Still RepRap-ing!

Welp, I’ve been devoting most of my time recently to the RepRap.  Have I shared that webpage, yet?  Here it is (again?):  prototype 3d printer.

I’ve also been procrastinating by steam cleaning most surfaces in my house and creating a spreadsheet of my patterns which is accessible through an app on my phone and google docs.  The app on my phone includes a photo of the cover, so I can look for what I want on my phone and not have to dig through all my patterns … although the patterns aren’t in any sort of order (YET!!) so, there will be digging happening anyway.  But I could do that at the store before I bought more, so that’s awesome.

Oh … and I should admit, despite how much I’d rather not: spending lots and lots of time playing Animal Crossing.  I never realized there were so many ways to organize and sort things in this game!! I’ve almost earned a “Perfect Town” status and then I’m cutting down trees and replanting based on value and proximity to the store …   Hrumph, excuse me! I’m getting a bit too excited about that.

I’ve had an order for two pairs of footies so I will work on those this Friday and I’ve decided to just sew up all the rest of the fleece I have into random sizes.  Any extra fleece will become hats and scarves for gifts or cheap sale in my Etsy store.  And then NO MORE.  Unless its for friends.

Getting that link reminds me how far away I’ve gotten from the original point of that store … all I’m doing now is trying to sell the random stuff I make and I need to actually work on a crazy motorized costume!!

Trial

As I’m planning for my Around-the-Country-Train-Trip I’ve been thinking about how I want to document it. I have just downloaded an app for my phone to update my wordpress blog, so this is my first test of it!

…So, I might go to this plant sale. (Pic from phone gallery).

And I know two kitties who will be very unhappy with me while I’m gone! (Taken a new photo through the app).

I’m not sure how these photos are going to be placed in the post… guess we’ll find out soon!

Glass flowers

So, my cousin gave me these cool glass flowers.  But I’ve never known what to do with them.  I embellished some jars (earlier post) and with the ‘left overs’ I decided to try to make a set of jewelry.  This is what I’ve got so far.

The long series of chain and single flowers will be a necklace, the short series with flowers wrapped close to the chain will be a bracelet and the two single flowers will be earrings.

You can see some extra leaves and clumps of ‘berries’ I may incorporate.

I was going to attach these large hooped chains to smaller chains at the end, but they flopped around badly, so I went back and got more of this flat chain.

I’ve added some leaves to the necklace chain.

I like the earrings – which are kind of hard to see here.  But I don’t like the necklace very much.  Is that just because I don’t personally like lots of dangling things? Or is it too much? What might make it better?

This is what I have left over. I don’t generally like the berry things, but I do like how the light makes them glow.  How to encorporate them?

I also thought I could use some extras to make barrettes.

Thoughts?!

MAME movement

After using Warren’s very handy flash to help map the buttons, I’ve assigned some buttons to the MAME software, hooked the computer up to the tv and hacked control panel and was able to load up the Golden Axe!

… I could only move up and left, but STILL … It’s getting nearly done!

Once I finish fixing the control mapping then it’ll be ready to be played.  I do have some pretty-fying I want to do:

• Decorative/camouflaging plexiglass to hide the edges of the tv and monitor frame.
• Light effects!
• Bumping speakers!
• Exchangeable control panels. Check out these three cool control panels I got at Burcham’s Metals in Albany! Some of the wires have been cut too close, but that’s the panel that won’t really fit on my cabinet, so that’s ok.  I’ll be able to use the buttons and joysticks!  I think 3 of them are eight directional joysticks!  O.o
• Speaking of which, I need to identify which games can be played with only 4 directional joysticks, cause that’s what I have installed right now.

Two quickies!

I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow, so I whipped up some new height charts. Lighting is bad, so it’s hard to see that the colors are dark brown and fuchsia.

And, we’ve been wanting curtains, so I utilitarianly sewed up some expanses of purple faux suede and hung them up.

all told: an hour and a half!

20110325 Glass flower jars

Just finished a random project which I’ve put up on Etsy to sell. I got a bunch of old jelly jars which I couldn’t use to store jelly.  Add some paint and some glass flowers my cousin Amy gave to me years ago, and you have a fun project!

