Making, Crafting, Creating... aka Whatcha workin' on?

I was using EAC on Windows for ripping flac.

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How else are we supposed to weed out the weak ones?

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Damn, your kids are going to have such awesome memories when they grow up!

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Wait a sec. as in somebody figured out how to keep squeezebox running? Last I heard it was dead?

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It feels like the weather here skipped over the 25-35 F range and went straight into the 40s, so that means it’s time to start the patio “garden”! Taking advantage of 16h of daylight and ample free time, we have:

Rainbow chard (I usually try to get a cold-hardy varietal, but couldn’t this year)
Curly parsley
Thai basil (for making infused boozes and adding to stir fries, etc.)
Lacinato Kale (in the tupperware…propagating…we hope)
Strawberries (not pictured)

The herbs will probably continue to live inside, the kale and chard will soon be transplanted to a deep planter outside, and the strawberries are doing their thing on my patio already :slight_smile: I’ve been cold-hardening the chard seedlings over the last few days. This is my first time trying to grow anything edible at this apartment, but I was able to scope out the sun situation last summer and am hopeful that I can keep things alive long enough to actually get a harvest or two.

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So it didn’t take long for my kids to figure out that adding a strip of sandpaper could turn formerly peaceful grain mill into a tool for making their hand-forged weapons that much deadlier.

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It’s not dead yet! I just loaded it on another device earlier today. But it’s at the crossroads of Linux and audio in the crafter/maker world, so it’s not a good choice for mundanes or coolhunters.

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Or extremely busy folk with precious little available time I suspect. I might dig into it when I have a moment…

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Kids, kids, it’s swords into plowshares not the other way around…

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Lack of materials has put some of our larger forging projects on hold for a while, but this week the kids and I have been making some tiny swords out of rusty steel wire from an old BBQ grill, and it’s turned out to be just as satisfying. Probably a lot better for the environment too since we’re not burning coal for this and are using almost entirely scrap materials, other than the penny that was used to make a blade guard for the pirate sword.

Fake-out photo of the first tiny sword.

Humble beginnings…

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Just made a hanging plant shelf out of some reclaimed pallet wood, hardware odds & ends, four pencils and a pair of shoelaces. Gotta get creative when you’re avoiding the crowds at Home Depot.

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I made these a few years ago out of flattened & ground nails.

But your grips and guards are way better

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So, made on a shoestring budget, right?

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My girls actually got me a 30 color sampler pack for my last birthday in the fall. Our 2yo is finally pretty trustworthy with basic rules, so we broke it out and did out first bakes. The first mission was (obvs) to fill in gaps in our pony collection. I blinked and my 5yo had thrown together a Starlight Glimmer

We baked that one as-is. She…had some trouble. her horn and tail popped right off.

So our second one was a “lessons learned” S.G. Her horn was a pinched out of the main head, and we built rasped channels for inset colors, and wrapped the mane and tail on flanges. we pinched a flange in the underside of the tail as well and squished it between the back legs.

Her horn drooped in the oven then I stupidly tried to prop it up halfway through the bake, so it broke off.

Attempt number three: Sunset Shimmer. We gave her a super stumpy horn and wrapped the bangs around it. other than that, we kept our strategies. So far she’s great, and the braided worm hair is looking fresh.

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Starting a rubber band ball


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Got commissioned to cross-stitch this. Haven’t actually done anything since the Riven-themed pattern I posted a while ago, so this’ll be fun to work on :slight_smile:

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My kids are fully under the thrall of the sculpey. My own glee doesn’t hurt. we’ve branched into “animal-hybrid” ponies now.

here’s Skunk, who can do a magic repellant spray:

She’s wholly concieved and designed by my 5yo, though I took my duties as structural consultant a bit too far and remodelled the body and placed the hair. (but really, in architecture, most aesthetic derives from apparent structral stability, so…ok I’m working on it…)

here’s her next one, Raspberry, who’s a giraffe/pony hybrid who emits an overwhelmingly sweet odor that distracts enemies.

I did rework the body a bit for structure, but she did hair, mouth eyes and cutie mark solo.

Finally, I learned to completely let go, and for this one, rather than stepping in, I just made her remake the body over and over, reminding her of our techniques, until she had something that would stand. Deer is 100% (meaning I have to eat all the bacon :wink: ) hers.

I managed to distract myself by building Bat, a seasoned, no-nonsense warrior queen of the bat-ponies. She isn’t as refined as I would like, despite planning her all week (sketches below), as I had to squeeze her build into the length of my kids’ attention span. My intent had been more cape and cowl, less battle armor. In the end, I’m legit in love with her. Like love, love.

She’s already led all the animal ponies into a pitched battle against an alligator who lives in the grotto under the trampoline. The pre-battle speech was…some of my best work

finally: Mozzarella Ice Cream. Conceived, comissioned and dictated by my 2.5yo to me and my 5yo for building so she’d have her own hardcore battle pony.

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My pathetic rubber band ball:


I even cheated with elastic

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Put some googly eyes on it, and it will be perfect.

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