Eric Nakasako's Crafty Tech Blog

A few weeks ago Bosco, Christine, Alys, and I took a weekend trip down to San Diego for some fun and relaxation. We were lucky that the weather was great, and we enjoyed hiking around some cliffs by the ocean, checking out tidepools, enjoying good food, and playing a few of Bosco’s fun knock-off games from China. Bosco and I also planned a surprise arts and crafts night at the hotel room with some melted crayon art that we had seen on the internet. Basically, you hot glue crayons to a canvas and then use a blow dryer to melt the crayons and let the colored wax run. Bosco and Christine worked on one canvas, and Alys and I the other.

Supplies

As far as supplies, all you need is:

• Hot glue gun
• Canvases
• Black paint
• Crayons

Bosco had the smart idea of getting black canvases so that the crayons would have a more dramatic effect. On a trip to Michael’s, we found that black canvases were about 4 times more expensive, so we bought some white ones on sale and some black paint, and we had what we wanted in no time:

We also bought a selection of crayons. The 24 packs of Crayola crayons were $1.99 each, and the “ColorZone” 64 packs were just $1! It was too good of a deal to pass up. However, one thing we had to consider was that the crayon wrappers will be left behind as part of the art after the wax has melted away, and Crayola would be a recognizable brand. In the end, both pairs used the ColorZone crayons because of the wider range of color.

Gluing on the Crayons

Alys and I decided to first unwrap all of the ColorZone crayons so that we could work with just the colored wax. We then arranged all of the crayons by color, and we removed the darkest 15-20 crayons so we could keep the brighter ones against the dark background:

We then began hot gluing the crayons to the canvases. Bosco and Christine wanted to create a more abstract pattern. Bosco designed one corner (primary colors) and Christine the other (pinks and purples). Alys and I decided to glue our crayons in a wavy pattern. Here are some action shots of the gluing in progress:

Our finished design just before melting…

Melting

Next came the fun part – Melting! One thing that we didn’t predict was how much wax flies everywhere when it starts heating up. In order to melt the crayons, we had to put the blow drier on the highest setting. This made for a cool, unpredictable design. Bosco and Christine on the left, Alys and me on the right:

Make sure you wear adequate protection!

Finished Product

We were all really happy with the way these turned out!

Other Pics From San Diego

I just wanted to share a few pictures of our San Diego trip!

Thanks for reading!

Alys and I were walking through Michael’s arts and crafts store when we came across this kit called “Stencil Art.” It was from the Klutz book series, which we had both grown up with, so we decided to try it out:

The set comes with a book that has 4 plastic stencil sheets. The idea is to use the mini stampers to dab some ink and then use the stencils to create artwork. It worked really well and was very easy to do. The stencils left very clean lines and the bright colors allowed you to mix and blend (as long as you let the colors dry in between!). We decided to make thank you cards for some of the graduation gifts that we got, and had a lot of fun coming up with some creative designs. Here are some of the first ones we made:

We really enjoyed the set and had a lot of fun, but we felt a little bit limited by the colors that we could use. Therefore, we had the idea to make additional stampers so that we could upgrade to a larger stamp pad with more colors! We bought 2 different diameter wood dowels, one for the shaft of the stamper, and one for the wider head. After cutting the thinner dowels to the correct stamper length, we drilled a small hole in the thicker diameter dowel so that the stamper body made a perfect fit, and we hot glued it in place. We also found some small foam squares that we cut into circular stamp heads.

We bought a stamp pad with many more color options, which came with little labels for each color that we attached to our new stampers. We also made a little holder by just drilling some holes in a scrap piece of wood. This is what the finished product looked like:

Armed with our new stampers and a whole new set of colors, we really went to town stamping out a ton of new designs.

And here are some of our completed cards. As you can see, we really had a diverse set of colorful designs, including fun(ny) scenes and abstract themes.

Thanks for reading!

I just added a WordPress Plugin called “WP to Twitter,” which will allow me to automatically tweet a link when I make a new post to my blog.

If you’re on Twitter and would like to get updates, it should be as easy as just following me!

Check out Alys and my gingerbread house that we made in December 2009! This was our 5th gingerbread house (Pics from 1-4 can be found in the first post of this blog). We were going for a chateau design with a long sloping roof. Inside, we put some red and yellow (USC colors) christmas lights that Alys’s dad had given her, and that worked out really well! Half of the light string went inside and there was just enough left over to make a loop around the base. Unfortunately, the picture was a little blurry:

Because we had so much success the previous year with sugar pane windows, we decided to go all out and make a huge multi-pane front window. Unfortunately, we hadn’t perfected the sugar recipe so the windows frosted over, but it still let light through. I didn’t take enough pictures of the process this time!

The size of this gingerbread house made it very difficult to assemble. With all of the candy piled onto the roof, it made it really heavy and it kept sliding down the frame with its super steep angle. Also, after about 2 weeks, a few small cracks formed in the main front window as it settled a little bit.

Overall, we had a great time making this house, and I thought it was one of our best so far. We really tried to go big that year and it worked out. We decided to take a break from the building in 2010, but we made a comeback in 2011, which I will post soon!

I have always wanted to make the little 3D charms out of swarovski crystals, but it is so hard finding a good pattern for something like this.  I finally found one in February 2010 on a japanese forum somewhere and I knew we had to try it.  I ordered all of the swarovski crystals off of eBay and bought some very thin fishing wire from a sporting goods store.  Once all of the parts arrived, Alys, Aaron, and I went to work.

