It’s a really neat technique that just uses acrylic gel medium from the art store– no toxic chemicals or anything like that.  The toner from the photocopy remains on the wood, so the white areas of your photo become wood colored, which is a really nice natural effect.   I’m planning on make a bunch using some wood veneer cards to use as keepsake gift tags for gifts this year.

For the tutorial I used one of my squid watercolors — in the example above I used a photocopy of a photo of The Boy, perfect for grandparent gifting! And it’s easy to do, though I will warn you it does take a little practice to get the timing exactly right, so plan on practicing on some scrap wood first.

I didn’t really go over how to use photos for the ornaments in the tutorial, and there’s a few things I’ve learned.  Pick a photo with a lot of contrast, and ideally use photoshop, or some other photo editing software, to turn it black and white and bump up the contrast.  In Photoshop, use play with the layer Levels to get a good effect.  Remember to reverse it, especially if you add text!  Make a bunch of copies on the same page (try different sizes). Then print it out, and photocopy.  For the ones shown here, I actually printed out the text separately, and put in on first, then put the photo on top of the text, so I get the ‘white’ background behind the text.

Wanna do it yourself? Go get the instructions…

(Past ornament tutorials: Resin Stars, Easy Gift Card Holder, Champagne Chairs, Sweater Photo Frames, Shrinky Dinky Santa)

Just for Fun

• When life gives you lemons, make bacon… and more. Love these:  Always Remember: A Wise Idea

Foodilicious

• Step by Step Deconstructed Sushi Bowl at the always awesome Wisdom of the Moon – TASTY!
• More tasty goodness: Hummus Jalapeño Poppers at Duhlicious
• I’d love to try this:  home-curing salmon (Copper River sockeye gravlax with goat cheese over a bagel) 
• Rubik’s Battenburg – LOVE this rubik’s cube cake by @stastycook
• Awesomely cute Angry Birds Bento box – Tutorial on Foodwhirl!

DIY / Crafty

• Emergency stakes at Superpunch. Break off in case of sparkly vampires. more.
• Inner Cycle Lamp at Dudecraft

• Make This: Drilled Natural Stone Jewelry Tutorial | papernstitch “Want to learn how to drill holes in beach stones? Well, I’ve got good news for you: it’s pretty easy and I’d love to tell you how it’s done.”

Another view

via the always awesome Great White Snark

Speaking of octopuses… I got stalled on my update to the hexapus tutorial, but I’ll get it out this week, I hope!

Food themed Art Prints, KISS Cassette tape sculptures, and more … at Superpunch

Geek alert: Star Wars themed car wash, complete with a squad of Slave Leias

Very cool jewelry featuring cephalopods and other sea creatures at Stellanova via Cephalopod Tea Party

Wow, what an idea… make a rose from plastic spoons at Can’t Stop Making Things

A roundup of birthday party ideas at the always fab One Pretty Thing

Via Dollar Store Crafts, check out this tank top from t-shirt tutorial by Found in the Ali.

Via Craft – Love this idea of turning a Russian Nesting Doll into a pin cushion!

Here’s some of the recipe goodness recently spotted at Foodwhirl:

Finally, in case you missed anything on Dabbled this week:

• Reader Creations – From the Dabbled Flickr Group
• Fun with Kids: How to do a photo safari
• New necklaces (with Dot’s art!)
• Way cool Dr. Who Tardis Cake!
• Make Candy Jewels at Chica & Jo
• Craftdare..coming really soon!

Love this nautilus by The Book Collector’s Wife!  It’s on my list of cool cephalopods!

Cool chess sets at Dudecraft

5 weird things I learned at culinary school at Talk of Tomatoes

Blade Runner death scene done in Legos (Blade Runner remains one of my fave all time movies.  Right up there with The Princess Bride) (via Great White Snark)

Cute redone side table into play stove... love the creative re-use!  (Previous play stove posts here and here)

Twittered this week:

• Totally love this simple tutorial from @sisterdiane! : A super-simple way to cover a composition book
• Loving these little birdie remakes at @dollarcraft! http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2010/03/anthropologie-bird/
• Brussels Sprout – Wow do Brussels Sprout have a bad rap. Learn to appreciate them at @foodwhirl!.. http://foodwhirl.com/mains-sides/brussels-sprout
• Loving this way cool Lego Star Wars stop motion animation at @greatwhitesnark
• RT @photojojo: How real photographers drink coffee: http://bit.ly/9toiCS
• This is SUCH a wonderful idea from @zakkalife How to make Paper Food Baskets!
• Totally love this photo! nothumbsneeded on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

And… anyone want to give me feedback on a new site I’m designing for a client?  It’s all just test data out there right now (like no prices or anything) but how does it look?

Featured on Dabbled? Don’t forget to grab a nifty button!

So… I decided to make a FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) out of a radical combination: Spaghetti and meatballs.  No, these aren’t just stacks of spaghetti, with meatballs on top, these are true meatball creatures… suitable for your own Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever you’d like to create!

I used a technique similar to the one I used for the Halloween Cephalopods (thanks to Filth Wizardry for the idea!).

Ingredients:

• Frozen Swedish Meatballs (I used the ones from Ikea), 2 per monster. (Defrosted)
• Thin Spaghetti, dry.
• Several tubular noodles (I had some elbows on hand, but this would probably work better with a larger type.)*
• Green peas for eyeballs.

Instructions:

1. Fill your largest pot with water and place on stove  to boil.
2. Stab a long noodle into your meatball.  Stab a second meatball on to your noodle.
3. Repeat so they are stuck together.
4. Continue stabbing your 2 meatballs with 1/2 to 1/3 length dry spaghetti noodles (see pic).  Leave some open areas for the meatballs to show.
5. Insert a tubular noodle into each meatball to serve as an eyestalk.
6. Place in boiling water until noodles are soft.
7. Remove, cool, and insert a pea (or a piece of a pea) in each eyestalk for the eyeball.

