Paper Poppy Tutorial

It’s too hot and dry (is “droughty” a word?) for real flowers, so I made some paper poppies instead. They’re pretty simple and incredibly cheerful – make some yourself!

I made the first batch using vellum for the petals and scrapbooking cardstock for the stamen. For the one I made to craft this tutorial, I used pretty basic printer paper.

Materials and Tools:

• Paper for the petals (1 sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ paper makes 2 poppies)
• Paper for the stamen (usually black, yellow, or orange)
• Floral wire (18 or 20 gauge works well)
• Floral tape (the same color as your floral wire)
• A bead (the same color as your stamen paper)
• Thin wire (I used 28 gauge jewelry wire)
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun (& glue sticks)
• Needle nose pliers (with wire cutters)
• Paper Poppies Template (downloaded and printed out): paperpoppiestemplate

Steps:

1) If you haven’t already, download and print out the Paper Poppies Template by clicking the link in the Supplies list. Cut out the Petal and Stamen templates – you’ll trace them shortly!

2) Fold your petal paper into eights, so that it looks like this picture:

3) Trace the petal template onto one piece of the folder paper:

4) Cut out the petal shape through four layers of your paper. These will be the four petals for your first poppy! There should be enough petal paper left to make four more petals.

Trace and cut the stamen template out of your other sheet of paper. You should now have four petals and one stamen:

We’re just getting started… keep reading this post for the rest of the tutorial!

 

1 Comment / Aug 22.11 / Look What I Made!, Tutorial / by Emily

Good Luck to The Joiner’s Apprentice

We at ATXDIY are huge fans of Kickstarter. When our friend Rob Campbell told us he was planning to build a hand-tools-only workshop to teach himself 1800-style cabinetry, we knew we had to support him. Check out his project here, and watch this video to see what it’s all about:

ATX DIY is contributing two rewards for people who contribute to Rob’s campaign. The first will be a screen printed canvas patch with serged edges, suitable for any messenger bag, jean jacket, or baseball cap.

The second will be an extension of our tool roll design, done in natural canvas, with an antique tool screenprint.

We look forward to seeing Rob’s progress updates and the handiwork from his bench.

No Comments / Aug 02.11 / Uncategorized / by bug

Chicken Coop Tour Recap

We had 300 visitors come to visit our flock for the Funky Chicken Coop Tour yesterday! If you came by, thanks for visiting. We got lots of interest in our coop – specifically from folks who are thinking about building a similar coop and raising a small flock like ours. As mentioned previously, we used plans from Catawba ConvertiCoops and have been really happy with the coop.

I just wanted to write up a quick post with answers to the most frequently asked questions we got yesterday during the tour.

About the coop specifically, we estimate that it cost up about $200 dollars in materials and was made over the course of a couple weekends (we’re fairly handy, but not necessarily master woodworkers or anything). It’s really helpful to have a chop saw that’ll do mitered cuts for all the angled pieces. Other than that, we pretty much only used a power drill and a jigsaw to make the handles.

We got a ton of questions about predators getting at our hens. In the almost two years that we’ve had chickens in the backyard we haven’t had any problems with raccoons, possums, or anything that was after our birds. We have twice spotted a snake in the top of the coop – one time at night when the ladies were upstairs (they didn’t seem to notice the snake at all) and again during the day in the egg box (it had a big bulge in it’s belly, so it’s safe to assume that it’s interested in the eggs). A few weeks ago, Bug went outside to check for eggs, and instead of eggs, there was a piece of snake shed in the nest box – presumably we’d had a visitor earlier that day.

Both Bug and I like snakes, and the snake (or snakes) that we’ve spotted in the coop are harmless rat snakes. We already get plenty of eggs, so we’re happy to pay a small tax to the snake as long as it keeps our backyard ecosystem healthy (and takes care of varmints!).

We definitely have raccoons and opossums in our neighborhood, but they haven’t been able to get into our coop (or they haven’t tried). The plans specifically instruct you to use hardware cloth instead of mere chicken wire and poultry staples instead of just staple guns. Raccoons can rip out chicken wire fixed with staple guns. The bottom of our coop isn’t covered with anything, but you could possibly use more hardware cloth around the bottom. You could also make an apron of wire extending outward on the ground around the coop so that digging creatures would have a harder time getting in. We just haven’t had a problem yet, so we haven’t had to build a more secure fortress.

We also got a lot of inquiries about how the bird and the coop holds up in the weather. In the summer, we make sure that the coop is placed in part of the yard that gets afternoon shade (most of our yard is shaded). In the really hot summer days (when it gets over 100 degrees) we have run a fan on the coop. The birds don’t seem to mind the heat too much – their top roost is fairly well ventilated. If you’re looking at keeping hens in Texas, make sure to look for breeds that do well in heat (or all climates).

