Part 4: Dying Leather

              Alright, back from last week's leather armor costume, I (Dara) meant to post this earlier, but the real world is taking up a lot of time these days. I also put together a small tutorial for my girl friend Robin on Instructables for some leather hide work she was interested in doing for a Game of Thrones party. A birthday present of sorts.
                  You can see the dye here is beginning to take though I think it needs a couple more coats to really get the right shades as it's still a little too light in places. And some antiquing is necessary. Still, it's nice to have everything come together. Realized this week that the outfit I've been doing has over 80 separate carved dragons on it in 4 different sizes. Mmmm, major time investment. Oh well...totally worth it. :-)

Adding A New Voice To the Blog

Hello everyone! It's Nash, Dara's husband. She's recently told me that I should start writing some posts on here, and so I shall! You'll be hearing from me more often now, especially in the next few days. In the future I'll likely be posing anywhere from updates on our Instructables page, stories I've written, projects we've been working on and anything that catches my fancy.

As of the past few weeks, I've been blogging on our main page. You can read the past few posts here. Sometimes there might be repeat posts between here and there, but I will try and keep that to a minimum.

One other thing is that sometimes you might catch me ending my posts with something amusing. Or at least something I might find interesting and wish to share. In this instance, it will involve my love of Deadpool and something amusing that went on with this year's San Diego Comic Con. We also hope to start making more costumes, of which you'll likely see future posts in that field.

Whoot! Nash's Design Won First Prize in the Father's Day Contest!

             Hey everyone, we've been so flattered with how much you all like Nash's design and tutorial for the ice blanket. We've hit a little over 9,000 hits in a week and a half! Also, in a surprise win Nash won 1st Place in the Instructables Father's Day Contest.

                I think we get a free t-shirt and some books, but hey...bragging rights is bragging rights. Sometimes we forget to stop for a moment and look at what we've accomplished. In other news, next week I have some more custom projects to post (we've been getting a slew of them lately) that I've been working on which may or may not interest you our readers. One is a cool new design for a bar remodeling.....oh you will just have to wait to see it next week. :-)

How to Make Fabric Buttons

Wow, we broke 200,000 views for the blog yesterday. Pretty awesome and kinda crazy.

To celebrate we're posting another Instructable on How To Make Fabric Buttons.

This is a classic tailoring tool for making custom women's suits. You don't see it much any more (probably too labor intensive or vintage), but I thought I would share a bit of classic knowledge.

Have a lovely day everyone else and may your day be full of wonder!

New Tin Craft Instructable

      A warm thanks to Nick Wentworth and the Acorn to Oak Handmade Etsy Team for a fun time this week. He put together a great Instructable for anyone who missed the meeting due to rainy weather. Thanks everyone who came out it was lots of fun. I must say this was one of my favorite team meetings so far in terms of how easy tin art is to do successfully with little or no practice. I love easy new crafty projects!

Nash Having Fun Sparring

       This week Nash is taking over to add some fun to your day. Last week, he put together a bunch of sparring practice weapons with his groomsmen (So Hot!) and so this week....he is posting up How-To-Guides on Instructables for people who want to make their own practice weapons. Because you can never have enough wearpons! I hope you enjoy too! And if you want to join in the sparring...just listen for the sound of clashing on a Thursday night near NC State Campus. Have a great day everyone!

Etsy Craft Party Recap: Photos and Instructables

   Drum roll...the Etsy photos are now up on facebook. Thank you everyone who sent me photos especially Jill and Melanie. Thank you Scott Saxon of Techshop RDU plus the entire Techshop staff. Also, Ryan and Rob of Roth Brewing. You guys were awesome! And Mike Hinman. And Fabiola. Plus a bunch more people who I could probably fill up the rest of the post mentioning so I will just say thanks and stop while I'm ahead! Everyone rose to the occasion and had a great time. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! We are now in the process of posting up Instructables for anyone who missed the shin-dig! Great time everyone! You can check out Instructables for the crafts we did here:

Friendship Bracelet Making
Custom Cards From Craft Paper
Make Your Own Shop Apron
Painting Wood with Oil Paints
Design Your Own Beer Glasses

We also had several other stations with events such as knitting and beading, but I failed to get enough photos of those so we'll leave them for another time. I hope that this will help connect members of the group who because of personal reasons or scheduling conflicts could not make it. Look forward to seeing everyone come out for SparkCon next week! Whoot! So excited about that!

As reminder, our next big meeting for Acorn to Oak Handmade will be in October when we make custom 3D kites. I love how much is being done in this art recently. A mix of old and new at the same time. You can sign-up here.

Also, do not forget SPOON FLOWER IS GIVING AWAY FREE FAT QUARTERS IN CELEBRATION. Coupon code: EtsyParty12. Pick yours up online today. :-) Alright, I think that's all. Have a great week everyone!

New Instructables Up: Building Security How-to-Rekey Locks

          Alright, this week we are taking a break from the normal and catching up on spare projects that I've been meaning to do for a while. Nash is also stretching his teaching abilities on Instructables. He just put up a new post on how to re-key standard locks if you lose your key (this would have saved us $150 when we first moved into our new place) off of existing locks or random keys. For all you forgetful types out there like me, getting over a bad break-up, or landed your new dream gig: this one is for you. I really love how Nash's teaching and writing sides come out in these. Thank goodness I am marrying a much more patient man than I. Also, this week isn't my typical bread and butter large clients, so many of them have agreed to share their hopes and dreams with you. I hope everyone has fun this week seeing some wacky, wild repair and design projects. Often I feel as if I have these really great projects...that I can't talk about. So enjoy a fun adventure week as we fill in our blog with the unusual, practical, and fun. We've had an odd turn of events the past couple of weeks in landing a dream client who bought us out for full-time production only to have them go under.  It was somewhat a surprise to me as they seemed to have much of the things Nash and I have struggled over all lined up, but skinning one's knees involves getting back up and keep going. This business seems to teach resilience and  I'm well-loved so Nash and I look forward to a busy week making our current customers happy and lining up replacements.  Every season seems to bring it's own challenges, and one of the major challenges for clients this season seems to be matching wallets to dreams. There's a saying in this business that the only good products in manufacturing are those that sell and everything else is a fantasy.
         Hard to know if that's true, but please enjoy a little thriller spy magic while I get caught up on work. I am waiting for my locks to get re-keyed now for April Fool's next year. 
          

Day Twenty: The Ultimate Cat Scratching Post

          Today's post comes to you courtesy of Mike Hinman. My only real contribution to this project was sewing a straight line down some carpet, but totally worth it. This project seemed too easy and awesome not to share. Mike's two kittens are holy terrors when it comes to trimming their nails so Mike designed the ultimate cat scratching post so that he would no longer have to suffer torn up furniture. I thought this was absolutely brilliant and pretty cost affordable so had fun putting it up on instructables here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Ultimate-Cat-Scratching-Post/

I hope you have fun looking. And feel free to ask him questions at Techshop. Because cats are awesome! And cat scratching posts are just as awesome! Happy Weekend everyone! See ya back monday.