, on the other hand, is an excellent idea. The kit comes with a large tube of thick royal icing. I had two kits and two tubes, and only needed one. The challenge is that the tube is really hard for little kids to handle. The grocery store sells tubes of icing that are actually much easier for little kids and rather inexpensive. I could also make my own icing and use icing bags, but that seems likely to dramatically increase the mess factor.
Posted in Family Life | Tags: Christmas, Christmas Crafts
December 22, 2015
First itteration of the 3D Printed Ornament
I was rather impatient all day yesterday. I had been tracking my 3D printed ornament in the mail and was anxiously awaiting it’s arrival. When eight o’clock rolled around with still no mail I was climbing the walls. Stupid (much needed here in drought stricken California) rain storm delaying the mailman. The ornament arrived shortly after Nicole’s bed time. Who knew the United States Post Office worked so late?
Overall I am pleased with how it turned out. The sandstone gives it a nice frosted appearance. But there are a couple of issues I was hoping to fix for next year.
One of my issues with it is the color. The sandstone prints fairly light. Overall the ornament looks a bit monochromatic, what with the off-white house with snow covered roof on a light silver key. The brown door really stands out much more than I intended. I thought that might be the case and was already planning to scrap the snow on top and do a brown/slate colored roof to help even out the color differences. That’s an easy fix.
The next issue is the date. The date didn’t appear engraved like it was supposed to, and half the five is missing! I believe this issue has to do with the way SketchUp handles 3D text. Even though the text was given a negative “extruded” height, the text component was still shown on the same surface as the key. “Exploding” the text separated each of the letter surfaces from the key surface and I was able to adjust the height accordingly. ShapeWay’s preview screen gives me hope that the new version will print correctly.
The last issue is the only issue I’m not sure how to address. The wreath is filled in. I’m totally dumbfounded as to why. The interior diameter is 2mm, which should be well within ShapeWays capabilities. ShapeWays was able to print even smaller crevasses, like the region above the center window pane. This one is going to take some investigating, and possibly expert help.
Edited to add: Problem solved, thanks to the helpful community at ShapeWays!
Posted in Crafts & Projects | Tags: Christmas Crafts
December 11, 2015
3D Ornament Design Complete
I was going to give up on my 3D printed ornament idea. I told myself the technology just wasn’t where I needed it to be, and I just didn’t have enough practice designing 3D Ornaments. The big problem, however, was that I just wasn’t loving my design. Then I found my second wind.
I couldn’t sleep Monday night. I kept picturing the ornament in my mind’s eye. On Tuesday I started over almost from scratch. On Wednesday, when almost finished, I noticed I had some sort of invisible mistake. The design looked fine to me in SketchUp, but when I exported the design so it could be printed wreath on the door was distorted and half missing. I started over for the second time. This week I was spending every spare moment with the 3D designing software. Today, at 12:22 am I submitted my design to Shapeways and ordered a print. Estimated arrival: December 22nd-24th. I got it in by the skin of my teeth.
My Design
Each redesign was faster than the previous iterations. I have a pretty good handle on rounded edges now, whereas they left me pretty dumbfounded initially. I also like this design much more than my first pass.
The ornament measures 3″ x 1.3″. The teeth of the key are 2.5mm thick, whereas the bow is about 5.5mm thick at it’s thickest point. For a 3D ornament it’s not very 3D, but I like it. Truth be told I wish I could print the teeth a little thinner. For colored sandstone, the minimum with for an unsupported wall is 3mm and a supported wall is 2mm. Technically the teeth count as a supported wall since they’re connected to both the shaft and the shoulder. The shoulder, however, is very short in caparison to the shaft. It may well be a supported wall, but it doesn’t have much support, so I decided to split the difference.
If the 3D print holds up, I’ll design a key ornament for our old townhome as well. If not, well, it only cost me $12.34 to try. Maybe the technology will let me print a thinner unsupported wall next year.
Posted in Crafts & Projects | Tags: Christmas Crafts
August 14, 2015
3D Printing my own Ornaments
After not finding anything to my taste, I’ve decided to 3D print our ‘New Home 2015’ ornament. I found an on demand printing company, so all I need to do is create a CAD file. The design will be a key, with the bow resembling our house. Kind of like this. My intuition is that it will be a fairly easy first 3D project, since it’s mostly a 2D design with beveling.
The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of mixing 3d printing with my ornaments. I have a lot of ornaments. Some are pretty durable, others not. I have back up copies of all the important milestone representations: new home, just married, babies first Christmas, etc. But it would be really nice to back them all up in electronic form. Electronic files require less storage space than physical copies, and I could create as many copies as I need. No more purchasing spares because something might break.
