How To Turn Your Dog Into a Live Chia Pet This Halloween.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of dressing up dogs. However, The Flirty Guide (Stacie Tamaki) shares with us a way to make this terrific "Howl"ween costume, turning your dog into a live Chia Pet. All you need are some plastic aquarium plants, muslin, fabric, elastic straps, felt and a willing participant. (Note: a "green" version of this costume is possible by using organic materials and eco-friendly felt as shown in the photo at the beginning of this post, courtesy of Inhabitat).



Needed elements for the Terracotta legs:
•An inner liner made of muslin
• An outer layer using terra cotta colored fabric
• Two straps and a cross strap connecting the first two together. The first straps are attached at the top of each leg, suspender style, to hold them up once you slip all four legs onto your dog.



The Steps:
1. Sew an inner leg liner using muslin or another fabric that is thin enough to bend if your dog wants to sit or lie down.
2. Sew and outer terra cotta leg with appropriately colored fabric that is also thin enough to fold and bend for your dog's comfort.
3. Make sure they are both the same width at the bottom. Drop the liner inside the terra cotta layer and fold the terra cotta layer under allowing you to sew them together with a single pass of your sewing machine.
4. Now stitch the two layers together at the top in only two places where the strap will fasten along the outer side of your dog's leg and directly across from it on the other side. This holds the two layers together without binding them completely and eliminates the need to make the pant legs fit your dog's leg perfectly. This way the pant legs can loosely fit, be comfortable and look great!
5. Once you've stitched the top of the legs together sew the felt strap along the outer side of the pant leg.
6. Do one leg first, then slip the other pant leg on your dog's other leg and pin it into place along the strap you're attaching them to. Make sure you can slip it off, bending your dog's leg to do so, and you've got the perfect length to trim the strap to.
7. Attach the other pant leg same as the first.

Elements for the covering and foliage:
• Felt to make a blanket or body cover and fabric for lining so the plastic plants do not irritate your dog.
• Plastic aquarium plants that come attached to grids (available at Petco) or organic plants for the green version:


To attach the plastic foliage, pull all of the foliage off the mats. Then make a horse blanket out of green felt and strategically cut holes in the felt using an x-acto knife. Push the prongs of the grid through the holes and reattach the foliage alternating the two different types of leaves. Then line the entire costume on the underside so that none of the plastic will poke through and make your pet uncomfortable.

And Voila! Ch Ch Ch Chia.... Chia Dog!


Images and instructions courtesy of the Flirty Guide Blog.

Newsworthy Nails. How To Give Yourself A Newspaper Transfer Manicure.

You know how when you read a traditional newspaper, the ink tends to get all over your fingers? Well, here's a way to take stylish advantage of that text transfer... turn it into a manicure!

How to do it:
You'll need scissors, nail polish base coat, a pale nail polish color, any newspaper, alcohol (such as vodka or other clear spirits) and a top coat.



Applying a base coat and two coats of color varnish.
Pour the alcohol in a glass.
Cut small pieces of newspaper large enough to cover your nails.
When your nails are dry, soak them in the alcohol.



Cover your nails with small pieces of newspaper.
Remove small pieces of newsprint slowly. The ink will be left on the nail surface.
Let dry and apply a layer of top coat.
And Voila!



Thanks to Zuzu at Passion Nail Art for the info and images (where the same information can be found in French)

Eggs + Sharpies And The Egg-Bot Will Do The Decorating Work For You.

Now you can impress the Easter Bunny with stylish and artfully decorated eggs created by the Egg-Bot, a robotic kit that is available for purchase.



The Eggbot is an open-source art robot that can draw on spherical or egg-shaped objects from the size of a ping pong ball to that of a small grapefruit-- roughly 1.25 to 4.25 inches in diameter (3 - 10 cm). The kit is based on the original design by Bruce Shapiro. The newest version, the "Egg-Bot 2.0," is a modern and friendly update, designed with the assistance of Bruce and his team.



The Eggbot is super adjustable, and is designed to draw on all kinds of things that are normally "impossible" to print on. Not just eggs but ping pong balls, light bulbs, mini pumpkins, and even things like wine glasses-- with a bit of work. In the photos, you can see just a few of the things that you can make with an eggbot: Incredible personalized golf balls, christmas ornaments, light bulbs, and (yes) eggs.




The Eggbot chassis is made of tough fiberglass, with integrated heat sinks for the included motors. The pen and egg motors are high-torque precision stepping motors, and the pen lift mechanism is a quiet and reliable servo motor.




The Eggbot kit is easy to assemble in a couple of hours, and only requires a couple of basic tools like miniature Phillips-head and flathead screwdrivers. You'll also need a recent-vintage computer with an available USB port (Mac, Windows or Linux), plus internet access to download assembly instructions and necessary software.



