Vicarious Thoughts

I have another shot that wasn’t composed too well but showed all the eyes and the orange blaze. Just like birds – the male has more distinctive colouring than the female.

I decided today that Monarch Butterflies are the most fussy insects I’ve ever met. This one wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to get more than a couple of fleeting shots. No part of the swan plants we have growing was good enough for her to lay any eggs. On the upside, I loved the sound of her wings as she flitted around my head.

I spend a certain percentage of my time drooling over err, reading through craft blogs and thinking “ooh my daughter would love it if I made this”. Most of these projects are absolutely gorgeous with beautiful fabrics or patterned paper, tasteful embellishments and highly skilled craftmanship and finishing (and no doubt I will link to some of these in the future).

However, if you’re like me and have days where you feel like your art skills plateaued at the age of 7, then you’ll love what I just made – the 5-minute toy car! Of course if you have a child around the age of 7 (probably younger would work) then they could easily do this themselves.

For this project you’ll need:
a pair of scissors
a box of an appropriate, and if you’re lucky another smaller box that’ll fit well inside
sellotape
maybe a sharpie/vivid
and if you want to get all fancy
a blunt craftknife
a cutting matt
a ruler (don’t worry – no measuring involved)

You’re really lucky today as I certainly wasn’t expecting this to work and didn’t plan to take before shots, but I managed to find another two boxes of the same sizes (Mental Note: Do recycling tomorrow) so I can make another car just for you.

In case the design looks more complex than it is. Here’s how I did this:
1. Put the small box aside for later. Cut down the front corners of the big box until you have the bonnet height left attached to the bottom. Bend in the flap, bend it back further up to make the bonnet and then work out where the top of the windscreen is and cut across.

2. Work out what angle you want the windscreen to have and then you can cut the sides of the box to reflect the shape of the bonnet and windscreen. Cut the lid off the box since you’ve got the scissors handy.

3. Okay, you can cut along the top of the windshield to the back of the box but don’t cut the back side of the box. Instead once you’ve done this, cut down the corners to meet the cuts along the top. Okay I haven’t explained this well so have another picture.

4. Now you can cheat and cut that back flap off and Voila! a stationwagon/hum vee/ stretch people mover :P OR you can create a boot/trunk like you did with the bonnet, or a hatchback scenario like I did with the first car. I’m going to be lazy and make a station wagon.

5. Okay, this is where, if you want to get fancy you’d cut out the windscreen. My knife blade needs replacing so I’m not going to demonstrate how to butcher it. How I did it was by just eyeballing where it should be cut out and using the ruler to make straight lines – but no measuring okay … we don’t want to get all anal about this! :P
6. Okay so now we need to sellotape the bonnet and windshield to the car. Which ends up looking like this.

Bet you were surprised at that result!

7. Okay now our other box comes into play. Eyeball how high you want the seats in your car and then cut along the sides of the box so you have a little tray to invert and place inside the car. I nicked a corner after working out how high and then went for it with the scissors. And yes the result was a little untidy. As you would have seen at the beginning my little box had been opened and so to make a second seat I had to get crazy with the sellotape.

8. Since I skimped on all the details I’m going to make a hash of things and attempt to add details by using a vivid/sharpie. Fingers crossed this comes out okay.
Before:

After:

And we’re done. As you can see, my stationwagon has had the suspension lowered, on the other side one door opens both ways, and in general I’m the first to admit, it’s a rather unique design.
The brilliant part of this is you won’t get too upset if someone accidentally squashes it, it gets left outside, the cat uses it for killing practise etc. And it can still go in the recycling when it’s no longer wanted.
Nothing stopping you or your kids from decorating it. And of course you could go all out with paint; in which case it’ll need to be sanded and given a couple of primer coats, then a couple of coats of your base colour and then the final coats to give it that sparkle and shiny effect. I might be wrong but there’s possibly also a clear layer added last. :P

Anyway, hope you enjoyed this 5 minute toy car tutorial – I had fun making it and making fun of myself! :)

Bit low on inspiration today and this was my best photo of the day.

I decided to see how many themes for 2009 I could find as I tend to hear about them midway through the year – when all the cool events have passed.

I think the most exciting one is:
The International Year of Astronomy
which encompasses a whole bunch of anniversarys including a celebration of Galileo who created the telescope 400 years ago, 400 years since Kepler published his Astronomia Nova which contained the first two Laws of Planetary Motion and 400 years of the Telescope.
The New Zealand chapter of this theme has a Secondary Schools Art Competition[linkdead] happening, where students can win their school a telescope.

On the 2-5 April there will be the Global 100 Hours of Astronomy Event which has the goal of giving as many people as possible the chance to look through a telescope. All participating groups and observatories will be providing this opportunity for free which is great. Looks like there will be some resources available to people who don’t end up with access to a local event, like the Live 24-hour Research Observatory Webcast.

The US have a National Year of Science this year (though a number of organisations around the world are joining in), which notably celebrates the anniversaries in the field of Astronomy as well as the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th Anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species (British Natural History website), the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln (whose contributions to science include founding the National Academy of Sciences), and the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Burgess Shale by the paleontologist Charles D. Walcott.
They’ve also decided to break the celebration up by themes per month which sounds like an excellent idea to me:

January – Process and Nature of Science; Communicating Science

February – Evolution

March – Physics and Technology

April – Energy Resources

May – Sustainabililty and the Environment

June – Oceans and Water

July – Astronomy

August – Weather and Climate

September – Biodiversity and Conservation

October – Geosciences and Planet Earth

November – Chemistry

December – Science and health

It’s also the Year of the Gorrilla – though I haven’t been able to find much in the way of events or ways to participate (other than buying posters or cuddly gorrillas) for now – but it’s definitely an excuse to do a unit study on primates this year.