I thought surely this must be a violation of some law. After all, I cannot create a digital copy of a DVD to store as backup – and that’s an electronic medium to start with! It doesn’t seem ethical to buy an item and make copies, if I would have otherwise bought two. I did some digging and at least in terms of trademark law, it’s fine as long as my copies or electronic files are never exposed to potential consumers, it seems I’d be safe. Copyright law is another matter. This use case may fall under fair use, but given how new 3D printing is, there isn’t a lot of case law on it.
Some companies are embrace 3D printing. Hasbro did with it’s My Little Pony brand, and they similarly have large fan base of collectors. They benefit from a licencing fee, without much fear that it will damper interest in their original merchandise. After all die hard collectors will still want the original. Lego, too, is considering allowing users to print their own blocks. Maybe Hallmark will fallow suit. Then again, if my experience with their keepsake club website is any indication, Hallmark is less technologically savvy. We’ll just have to wait what happens.
Posted in For the Home, Internet & Technology | Tags: Christmas Crafts
January 3, 2013
DIY Birth Announcement Christmas Ornament
As Domingo and I were taking down the tree today, I made a comment of not wanting to pack up our wedding invitation ornament. Since the ornament display hook hasn’t been in use, I thought I would leave our wedding ornament out on the mantel all year round. I told Domingo this to which he replied: “Someone at work did that with an ornament made out of their birth announcement card.”
Wait. Why didn’t I think of that?!
So even though it’s after Christmas, I simply had to make another ornament out of our birth announcement. I also had to stop taking down the tree so I could post a picture of the ornament on the tree.
I used the same card stock I used for the wedding invitation ornament. It printed gorgeous on the metallic paper, and it matched the wedding invitation so nicely.
I love it, but something is missing. It needs something to make it look finished. The wedding invitation ornament had one of the whine charm favors I made attached to the top, which did the trick nicely.
Our wedding invitation ornament on the tree for comparison.
Thinking back to our wedding, I remembered the bouquet charm I created and I got an idea. I can arrange crystals in the shape of an N for Nicole on a silver disc.
Bouquet charm from our wedding, photo credit goes to our wedding photographer
I arranged our monogram in blue crystals for our “something blue”. The fabric flower was made out of a piece of my grandmother’s wedding dress (“something old”), and a piece of Spanish lace (“something new”), and the chain was my mother’s (“something borrowed”).
I haven’t decided yet which color to use. Right now I’m leaning towards a soft pink (to match the invitation) and attaching a ruby bicone (her birth stone) to the charm. I also have to find the left over discs, or order more. Since I won’t be able to convince Domingo to leave our tree up for a month or so while I figure out what I want to do and order what I need, our birth announcement ornament will have to go unfinished for now.
Ah well, I have 11 months to finish it.
Posted in Crafts & Projects | Tags: Baby Crafts, Christmas Crafts, Do It Yourself
September 18, 2011
DIY Wedding Invitation Ornament
I still can’t shake the Christmas feeling I’ve been having lately. I am also missing all the wedding related craft projects (Weddings are great excuses to craft!), so I decided to make a wedding invitation ornament. I’ve seen several of these on the internet lately, and it was too cute not to give it a try. Total cost was only $3.24, not including materials I already had on hand.
I only had a couple left over wedding invitations, so I decided to print a new one. Originally I purchased white metallic card stock with the anticipation of printing all the invitations myself, which I never ended up using. The metallic sheen reminded me of snow, it was perfect for this project.
I used a paper cutter to get nice, even strips. The strips were then wrapped around a pen to make loose curlicues, and inserted them into a clear plastic ornament from Micheal’s ($0.99). Once cut and inserted into the ornament, the metallic paper reminded me of a satin ribbon. It looks very delicate.
Don’t worry about getting every strip into the ornament. I had more strips than room in the ornament, so I kept only the strips with a non trivial number of words. I had a poem on my invitation, and one of the lines had only two words. The resulting strip looked blank, so I passed on it.
Insert some small curlicues first. I made the mistake of putting our names in first, which were on much larger strips. They blocked off access to the bottom of the ornament. A pair of tweezers can be used to maneuver the ribbons a little, but it’s a bit like making a ship in a bottle, and very time consuming. I couldn’t get the smaller curlicues in behind the bigger ones. I ended up pulling all the strips out of the ornament and trying again.
The invitation needed a little something extra to make it unique. I still had my wax seal for the invitations, so I bought some sculptey (a bankable clay) in order to create our very own monogram charm. The sculptey was $2.25, and I have a lot left over for future projects.
