Boston College Art Club Tumblr Development

This past summer, a good friend of mine from high school asked me if I could develop a custom Tumblr theme for the Art Club at Boston College.

My main goal with this project was to create the look and feel of a non-Tumblr site, all the while having it hosted on Tumblr.

The result was an odd and slightly tricky way to work around the theme to get the desired outcome, but nothing a short well written guide couldn't accomplish. 

I had free creative control of the design and instantly knew I wanted the index page to feature a slider. Built-in Tumblr Customization allows for easy image uploading and link changing for the slider. I kept the rest of the theme simple - focus on the art. 

I limited the color palette to black and white, with an accented red color. 

View the complete project...

DIY: Foam Board Side Table/Bookcase

My interest in DIY furniture started when I wanted to redo my room and looked up furniture. My sister introduced me to an Australian company, Karton, that creates cardboard furniture. From there, I looked up various cardboard DIYs but couldn't find anything concrete or solid enough to complete with two boxes of cardboard lying in my room...so I created my own.

And because the cardboard I own wasn't good enough to use, I decided to use foam board.

Materials

2 Foam Boards (I got mine at the 99cent store for $2 each)

Razor blade carton cutter

Ruler / Pen / Glue

WARNING: THIS DIY CONTAINS THE USAGE OF MATH AND MEASURING.

Step 1.

Cut your foam board in half vertically.

The boards I got were 20inches by 30 inches. After cutting them, I obtained four 10inch by 30inch boards. Each board will be a different side to the table, with one board becoming the shelves.

Step 2.

Cut the following patterns out of each board. I suggest labeling each board and writing which side will be the top and bottom. It'll help you be more organized and you won't be as confused later when you assemble them.

Also try using a sharp razor if you can. The one I used was pretty dull and therefore I didn't get sharp, nice, clean cuts and some of the paper from my foam board ripped off. It wasn't until much later that I realized that I can flip the blade but by then it was too late.

If you're using a foam board with the same measurements as mine, here are the measurements I used for cutting out the sides. The 'Back' cutouts use the same measurements - just make sure to leave a half inch on each side and then follow the same pattern.

The measurements I made don't necessary have any meaning. I kind of winged it when making the measurements, but it worked, so if you have something else in mine, feel free to do that instead.

Please excuse my poorly drawn pictures, not drawn to scale*

The shelves measurements will be as follows. From your 10x30 inch board, you will cut that into three 10x10 boards. Keep one of these boards as a 10x10, while cutting the other two into a 9.5x10. You will then cut 1/2inch x 1/2inch square from each corner of the two 9.5x10 boards.

After you cut out all your patterns, you're boards will look something like this.

Left Side:

Right Side:

Back:

Shelves:

Step 3.

Connect all the pieces! I suggest connecting the shelves to the sides first, and then snapping on the back. Glue the top shelve on last. If you prefer to do so another way, go for it!

You'll end up with something like this once you put it all together.

Now, go place it somewhere & put stuff on it!

& for those non-believers, it really does hold that much weight. (and more!)

American Museum of Natural History

If you recall, back in October I took a trip to the American Museum of Natural History with some school mates, but personally I can't count that trip as actually "going" to the Museum of Natural History, mostly due to the fact that more time was spent doing a scavenger hunt instead of actually seeing the exhibits.

This past Saturday, I returned to this magical place to see the Creatures of Light exhibit as well as finally get the opportunity to see & learn everything I wanted. On a quick note, the Creatures of Light exhibit wasn't that great. I thought there would be real jellyfish and animals but instead it was just replicated environments and LED lights - though, don't get me wrong it was pretty beautiful and at one point I felt like I was in a real life fairy tale.

One of my favorite things I did at the museum was weight myself on the various scales they had placed in the floor.

It would be a HUGE crime to visit the museum and not see the dinosaurs!

By now, you should know my fascination and love with anything that has antlers, especially deer (ie, my DIY Deer Taxidermy), so when I saw a skeleton of a moose, I freaked and so badly wanted to steal it and mount it on my walls - but since I can't really do that, a picture for now will have to suffice.

On my way out, I passed by some animal exhibits and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw these. How remarkable are they ( !!! )

This trip was so much fun & I can finally cross it off my "Places-To-Go" board.

I wonder where I'll go next...

any ideas?

DIY: Cardboard Ring Holder

My selection of rings goes from classic to funky chunky - as does my wardrobe choices - so choosing what accessories to wear with what clothes sometimes gets time consuming, especially when I have my jewelry all jumbled around in a drawer not organized. 

Recently, I ordered a remote for my Nikon DSLR from Amazon and it arrived in a very peculiar box. It just happened to be a perfect box to use to create this DIY. 

Materials

Cardboard Box with a removable insert.

Craft Knife

Step 1.

Using your craft knife, cut the cover off the box, and cut slits into the cardboard as shown.

The amount of slits you cut depends on the size of your box and the size of your rings. My box was pretty small, and I have a few statement rings so I needed more room.

Step 2.

Add your rings!

Enjoy!

DIY: Deer Taxidermy

If anybody knows anything about me, they'll know I love taxidermy. And while having real taxidermy is totally unrealistic for an 18 year old living in her parents house, this DIY is a great substitute!

Materials:

Deer Templates

Scrapbook Paper

Craft Knife

Foam Board

Pencil / Scissor / Glue

Step 1.

Print the templates from Chronicle Books and cut them out.

Step 2.

Trace the templates onto your scrapbook paper. If you want, you can also print directly onto decorative paper - just make sure you print enough templates.

You'll need the following:

2 deer heads*

2 deer bodies*

1 deer nose

1 deer antlers

*One of the issues I ran into was not tracing mirror images of the head and body, so make sure you do that! I ended up having half of my deer covered in decorative paper and the other half being the white foam board. Or, if you want and have enough supplies (I surely didn't), you can create additional templates to cover your board, and not run into this issue at all. Your choice. 

Once you have the templates on your scrapbook paper cut out, you can glue the antlers together, and the head and body together. You'll end up with the following pieces:

*See how the deer head/body are parallel to one another? Yeah...you don't want that. 

Step 3.

Take your templates and glue them onto your foam board. 

I bought my foam board at a 99Cent store for $2. It just so happened to work perfectly with the cuts made in the templates. Keep in mind, if your foam board is thicker, you'll have to adjust the size of the cuts in the templates so that your foam board will fit in with each other.

Step 4.

Use a craft knife and cut your templates out from the foam board. Once that's done, arrange them so that they look like the picture. 

For Hanging: Poke a hole in the back of the deer's body, loop wire through it, and hang it as if you're hanging a picture frame.

That's it! Pretty sweet and simple!

Leave any comments/questions/concerns below.