This winter we had a cold snap that dropped temperatures down into the teens for a few days in a row. During that time, we brought our whole coop into the studio (it barely fit!) and left the ladies there for a few days. That was probably more coddling then our birds needed; a week later there was another cold day but the birds were up and out scratching around downstairs first thing in the morning. It would be quite easy to run a red light bulb upstairs in the roost for really cold nights.

I’m off to rest and recoup (recoop?) but feel free to email or leave us questions in the comment section. We’re thrilled to encourage more backyard chicken keepers!

No Comments / Apr 24.11 / Chickens, Events, How To / by Emily

Funky Chicken Coop Tour Eve

Tomorrow we’re participating in the 3rd annual Funky Chicken Coop Tour. Our coop and our ladies will be a stop on the tour (lucky number 13, if you’re looking on the official tour map). Come say “hi” if you’re in Austin!

Here’s a sneak peek of what we’ve got in store for you:

If you’re checking out this post after the tour – thanks for visiting! We’ll be posting more chicken related content in the next few days, including pictures from the tour and exclusive interviews with both Teriyaki and Dumpling about their tour experience.

In the meantime, you might be interested in some chicken info and resources.

The plans we used to make our coop are from Catawba Coops. The plans were well worth the $20 we paid for them – they include a very detailed shopping list for all the lumber and hardware we needed as well as really detailed cut lists (two things that other plans we looked at lacked).

Our hens are Buff Orpingtons.  Friends of ours from Green Pocket Farm in Red Rock raised the ladies from chicks. We got them as young hens, or pullets, a month or two before they were laying their first eggs. Of the mixed bag of chicks that our friends raised, the buffs were the most friendly with humans and the most bossy with the other birds.

Now, we joke that Dumpling and Teriyaki are the “two-headed-chicken” because they’re often right next to each other doing the exact same thing. Some times, when one of the girls is upstairs laying, the other hen will wait downstairs and squawk out of, what appears to be, loneliness. Yes, it’s annoying, but it’s also kinda sweet.

We get most of our supplies and food from Buck Moore Feed. It’s a great local store with knowledgeable and friendly staff. If you’re in Austin and looking for chicken resources, go there! They’re also selling chicks now – they had lots of buff-orp chicks today, as well as some Black Australorps, Dominiques, and Rhode Island Reds.

If you’re looking for an even more incredible chicken field trip, make plans to visit H&H Poultry in Burnet. They have beautiful and unique chickens and an amazing flock of guineas. Guineas are super cool and prehistoric looking – it’s like visiting Jurassic Park!

The BackYard Chickens website has most of the info any person would want about raising a small backyard flock of hens.

Leave a comment if you have any specific chicken related questions and we’ll answer them in an upcoming post.

No Comments / Apr 22.11 / Chickens, Events, Gardening / by Emily

Spring has Sprung: 2011 Edition

It’s been a busy spring for us. I had an epic Spring Break extravaganza in which I flew to San Francisco to complete some bridesmaid duties for my friend Jeanine then flew to DC to be in my friend Kristin’s wedding. I did a bunch of DIY stuff for Kristin’s wedding, and once the pictures are processed, I’ll get those up in a post.

Until then, I just wanted to share some pictures of a few recent random projects.

We got our spring garden in back in early March. We’re growing tomatoes, herbs, beans and peas, melons, greens, radishes, carrots, and some other things I’m forgetting right now. So far, the garden is growing great – we haven’t got much rain this spring, but our garden is on an automatic drip irrigation system. I wanted to share this cool picture of a volunteer tomato plant (one of many) that I found in our garden:

This winter, we had a Sun Gold Cherry Tomato plant that grew up from a dropped fruit. Now, the fruit that dropped from that plant is sprouting all over the garden bed. I went to pull out a few rouge sprouts and found this neat little science project under the ground.

After we put in the garden, I got inspired to revamp some planters that were on our front steps since we moved into the house. I painted our “logo” on ‘em – a tall, orange carrot representing Bug, and a round, red beet representing me. Then I found some great lilies that matched the images perfectly. Fun!

And one final piece of eye candy for you to feast on – Texas Shortcake with berries and whipped cream. Every good Texan needs a Texas shaped cookie cutter.