The International Year of Planet Earth – which is actually a triennium – is in it’s last year. Unfortunately, this is really all I could think of to say.

The United Nations website is a little thin on the ground for up to date details on events/special days/anniversaries for 2009 but I did find these 3 themes for the year:
International Year of Reconciliation – Rather than try and rephrase the information on the UN website, the gist of this theme is to provide countries the opportunity to reconcile their differences with other nations under the guise of “hey this theme was such a good idea we just had to join in”. If it works, good on the UN but excuse me while I have a moment of cynicism.

International Year of Human Rights Learning (beginning on 10 December 2008) – The Year is a chance to be devoted to activities undertaken to broaden and deepen human rights learning on the basis of the principles of universality, indivisibility, interdependency, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, constructive dialogue and cooperation, with a view to enhancing the promotion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to development, bearing in mind the duty of the State, regardless of the political, economic and cultural system, to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the significance of national and regional particularities and various historical, cultural and religious backgrounds. Sorry this is pretty much verbatim from the UN website as all I can do is blink each time I read it.

International Year of Natural Fibres – The Year is a chance to increase awareness of the importance of the diverse range of natural fibres produced in many countries which provide an important source of income for farmers and therefore play an important role in improving food security and eradicating poverty.

And of course a “Year of …” post wouldn’t be one without mentioning that the Chinese Year of the Ox starts on the 26th January.

It’s a good thing I decided to redo the 101 in 1001 else I wouldn’t have discovered there’s a 26 Things project happening this month. It’s a basic premise – given a list of 26 words/phrases take a photo that illustrates that word.

The list is:

neighbour

unfamiliar

mess

information

change

everything

company

twin

warning

odd

decadent

in the distance

crowded

eyes

green

entrance

cross

sunset

leftovers

different

big things

frozen

line up

tube

bed

in season

Now I just have to remember to do this and submit my finds at the end of the month. Not sure yet whether to submit them to this blog as I go along or all at the end.

If you look closely you can see there’s a spider hanging out in the centre of the dandelion clock. Didn’t discover this til I was choosing photos.

As mentioned earlier, I’m redoing 101 in 1001 starting today. This time round I’ve made the tasks less rigid so in the event of total craziness they’re still accomplishable and I’ve also added in the dreaded “fill this in later” tasks as I now understand how useful they can be. Imagine waiting almost 3 years to add a really cool task to your list. Editting for clarity may occur in the near future.

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).
Started: 01 Jan 2009
Finish: 29 Sep 2011
Days Left:
Completed: 0/101

1. assemble a comprehensive family tree
2. become familiar with the specific locations of more countries
3. become more proficient at illustrator
4. become more proficient at photoshop
5. buy a bike
6. buy/create and maintain a bonsai
7. contribute to an open source project
8. create a painting and hang it up
9. develop better relationships with my family
10. donate to a foss project
11. enjoy a sunrise
12. enter a photography contest
13. expand my recipe repertoire
14. fill a journal
15. fill a sketchbook
16. finish all incomplete sewing projects
17. finish cross-stitch and frame it
18. fly a kite
19. gather together a complete emergency kit
20. get a good haircut
21. get cpr certificate
22. get first aid certificate
23. get full license and become an organ donor
24. get professional family portrait done
25. give geocaching a go
26. go camping
27. go hiking
28. go horse riding
29. go indoor rock climbing
30. go kayaking
31. go on a bike ride
32. go on holiday somewhere i’ve never been before
33. go on the train
34. go to a driving range
35. go to a lecture or seminar
36. go to a play
37. go to an amusement park
38. go to an anzac dawn service
39. go to an art gallery
40. go to an orchestra concert
41. go to something on opening or release day
42. go to the beach and build a sandcastle
43. go to a trivia quiz night
44. grow some mushrooms
45. have a professional massage
46. have a traditional picnic under a tree
47. hold a games night
48. identify 3 bad habits and work to eliminate them
49. identify 100 things that make me happy
50. knit something
51. learn a new programming language
52. learn how to use a camera properly
53. learn how to use a telescope properly
54. learn to identify native trees and plants
55. learn to crochet
56. learn to juggle
57. learn to play chess
58. learn to recognise the southern constellations
59. learn to sightread music
60. learn to weave flax
61. make a proper afternoon tea and eat it with friends
62. make a scrapbook
63. make a snowman
64. memorise a poem
65. memorise origami designs
66. outline a novel
67. participate in 26 things
68. participate in a mailed swap
69. participate in blog 365
70. participate in nablopomo
71. participate in nanowrimo
72. participate in project 365
73. participate in talk like a pirate day
74. participate in the blogathon
75. participate in a book club
76. participate in a crafting challenge
77. participate in postcrossing
78. purchase some art work
79. read 30 non-fiction books
80. relearn calligraphy
81. remember to use reusable shopping bags instead of plastic
82. research and grow a herb
83. save spare change by putting in money box
84. send a package to a friend i’ve been out of touch with
85. send handwritten letters to people
86. solve the rubic’s cube
87. sort my photos into albums
88. spend a day at a botanic gardens
89. spend a day going to garage sales
90. take a walk in the rain
91. take up archery
92. try out podcasting
93. try out vblogging
94. visit an observatory
95. visit the auckland or wellington zoo
96. write letters of thanks or praise
97. replace this with a task at day 101
98. replace this with a task at day 334
99. replace this with a task at day 334
100. replace this with a task at day 668
101. replace this with a task at day 668

As before, this is a duplicate list of the sidebar which I intend to update rather than this post.

As part of my 101 in 1001, I’m attempting to do Project 365 again.
So without further ado, here is one of the photos I snapped earlier today.

I love how well the hairs on the tomatoes came through – you can almost smell the chemical released when you touch the plant.