Sand, paint, and punch holes in lids:

A couple coats of contrasting paint:

Glass flowers to be put on painted lids:

Attaching flowers to lid:

Finished!!  Now, go buy one at my Etsy store!  :D

20110218 Caitlin’s flower

This was the coolest thing I did for Caitlin’s wedding – her hair piece.  We bought lots of fun ribbon from the Button Emporium and Ribbonry in Portland (I don’t think their webpage conveys how awesome their store is!).  Here’s a photo summary of what I did:

Piecing and edging the crinoline:

The first petals which I didn’t like:

The next petals I did like:

Sewn to crinoline with some central petals:

Nearly done – organza added to outside edge and the final central ribbon has been picked:

 

General comments

I have been busy with two primary projects:

1) The RepRap

2) My brother’s wedding

Nothing very exciting to post regarding either of them … the RepRap progresses at a pretty slow rate – we don’t have good instructions to go off of, so we get some things put together and then have to dismantle part of it.  Here is a website for it that I’m working on.  When we’re done, we’ll create instructions for some one else to use!

Our RepRap progress.

I did lots of things for the wedding, but didn’t want to put anything out until after it.  I’ll post more about that here soon.

But, my next projects I’m excited about are my steampunk mini series, glass flower jars and MAME … so stay tuned!

To dos

I need lots of external strategies to support my executive functioning: calendars, clocks, lists, etc. I’m considering my current method of ‘To Do’ tracking.

For a long time I just used a spreadsheet. Then I explored Google Tasks and couldn’t get access to it on my iMate and then on my G1. So I tried the phone app Astrid which I didn’t like because I couldn’t access it on my pc. I started using Remember the Milk to get that pc access which would sync with Astrid, but that syncing is not working well right now. The other thing I’d really like in a to do list is the opportunity to select the to do item and immediately put it in my Calendar. So, for example, I review my to do list and decide “I’m ready to work on the MAME!” I can click on “MAME” in the to do list and it’ll automatically put it in my calendar (MAME Janary 9 @ 2pm), and then when I’m done click ‘done’ and it’ll update the end time of the event.  Because I’m OC (not disordered) and I like to keep track of what I do with my days and how much time I devote to my projects. Or, so I could schedule working on a specific project later in the week or month, without having to enter in a brand new event. I’d like to be able to look at the item in the to do list and see all the calendar events listed with a totaled time shown. AND, I want to be able to edit from the pc and phone easily and upload lists (specifically from RTM). I’m not demanding!  I found an app called “note me” that will paste an event to the calendar from the note, but it’s not so much a to do list and I can’t access it on the pc or upload from RTM, so I’m not so pleased with it yet.

I’ve been exploring the Google App Inventor, but I am coming to think this type of app is way beyond me…

Anyway, just a random thought as I delay going downstairs where I will play Dance Central for a while. And then maybe I’ll crochet some more. or work on my cat feeder.

hurried summary!

I haven’t done much of anything these last two weeks!  Well, not craft related anyway – I’ve spent lots of time with family, which is great, just not productive.  :D

I completed some simple craft projects as gifts so last minute I didn’t take any pictures. They weren’t too exciting anyway, so it’s all good (felt flower pins and notebook covers).

I have made very little progress on the cat feeder – perhaps a half an hour of time total in actual physical progress and maybe two hours of pouty contemplation.  I poured some spheres for the center of the measuring/dispensing device which I have realized are about a 1/2 inch too small.  This evening I decided I will put a bunch of screws into the ball all over, spray it way spray foam, and carve/sand the spray foam down to the tops of the screws before I smear two coats of silicon caulking over the whole thing. If that works, I’ll make up a second one.

I saw some movies, decorated a tree and made some wreaths, painted a bowl, cleaned my house and my aunt’s house, and played a lot of Machinarium.  I also started a new project which is building a RepRap 3D printer with some people I met at the Beaver Bar Camp this summer.  I will post general things about it here, but plan on posting very detailed things somewhere else (not sure where, yet).  Here are a few pictures of some of the things I did.

Height Chart