No Comments / Apr 20.11 / Gardening, Look What I Made! / by Emily

It’s Been A Long Time: DIY In Absentia

Okay, now I’m one of those bloggers who’s apologizing for not posting anything for weeks and weeks. In mid July, I was asked to take on a much more time consuming position at my “real” job. It was a great opportunity, but didn’t exactly provide me with ample spare time to keep this blog updated. Starting in September, all of our spare time went in to preparing for the East Austin Studio Tour. Then of course, we were swept up in the fever that afflicts all do-it-yourselfers around the Holidays and spent countless hours working on making gifts for many awesome people.

The funny thing is, though we’ve been lazy bloggers, we’ve been incredibly active do-it-yourselfers. We’re already on to the next big projects (more on that soon), but I did want to share with y’all some of the great things we’ve made recently.

I drew an owl and a chicken and we screenprinted a bunch of tea-towels for gifts for various people.

I made a bunch of Bird Wreaths last year, but had some materials left over and made a few more for this holiday season.

I also helped our friends make gifts – our 4 and 5 year old buddies drew some art, including the allosaurus pictured above, and I turned them into screens. Then we printed tea towels and t-shirts.

I made a few bicycle tool rolls by screenprinting canvas, then sewing some pockets for wrenches, tire-irons, patch kits, etc. The whole kit rolls up into a handy little case:

Some other gifts we made but didn’t document as well were: screenprinted hoodies, screenprinted cards, beaded stitch markers for knitting, iPhone gloves (with conductive thread in the fingertips so you can answer your phone without taking your gloves off, and a screenprinted silk tie for my dad.

2 Comments / Feb 01.11 / Look What I Made! / by Emily

East Austin Studio Tour: EAST2010

Hi Folks!

Bug here with a quick update letting you know that we are so excited and proud to be participating in this year’s East Austin Studio Tour!

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the East Austin Studio Tour, it’s an event where hundreds of artists who have workspaces on the East Side of town open their studios to the public. It’s free to come check out any of the 150 participating studios. Some artists will be doing demos, some will be selling their work (everything from jewelry, to painting, to fabric art, printmaking, woodworking, and lots more!).

We’ve been huge fans of the tour in past years, and its a big part of our inspiration in building our own studio.

Our recent focus over the past few months has been to transmogrify our backyard garage into a Screen-Printing studio. We’ve re-plumbed, re-wired, demolished and constructed, and I think it looks pretty good. We have two presses, and the ability to coat, develop, and reclaim screens.

And we want to teach all y’all how to do it!

Our studio (and other participating EAST studios) will be open on Saturday and Sunday, November 13th and 14th from 11am to 6pm and again next weekend on Saturday and Sunday, November 20th and 21st from 11am to 6pm. We are #134 in the catalog. The address is 1713 E. 38th Street. (map)

It’s a little out of the beaten path (further North than the bulk of the participating studios), but please do drop by! We can point you in the direction of other (in many ways much cooler) studios.

Bring a blank shirt (or other cloth-like item) to print on, if you’d like!

No Comments / Nov 12.10 / Uncategorized / by bug

Tutorial: Make a Watermelon Whale!

Summer is definitely here and fresh, cold watermelon is a favorite summer indulgence over here at ATX DIY Headquarters. These long, hot days remind me of growing up in California’s Central Valley (although the humidity of Central Texas is something that I’m still becoming accustomed to). My favorite way to serve watermelon is to make a watermelon whale. For me, it’s always a nostalgic project – my mom made watermelon whales for summertime family gatherings. It’s a tradition that I’m happy to carry on and share with y’all.

Making a watermelon whale is no more difficult than carving a pumpkin. Follow these simple steps to make your summer a little sweeter:

1. At the store, select a watermelon that is vaguely whale shaped (oval) and one that rests well on one side.

2. Materials and Tools:

You will need:

• A watermelon
• A big cutting board
• A large bowl
• A sharp, medium sized knife
• A spoon
• A dry erase marker (preferably green)
• A couple towels (that you don’t mind getting watermelon juice on)
• A colander
• A few toothpicks
• 1 sprig of mint
• 2 blueberries

 

No Comments / Jul 12.10 / Tutorial / by Emily

Tutorial: Sew a Simple Circuit

One of my most recent crafty endeavors has been exploring the wild world of soft circuitry.  It’s been a fun fusion of two things I love, crafts and science.  While the craft part is pretty straight forward, the science end of things has been more of a challenge.  Before working with sewable circuits, I knew very little about electricity – sure, I’d connected circuits before, made a lemon battery, and had a general layman’s understanding of electrons, but I’ve learned a whole lot more working on a few basic projects.  The little I’ve learned about how electricity works was also helpful when Bug and I rewired the studio – we replaced existing wiring, hooked up new outlet boxes, and worked with conduit – it was easier than I expected!