Eggbot w/ EBB Driver Board The Eggbot kit comes complete with a fully assembled and tested EiBotBoard v2.0 (EBB) USB interface/motor driver board. No soldering or programming are required.



The EBB allows your computer to directly control the stepper and servo motors. The onboard 16X microstepping driver chips along with the 200 step/revolution stepper motors give a combined resolution of 3200 steps/revolution in both axes. A universal-input plug-in power supply (9 V 1.5 A) is included with the Eggbot kit, as is a USB cable.

Basic operation is much like that of a printer driver: you import or make a drawing in Inkscape, and use the extensions to plot your drawing onto whatever object you've mounted in the Eggbot. It's all handled through an easy to use graphical user interface, and works cleanly on Mac, Windows and Linux.



The standard pen holder included with the EggBot kit is designed to fit various art pens including Sharpie Ultra Fine Point pens. However, it can actually fit almost any pen of similar size. If you want to use a pen that doesn't fit, the pen holder is made of wood and can be enlarged to suit your taste.

You can even fit a lot of things that aren't pens. One example: They'll be offering a diamond-point engraver tool as an optional add-on for the EggBot kit in the near future.


above: The Eggbot Logo on an Egg

If you have additional questions about the Eggbot kit, you may want to look at the Eggbot FAQ.

The Egg-Bot 2.0 kit was designed by Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman with extensive help from Bruce Shapiro and Brian Schmalz. The kit includes assembly and use instructions, open source hardware release documents and example plot files.

The Eggbot kit is available here.

Teepees & Cabins For Your Feline Friends From Loyal Luxe.

Simple and affordable ways to give your finicky feline a home of which she can be proud. Loyal Luxe designs and offers flat-packed, easy to assemble cat homes made of recyclable cardboard in the shape of Teepees and Cabins. And yes, they sell the faux bearskin rug, too.

Native American Teepee and Faux Bearskin Rug:


Canadian Cabin:




Modern and rustic simultaneously, the cute abodes- suitable for cats, kittens or even a chihuahua- come with additional adornments and can be easily customized.





Loyal Luxe was founded in 2008 by Maud Beauchamp and Marie-Pier Guilmain, two industrial designers and pet lovers who graduated from Université de Montréal. Born from the idea that products for domestic animals deserved to be different, they knew that people and their animals would be excited by the prospect of products that were more refined and daring, by products that were a perfect match with their tastes and the interior design of their home.



Buy them here

Star Wars Snowflakes & Templates To Make Your Own

UPDATE#2: A brand new post featuring 19 new Star Wars Snowflakes has just been posted. See those here


UPDATE: A brand new post featuring ten more Star Wars Snowflakes has just been posted as of 12.19.2011. See those here:


The Original Post



It's beginning to look a lot like Star Wars...
I spotted these awesome Star Wars paper snowflakes over at Geekologie submitted to them by a reader of theirs named David (and subsequently featured on Gizmodo, Laughing Squid and Neatorama). However, if you haven't come across them yet, here they are, complete with template instructions, so you can try your hand at your own:








The text that accompanies the snowflakes reads:

My wife is a genius. She made these little beauties while making paper snowflakes with the kids. She saw our son Ethan making one that somewhat looked like a Storm Trooper. She then ran with the idea and made these masterpieces. The top one is Boba Fett and a Clone Trooper. The bottom is obviously Darth Vader. Notice the nice touch with the Galactic Empire logo in the middle.

David did not provide us with the name of his talented wife, but a big thanks to both of them! The link to the original post is below and rumor has it they will be adding more snowflake designs!

http://dancell.cwahi.net/star-wars-paper-snowflakes.html

Don't want to make your own? Here's a bunch of Other Star Wars Christmas Decor you could consider.

•Other Star Wars toys, Star Wars christmas ornaments and more

See the latest post featuring ten new Star Wars Paper Snowflakes and how to make them here.

And the 19 newest ones for 2013 here .

The Best Halloween Costume Ever! Banksy's Flower Thrower Comes To Life.

The Design Director of San Franscisco's Y Studios, Pittsburgh born George Schnakenberg III, gets my vote for the best Halloween costume I've seen in years. With ample design skills and impressive execution, George turned one of stencil street artist Banksy's most famous works, The Flower Thrower, into a full costume designed to emulate the 2D image.


above: George created the flat looking outfit by creating black and white shadows on his pants, hoodie, bandana and gloves.


The original artwork by Banksy:

Matching the prop:


Throughout the Halloween evening, George had photos of himself taken with various friends and in various environments (please note, I have cropped and adjusted the lighting and levels on some of these images for greater visibility):





George even made up his face to emulate the stencil art:

and managed to eat:


Nice work George!
You've set the bar really high and I can't wait to see what you do next Halloween.

all images courtesy of George Schnakenberg III