Make your own MONOPOLY

It was my mom's 60th birthday, and we were planning to go on a family vacation. My sisters and I wanted to make her something special, and one of the many things that we produced for her birthday (T-shirts, private movie screening, photo album, a short clip etc..) we also decided to make her a costume monopoly board, featuring some of the milestones in her life.

I could not have done this without finding this amazing monopoly - photoshop template created by Brad, and without the help of my lovely, two older sisters.
Here's what you do:

Plan your board. decide what do you want to write in each square. Download the Photoshop files from Brad's site. Change the squares according to your plans, add photos or cartoons when necessary. create the property cards accordingly. Note that the board size is about 60x60cm, though you can always make it smaller.

Decorate the board with family photos. That's a matter of preference and taste. Just make sure you have some family photos on the computer, crop them as desired and add them to the board. Best is to use the "Extract" command in photoshop (under the filter menu).

Chance / Community chest- we changed that to surprise/ greeting. the thought was that the players will fill the cards with greetings for my mom and surprise gifts or tokens they wish to give her. we made some empty cards for that purpose.

Make the houses and hotels. we couldn't find any Monopoly hoses on stores and it was too late to buy some on ebay, so we made some. We bough 1x1cm wooden cubes. For the houses, we glued little roofs on them  made of a red paper stripe. For the hotels, we just glued two cubes together.  

Make the money. since it was our mom's birthday, we chose to make money with her face on it. We took a good profile picture of her, used the sketch filter in photoshop and placed her face in the center of a Monopoly bill. After I had that, I just changed the value of the bills. You can then print the bills on colored paper, and get some costumed Monopoly money. 

Make the players. we had a lot of ideas, but due to shortness of time we choose some figures out of the "toy a day" site. we made little heads of the family players and glued them on the folded toys.

 

We printed the board in a printing shop along with everything else, but if you have a colored printer you can print the things at home. We glued the board on some hard board carton to make it strong enough, and to make sure it doesn't wrinkle. We also made a box out of used carton.  

That's that. I can not say that it's not a lot of work, cause it is, but it made our mom so so happy, so I guess it was worth it.

Happy birthday mom!

a new little elephant is born

We were really excited this week when our friends first baby boy was born, so tiny and lovely. As the proud father is a collector of elephants- we've decided to make them an elephant mobile.

There's no tutorial this time, though making something like this is not very complicated... all you need to do is decide what stuffed doll you want to hang, create a paper model, copy it onto a fabric, cut, saw, stuff with something and hang from a stick. My lovely husband helped with all the tying and stuffing of the elephants, and also with deciding which fabrics we should use. We added some paper beads in between to make it more colorful.

to our dear friends-- Mazal Tov (:

I find you very attractive- make cool magnets, pt.II

I know it might seem that I have a small magnet obsession, but we really do have loads of unwanted magnets and a lot of junk hanging on our fridge and front door (and we don't even have kids yet).
This magnets project is a great idea for a something to do with all the bear caps left after Shavuot holiday or the weekend .

What you'll need

• bear bottle caps
• nice looking paper
• cardboard
• white plastic glue
• some sort of contact adhesive
• round, strong magnets

this time I've used some nicly patterned origami paper I had lying around and bear bottle caps; I think that with this method, any paper can work (except for cardboards and such).

Method

1. If your bottle cap has dark patterning on it and your paper is realtively thin (especially if using napkins), you should cover the top of the cap before you continue. paint spary will work, I find that cutting out cardboard circles and just gluing them is easyier, cleaner and cheaper.
2. Make a mixture of plastic glue and water. I didn't measure the quantities,but you can tell there's a lot of glue in there by the color. don't be cheap. Rinse your paper in the glue water for a few minutes to soften it abit.
3. Put the cap in the center of the paper, slowly fold the paper inwards while   keeping the face of the cap as tight as possible. use one hand to hold the    folded paper in place, and the other to keep on folding.
4. Let the thing dry for 10-20 minutes. in the mean time, you can cover some more caps.
5. Cut another circle that will fit the inside of the cap. when the paper is relatively dry, glue the card circle to cover up the folded paper. you can use the magnets at this point to tighten the folded paper back. let dry for another 10-20 minutes.
6. When this complex is dry, use contact adhesive to attach the magnet to the bottom of your covered cap.
7.     Let dry, and you're done!

Happy Holidays all!

new MEGA project- here's a peak

look what I found on my way back from pilates the other night

I could not resist the shaping of the arms, so much potential, so many options...

stay tuned for news (:

DIY tutorial: Recycled Orbit gum pack planters

In my weekly routine I drive a lot. Every day. 50km there and back again.

 The Orbit gum big packs are a necessity to me, and sometimes the only thing that keeps me from falling half asleep during morning traffic. As it happens, I started gathering quite a bit of empty packs- they were in such a cute little shape, they had to be good for something. And because I'm a planting person (I guess at some point a post about my plants will follow), I've decided to turn it into a nice little planter. very easy, and a perfect gift.
you will need:

• empty Orbit gum pack
• scissors
• acrylic paint (or anything else that will stay on plastic)
• a nail and a source of heat (lighter, home stove)
• some planting compost and a plant

 what you do:

1. screw off the cover of the pack. 
2. cut off the part that the cover was attached to (see picture).
3. paint the pack. I did about 4 layers to have a semi-uniform paint, you can adjust this to your liking. let dry between layers.
4. when painting finished, make hole to allow water draining: heat up a nail (don't do this in bare hands, use something!) and while hot, make holes at the bottom of the container. make at least 5 holes (or your plant will rot from the inside).
5. fill up with dirt, plant something and water. place in a place that will please the plant you just planted.

Enjoy!

Magnetized! part I: re-designing your fridge magnets, DIY reusing ideas

at my latest shopping round I went into a crafts store and apart from buying the clock mechanism previously mentioned, I also bough some magnets.
you see, our fridge's door is a big mess filled with 'happy new years' cards, bills to pay and a lot of shitty, commercialized magnets (especially pizza magnets) to hold it all together.

Ist project: re-design existing magnets
for this I used things I had lying around the house:

• magnets
• rubber glue (won't cause wrinkles when you glue paper to something, unlike plastic glue)
• scissors
• ruler
• transparent wallpaper
• old tickets, maps, pictures

 take the magnets you want to change and place them on a map, picture or whatever you want to have on your fridge from now on. cut out a piece that will cover the magnet, glue and cover with the plastic wallpaper for protection, and you're done! It's also a nice way to use old museum cards and other trip memories  (: