My Trip to JoAnn and What Should Be My Next Project?

My trip to JoAnn last week was a short but exciting one. If any of you follow me on Instagram you may have noticed I posted the add for 50% off Fiskars products during the Joann Labor Day sale and saying I was going to get it. Well, I did! I had to leave for a camping trip that afternoon so I made sure to go to JoAnn in the morning.

As soon as I stepped through the doors I couldn't help but notice the new spot for the licensed fabrics. Up front and plainly in sight. It definitely got my attention! I strolled through the aisle and was pretty giddy about what I saw so I snapped some photos because I really wanted to share with everyone the new selection of fabric that they had. I'm sure some of you may have already seen it since I'm not sure when the last time I was in JoAnn's was but I'm sure you can be excited about it again with me. :)

SDCC Highlights: Day 4

After almost a month since SDCC I'm finally posting my Day 4 highlights.  I'm not sure why, but I didn't take that many photos this day.  It might have to do with the fact that we spent the morning taking our time, loading the car, checking out of the hotel and then heading to the convention.  It's a little unconventional to dress us on Sunday, but since I spent all day Friday & Saturday in panels it didn't make sense to dress up then.  So here is my recap experience of Sunday at SDCC 2013.

 

Collage of silly photos in the parking lot so that I could upload it to Instagram.  My boyfriend decided last minute (1-2 week before the con) that he would also be dressing up so we got some nice action shots together.

Grabbing some free 5 hour energy from the parking lot.  He also decided to wear the Infinity Gauntlet that I made him last Christmas! 

Not too many people recognized me except one family dressed up as X-men characters who asked me to take a photo with her son dressed up as Wolverine & a fellow Jean Grey cosplayer.  I saw her while I was walking the floor and asked for a photo with her.  She was super excited and said we were like pokemon and she was the evolution of me.  That made my day.  :)

Thanos is angry that Cyclops got his Infinity Gauntlet!

Saw these girls while walking through the Sails Pavilion.  Can you name all of them?

Later that day I squatted through the Hawken panel to make sure I had a good seat for the Mouse Guard panel and it was pretty cool!  I don't have time to pick up game playing right now, but if I did I think I would be playing this!  

Model that they brought with them to show off.

After the Mouse Guard panel we went down to the Exhibit Hall to purchase a Mouse Guard replica Gold Axe which was tooooo cute.  ^_^  Then we went to the opposite side of the convention hall to find Vampy again to take a photo with her.  Since she was speaking at a panel it was easy to track her down.  We came late to the panel so we waited outside until the panel was over to have our photos taken with Vampy.  I consider myself super fortunate to have run into my cosplay idol twice during the convention, while in costume too!  After that our SDCC 2013 experience came to an end.

One thing that I must rant about is that during the Mouse Guard panel I had a couple sit down next me and the first thing I hear out of the girl's mouth was.  "Why are there so many people in this room?  I don't understand, it's just a comic book."  My jaw dropped...you're at a comic book convention!  Please please please don't refer to anything as just a comic book.  More and more folks make the trek out to Comic-con for a chance to see movie stars and forget what Comic-con is really all about.  Granted I also go for the movie stars in Hall H but I also love everything else about SDCC too.  For the most part everyone at comic con are really friendly and understand that everyone around you is in the same boat. We're all waiting in long lines, sitting in huge crowded rooms, cranky and tired.  But we're all also there to have fun and appreciate and respect the works of everyone in the comic book industry   So please be mindful and respectful when you're out there.  :)

Until next time SDCC!

Infinity Gauntlet - Assembly & Completion

Alright, so after you have the LEDs wired up and ready to go you're ready for the next steps.  I don't have many pictures of this because I did it all in less than 24 hours to make sure I had it ready and wrapped in time for Christmas, but I'll try to walk you guys through the steps the best I can.

Now that you have your rivets, paper prototype, and LEDs ready to go the next step is to actually assemble the gauntlet using your metal....right?  Nope!  I did it with poster board and ArtEmboss Aluminum!  I don't have any pictures of a few of my products/materials I used for this process so I'm going to link them up here below.

• Poster board (.50 at Dollar Tree)
• Scissors
• Gauntlet Template
• Xacto blade
• Bag of assorted oval acrylic gems* 
• Hot glue sticks & hot glue gun
• Snap Fasteners
• Thin elastic cord

*Note*: For the Acrylic Gems I ended up buying 2 bags in store.  As the description in the link says, the bag includes assorted colors so you don't know what you'll end up with.  Purple was very hard to find so I sat there in the store trying to flip the gems around in the bag until I could get a clear view of what color they were.  I ended up buying 2 bags because 1 had purple and 1 had red.  