This is where I lucked out. There was a miscommunication when I ordered my custom seal and I ended up with two: one with the circle border and one without. I had only intended to order the borderless seal, which was the one I used for the invitations. It looked really nice with the faux wax (not from waxseals.com), but when working with the clay the missing border looked sloppy. I described it to my husband as “Dog Collar Likeâ€. The seal with the circle looked just a touch more finished.
After working with the clay to soften it up, I pushed the seal down as hard as I could. I used an exacto knife to trim the edges. I found it easiest to pick up the seal, sculptey still attached, and trim the excess sculptey with a pealing motion. Lastly, I used a pin to puncture a hole above the “Dâ€, and baked the charm for 15 minutes to harden.
But the ornament still didn’t feel complete. The monogram pendent was a nice touch, but the sculptey doesn’t have the same finishing touch as, say, a real charm. We had a subtle wine theme at our wedding. Our favors were wine charms. I made TONS of charms. We wanted to have enough that every couple or family could take home a complete set. Of course, not everyone wanted one, so we had a few left over. I found one of the blue ones (to match our wedding colors). Call me crazy, but it actually reminds me of a vineyard label. I think I have a new favorite ornament.
* I did buy the ornament hook this weekend ($1.50 pre 20% off coupon at JoAnns). Since I’m working on multiple Christmas ornaments, I figured the hook would make the work easier. It’s not necessary. Pre-ornament hook I used a wine glass, which worked just fine.
Posted in Crafts & Projects | Tags: Christmas Crafts, Do It Yourself, Post Wedding Crafts
June 4, 2011
Back to Beading
I had some free time today (first time in weeks, wahoo!) so I got out my beading supplies and decided to take a crack at the seed bead nets I wanted to try. After about six hours, and one false start, I finished with this:
I’m very happy with how it turned out, especially for a first attempt. Well, technically second. If you want to try this, I recommend using a beading string rather than any kind of wire or cord, and size 10 needles. For my first pass I used a translucent beading wire, but the wire held its shape if bent, which ended up emphasizing all my mistakes. I’ll post a tutorial later, I plan to make a few more first so I’m sure I’m not leading anyone astray with bad ideas.
About two months ago I talked about the profitability of Etsy stores, and the difficulty of turning a real profit. This project serves a perfect example. Let’s ignore material costs, which were pretty negligible. This net took me 6 hours. Using the 30K a year target, I’d have to charge approximately $90 in labor costs. If I omit the the time spent down a bad path, and the assumption I get faster with practice, I might able to get away with charging $45 in labor. Yet, a search shows they sell for between $5-$35. If I set my price to $35 to match the high end, then my hourly rate gives me $23K a year. And that is, of course, assuming I sell well – 857 to be exact.
Even though I know exactly where the $35 price tag comes from, I still can’t help but think the price is too high. I couldn’t see myself shelling out more than a few dollars a piece for a bead net, and I’m sure many of you feel the same way. At the current rate it would make it one of the most expensive ornaments on our tree. As cool as I think the net is, it isn’t the coolest ornament we have. As with all things combining internet and profit, you have to be in it for the fun, not the money.
Posted in Crafts & Projects | Tags: Bead Crafts, Christmas, Christmas Crafts, E-Commerce
March 30, 2011
Stocking up
In just a few days I will be Washington bound to start my internship at Microsoft. I expect to be busy. Very busy. In addition to my internship, I will have my thesis to keep me company. I need to make as much progress as possible so I can stay on track for graduation. Still, I need something to occupy my hands with. It’s good to take a break from research sometimes, no? I need something somewhat monotonous, that I can do with the TV on or while I’m waiting for dinner in the oven. Most of the projects I have planned have multiple stages. I find that if a project isn’t monotonous, I have difficulties putting it down to pick up again later. I therefore need to find a large block of continuous time for them, which is something I doubt I will have in the coming weeks.
I think I found my project.
I love this idea for seed bead ornament nets. I’ve been looking for ways to personalize our Christmas tree. The problem is I’m very picky, even when it comes to something as simple as the ball ornaments. These embellishments will really let me personalize, and add a bit of sparkle. Lily, our cat, discovered this past Christmas that she can bat ornaments out of the tree. While the ball will be destroyed, the net will survive the fall to the floor. I can keep reusing them. Perfect!
The timing for this new project is also excellent (despite Christmas being a solid 9 months away). This week’s Michaels coupons includes a 25% off the entire purchase. Perfect for stocking up on seed beads.
Posted in Crafts & Projects | Tags: Bead Crafts, Christmas Crafts