Organize on a plate, and enjoy!  Add sauce as desired…

Caveat:  I did have issues with the eye stalk noodles falling off.  Perhaps they would have worked better with a larger diameter noodle.  I’ll also be experimenting on alternate eye stalks!

So why am I showing you this now, since Halloween is a whole year away?  Well, I think it would be a fun (though not overly healthy!) kids meal any time of year, and what an awesome food to serve at a kids party..!

Here is the tutorial/experiment! (And stay tuned tomorrow for an even weirder take on this!)

I decided they looked an awful lot like cephalopods or sea creatures of some sort , and figured we’d play around with different configurations of noodles and see what we got.

Exhibit A: Octopuses (now Jellyfish)

For the first batch, I used the ends of the hotdogs only, and stuck the noodles in one side only.  I was thinking octopus, so 8 noodles per piece, each noodle being about 1/2 length.  (For future, I would shorten the noodles to make them easier to eat.)  Once I put these in to boil, I decided they were much more like jellyfishes than octopuses, especially the way the floated on the water, so that is what they became. (See pictures at the bottom)

Exhibit B:  Tentacle Creatures (or spiders, or cephalopods)

These were the original version, with the hotdogs (slices this time, rather than endpieces) stabbed through with the dry noodle.  So 4 noodles means 8 legs.  The length of these legs was a little better than the Jellyfish, I think.

Exhibit C:  Sputnik

As I was doing these, I was thinking worms, but with the dry noodles still sticking out of them they looked like a Tinkertoy, or maybe a Russian satellite!  These really showcase the creepy aspect of the noodle just sticking out of the hotdog.

How-To

Not much recipe needed here: Just hotdogs (big fat ones) and dry spaghetti.

See the Notes below, and under each of the pictures for more detailed info.

Click on a photo below to see larger or to view as slideshow.

Notes:

• Put your biggest pot on to boil FIRST! That much water takes a while.
• And enlist the help of children if available, this can be time consuming!
• Boil 5-9 minutes, according to pkg directions, or until your spaghetti is done enough for your tastes
• For a more ‘adult’ version, smoked sausages might be a nice touch
  

You’ll notice my 3 favorite things to draw are in appearance here: Robots, Cephalopods, and Monsters!

Yesterday was crafty stuff, today Part 3 is artists, and I found some with my type of subjects! Hopefully this will introduce you to some art, and give you some inspiration as well.. As usual, click through on the pics to see larger!

Another cool artist who also had a thing for my favorite subjects, robots & other creatures, was Rebecca Scott, of Robot Baby. Apparently my pic of her booth has disappeared, so I snagged this representative photo off her site. You can find her and her work at www.therebeccascott.com.

>>Look, even her postcards are adorable!

More cute art:
Check out these adorable animals at KMae Art Studio.

See under the pictures for links to the original pics, and more “how to” info.

1. Kymberlee della Luce shows us the results of dying with tissue paper. Lovely! Click thru for instructions
2. From Rick Unger, Easter Egg Dyed With Onion Skins (instructions linked)
3. Instruction on dyeing an egg using DUCT TAPE! by kateandersok
4. I’m guessing this is tissue paper punched with interesting shapes – Really simple and pretty eggs from pinkbelt.
5. Great instructions on using natural dyes and plants from musicpb. This blue comes from purple cabbage!
6. Looks like these by orangesoc12 were done using an oil dyeing method.
7. Click through to see more of these lovely botanical eggs. rosidae shows us how to make these using natural onion skin dye See More
8. Painted works of art by “Sara?”
9. “-luz-” brings us a nice guide to dyeing with natural dyes. Click through to see the notes on the picture. Also see the podcast at Curbly
10. Decorating with dyed newspaper yeilds cool results, by William Thalmus
11. Tresijas makes Silk Tie Eggs- the pattern is transferred off silk ties!
12. Gorgeous Ukranian style Easter Eggs by tanya zivkovic. click thru for more. And these are great too.

Be sure to click on the links above to get instructions (in some cases) and/or more inspirational pictures!

Eggs and Easter Resources (besides the links above):

• Instructions for oil dyeing for a marbleized effect
• Good info on naturally dyeing easter eggs, and a cool idea to use stick on letters.
• Creative Re-Use of Egg Cartons – Neatorama
• LollyChops: Easter grass to dye for!
• Dye Easter Eggs With Silk Ties – Dollar Store Crafts
• Dabbled’s Homemade Fabric Easter Basket tutorial (and others here at One Crafty Place)
• 13 Ways to Dye Eggs
• Psychedelic (tie-dye) eggs, Rubber band ‘tie dye’ eggs, & a softer version
• Craftypod’s Easter Crafts and check out Diane’s Mom’s roundup – love the flower decoupage eggs!
• Tutorial on making the Ukrainian Easter Eggs (“Pysanky”)by Mega-Crafty
• Carol Browne has a tutorial on making Washi Eggs using origami paper. So pretty!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this, and it gives you a few ideas!
EDIT: a few more egg ideas here

Related – Other Flickr Photo Roundups:

• April Fools Food flickr roundup
• Sweet Treats too cool to eat…a flickr photo roundup
• Faux Foods — Yummies made of crochet, clay, felt, knit, etc
• Upcycled Cool Craft Ideas flickr roundup
• Cephalopod flickr roundup

PS: Make Something Cool Every Day Update —>Before I actually bought my name as a domain name for my art site, I used to link it as dorsner.dabbled.org. Since that might still be floating around out there somewhere, I figured I’d better have a landing page that redirects people. So for my MSCEApril for Tuesday, I created this webpage. Like it?