In the interest of getting on with an already lengthy tutorial, I’ll post more about soft circuits in a future post.  For now, enjoy these instructions for how to sew a simple circuit bracelet (or Power Cuff if you’re selling boys on the idea!).  Please let me know in the comment sections if there are any instructions that are confusing (or flat out wrong!).

Materials and Tools

1. Sew-On Snaps- Make sure they are metal and not coated with paint, they need to conduct electricity.  Magnetic snaps would also work – Available at craft stores or here.

2. Needle – Needs to have a relatively small head – Available at craft stores.

3. Conductive Thread – I’ve been using the 4ply conductive thread- Available at SparkFun.

4. Strip of Felt – Feel free to use another sewable, no-conductive material or fabric.  Felt is easy because it doesn’t fray and is easy to stitch into – Available at craft stores.

5. LED – Most kinds should work, make sure they don’t need more than 3volts of power.  I like to use the flat, rectangular LEDs for this project because they don’t stick out too much – Available here or in larger quantities here.

6. Surface Mount Battery Holder – Order this part from SparkFun, not all surface mount battery holders are sewable, this one is! – Available at SparkFun

7. Battery – CR2032 Lithium 3Volt Battery – Available where ever batteries are sold (I’ve seen ‘em cheap at IKEA and you can order them here).

8. Sharpie – Preferably a colored one.

9. Lighter – Optional, for burning ends of thread, I suppose a match would also work.

10. Round Nose Pliers – Typically a jewelry tool, small needle nose pliers would also work – Available at bead stores, most craft stores, or here.

11. Scissors – for clipping thread

Optional Materials:

Needle Threader – The conductive thread can be tricky to get through a needle and a needle threader is particularly useful for kids – Available at craft stores or here.

Electrical Tape – To tape the battery in place, especially in light of this scary article about kids swallowing these batteries – Available at any hardware store, most grocery stores, and some craft stores.

Alligator Clip Cables – Great for testing the project along the way.  If you follow these steps exactly, you shouldn’t have anything go wrong, but it’s always nice to test that you’re wiring it up correctly before you sew it all together (trust me!).  Also, if you’re planning to work with soft circuits in the future, you’ll definitely need a few sets of cables. – Available at Radio Shack and here.

 

1 Comment / Jul 05.10 / Tutorial / by Emily

Recipe: Cucumber Cups

Every other week, we get a box full of veggies from Johnson’s Backyard Garden, an organic farm only a few miles away from our house.  We’re CSA subscribers and have been for a few years now.  CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture and is an increasingly common arrangement between farmers and consumers who want fresh, local food.  By becoming a CSA member, we pay in advance for a quarter’s worth of veggie boxes.  Our membership goes to support the farm, and insures that the farmer has sales (and income) regardless of growing season conditions.  Our box is always packed full of awesome produce and we’ve decided to keep up with our membership even though we grow some of our own food at home.

Today, Johnson’s posted a recipe challenge on their FaceBook page, asking for everyone’s favorite cucumber recipes.  I immediately thought about the Cucumber Cup, an ingenious restructuring of the gherkin that is endlessly adaptable.  Using a cuke from our most recent box, I set to work.

How to make Cucumber Cups

Cucumbers are so refreshing and surprisingly good in drinks (think of the ice water with lemon and cucumber slices available at many spas).  Cukes can be cut and emptied out to make cups that hold drinks.  Cucumber cups are also great containers for various hors d’oeuvres and salads.  Here’s how to carve a cucumber cup:

Pick a fairly large cucumber that is relatively straight.  Cut the ends off of the cuke.  For drink cups, slice segments that are approximately three inches long, for cups that will hold food, cut pieces that are about an inch long.

Now, to make cups that will hold liquids, take the taller cucumbers and slice a thin piece of the skin off the edges.  Do this on all sides, forming a tall rectangular cube (check out the picture!).

Scoop out the seeds and inside flesh with a paring knife and small spoon. Leave a good amount of flesh at the bottom (about a 1/2 inch), as you’ll want the cups to hold liquid without leaking.

Do basically the same thing for the shorter food cups.  You can make ‘em rectangular by slicing off the sides, leave them fully skinned, or peel them into stripes (see the picture).  I chose to make stripes with a peeler, alternating peeled section and stripes of skin.  Hollow out the seeds and flesh leaving a thin layer of cucumber on the bottom.

Now you’re ready to fill your cucumber cups with delicious and refreshing goodness.

Continue reading this post after the jump for cucumber drink concoctions and a recipe for Cucumber Jalapeno Potato Salad.

 

1 Comment / Jul 02.10 / Recipe / by Emily