Also, since there is no yellow gem in that pack, I used a yellow fabric for the back of the white gem and a yellow highlighter....It'll be our little secret, okay?  I think yellow nail polish could have worked too.  The backside of the gems are silver metallic which I sanded off with sand paper.  I probably didn't need to do that since the LEDs are so bright they could have shown right through it, but I like how it turned out.

Infinity Gauntlet - LED wiring

I'm sure this is the moment you've all been waiting for!  LED wiring for the Infinity Gauntlet.  First off I want to give a big thanks to my friend Ron for helping me clean up the LEDs.  And also for teaching me about lemons!  I'll get more to that later.  Before I start with the step by step tutorial, I have to let everyone know that going into this project I had no knowledge LEDs, resistors, wiring, etc except what I have learned and forgotten from high school and college.  So even if you have no knowledge of wiring up LEDs, I'm hoping that with this tutorial, safety, and a little bit of practice, you too can have LEDs to light up your infinity gauntlet.

What you'll need (not all items pictured):

• Soldering Tool Kit (Should have Iron, soldering wire at minimum)
• 6 white LEDs (Radio Shack #276-0320)
• 6 resistors (160-Ohm 1/4 Watt Carbon Film Resistors)  They come in a 5 pack...
• 1 AAA qty4 holder with on/off switch included
• Lemon juice aka Citric Acid Flux
• Wire cutters
• Hookup Wires (Red - Positive & Black - Negative)

Optional

• Electrical tape
• Heat Shrinkable Wire Wrap (I highly recommend this since it helps keeps the wires clean)
• Wire Stripper/Crimper

I basically walked into Radio Shack and told them what I was trying to do and how many LEDs I needed.  The associate was really helpful and at the same time not.  He was able to put my request into his little wizard and it popped out the necessary items I need, and the circuit it should be in, but beyond that he wasn't much help.

Here are the Youtube videos that I believe will be helpful for you:
Series and Parallel Circuits (I didn't watch this until I messed up the circuit so make sure you watch this first!)
LED Tutorial - Part 1
How and WHY to Solder Correctly

Infinity Gauntlet - Paper prototype

Hi Everyone!  How has your new year been so far?  Here's my first post for 2013!  I can feel that it's going to be quite the exciting year. Especially since I just made another Etsy sale!!  *happy dance*  Okay, enough diddle daddling and to the point now.  Time for the infinity gauntlet prototype post.

• Left Yellow glove (since the template is for the left or flip template for right hand)
• A print of David Guyton's Gauntlet template
• Thumb tacks (from the Dollar Tree)
• Tape
• Pliers optional

So my boyfriend loves comic books and has always told me about the Infinity Gauntlet and how he wants one.  Every time we walk around a craft store or random shop and he sees gems he would pick them up and wonder if they can be incorporated into a gauntlet some how.  So one day after Halloween I was Googleing and You Tubing other random projects such as resin masks and props and one video caught my eye.

"How to Make a Gauntlet Armor Tutorial" by David J. Guyton

The gold gauntlet caught my eye and not to mention it's a tutorial!  I clicked on the video and watched it and was throughly impressed.  What made this video more amazing was that he was selling the template for $5.  I was a little worried at first since the video was posted in 2010 and didn't know if I would get the template or even a response if I paid for the template, but I noticed that David is really quick in providing youtube responses so I gave it a go.  After I paid for the template he responded with the gauntlet template within in 24 hours!  Also, he just posted a new video today for gauntlet version 2 so you'll have some options for your design!  The video above suggest that you make a paper prototype first so that's exactly what I did.

Sneak Peak of my Xmas Crafting Gifts

Happy Holidays everyone!  I hope everyone is enjoying some time off and spending it with family and friends.  This year my family celebrated Christmas a little early so it feels nice to be done with all my Christmas shopping and crafting already.  Granted it was a mad rush to finish all the projects in time since I was pretty ambitious, but it was well worth it!  Since tomorrow is Christmas I'm making today's blog post a little short so I can go back to relaxing, but I did want to provide you with a sneak peak of 2 of my bigger projects I did last week.  These aren't items that you can find on Pintrest but hopefully you will be inspired to pin them and try them out for yourself!

For my brother's girlfriend I made her a felt plushie R2D2 with a head that can swivel!

For my boyfriend I made him a working Infinity Gauntlet.  For those that don't know what that is, check it out by clicking the Wikipedia link below.  Credit for the original gauntlet design goes to: David J. Guyton.  I purchased his template and made some slight adjustments so that I can add the gems to the gauntlet.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia 

Blog post for this Wednesday & Friday will be for R2D2 plushie.  Next week I will blog about the Infinity Gauntlet.  Stay tuned for some serious crafting updates!