Materials:

• Thin fishing wire
• Swarovski Crystals (see instructions for quantities)
• Patience

Instructions for making the crystal birdie

So many Swarovski Crystals and colors!

This is where all of my years of Japanese classes actually paid off.  I can read the materials quantity in the top right blue box on the instructions.  #5301 is the code for "Bicone" Swarovski crystals.  The colors are in Japanese, and they say:

• #5301/5mm  Light Blue (1)
• #5301/4mm  Light Blue (25)
• #5301/4mm  Pearl White (5)
• #5301/4mm  Light Topaz (2)
• 80 cm fishing line (I actually can't read this and am guessing!)

Aaron and me hard at work                                        Alys, Aaron, and I each finish our first one

We actually enjoyed it so much that we ordered more Swarovski crystals in different colors.  We kept the same "Pearl White" for the bird's breast and just substituted colors for the "Light Blue."  We ended up using both "Rose" and "Erinite," and they both turned out great!  Unfortunately, I didn't snap any pictures, so you'll have to trust me on this one.  Also, that yellow one in the middle is a slight variation on the blue ones, but I seem to have lost those instructions!

Our tough chickie gang - Better watch out!

Overall, this project was a success, and they turned out really well.  They were fun little charms to have or give away as gifts.  My mom bought a small little phone charm strap and attached it to her phone and it has held up quite well.  One thing that was nice about this project was that it was a quick-hitter (~30 min) and they turned out so cute!

Ok, so I may have gotten a little carried away with the pictures!

Here is some art that Alys, Kris, and I had a ton of fun making in October of 2010. The idea was to inflate water balloons with air, put paint inside, and mount them to a canvas. We then threw darts at our carnival-game style canvas and watched the paint splatter everywhere (if you were a good shot like me).

Materials:

• Water balloons
• Metallic paint
• Canvasses
• Dart
• Syringe

The trick was to blow up the balloon first, then fill a syringe with paint and squeeze a few milliliters of paint into the balloon. This all has to be done while the balloon is inflated so you have to make sure it is airtight where the syringe and balloon meet. Then we tied it into a knot and we had a paint balloon! We repeated this to make around 50 balloons. What made it really cool was mixing/layering the paints in the syringe to get some cool color effects.

Here is a picture of some of the balloons we had. I had recently gotten Alys a new 50 mm prime lens (f1.8) we we were getting some cool “artsy” pictures with a lot of depth of field.

Here is the fun part – Seeing how good you are at darts! I believe I hit each of my balloons on the first throw, but some of us took longer than others…

This project was a ton of fun, and I think the finished product turned out fantastic!

I have a new year’s resolution: to at least catch up on some of the highlights of 2011 including hang outs with friends, various crafts, and family time!

This new motivation has been inspired by seeing some really great blogs out there including Hack-A=Week and 50 First Crafts. These blogs are just so much fun to read and have some really neat projects!

Unfortunately, I’m so far behind in posting that I might not ever make it out of 2011! I have a folder on my computer labeled “Blog” that has been accumulating fun stuff and projects that I wanted to share with everyone, and so I will probably randomly pick out topics and post them not in any chronological order or anything.

I really hope I can keep this up and I hope you enjoy the site.

A few weeks ago, Alys and I made fizzy fruit (carbonated fruit!) using a few things and some fresh fruit. The fruit is delicious and has a small bite to it from the carbonation. The fruit is 100% safe and contains no additives at all except carbon dioxide which is an inert gas used to make soda fizzy.

What You Need

• Plastic airtight bottle (I use nalgene)
• Dry Ice (solid carbon dioxide can be bought by the pound. Call your local grocery store to check availability)
• Fresh Fruit (grapes and pineapple were the best so far!)
• Juice (optional)

Step 1. Cut the fresh fruit into small pieces. This increases surface area of the fruit to allow the carbon dioxide gas to enter the fruit more readily.

Step 2. Fill the bottle 3/4 of the way with your fresh cut fruit.

Step 3. Cut a small piece of dry ice about the size of 1-2 grapes. Drop the dry ice piece in the bottle. Make sure you don’t put too much or else you will create a dry ice bomb (youtube dry ice bomb to see), which is very dangerous. This is very important!

Step 4. Seal the bottle VERY tightly and store for 10-12 hours to let the carbon dioxide enter the fruit.

Step 5. Open the bottle (listen for the depressurization!) and enjoy your fizzy fruit!

Step 6. Play with any extra dry ice you have!

I just wanted to share with you guys the gingerbread that Alys and I created over winter break 2009. This is our 4th year baking a gingerbread house, and each year it gets a little bit better. I usually draw out a design first and construct a model out of paper. We then make the gingerbread from scratch, cut out the pieces and bake them. We then use royal icing to put it all together. We always try to make everything (so no toothpicks or glue or anything! =P) The whole process usually takes us 8-10 hours!

This year we had a few new additions. The biggest one was translucent candy pane windows with internal lighting! We soldered together two 9 volts and 12 red and green LEDs hooked up to a switch. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Paper model

Cutting the gingerbread

Wiring the lighting

Finished! — Front view

Top view

Side view

And with the lights on!

And the builders!

If you’re interested, I made a quick 15 second video tour of the house:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7gT5N7UzOGA
(my first Youtube video ever!)

Thanks for taking a look at our gingerbread house!

p.s. Here are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd annual gingerbread houses too!