Happy Storm Trooper!

Here is the birthday boy!

 He is being Hans Solo pretending to be a Storm Trooper. He had to pose with a gun for the full effect. (Good thing he was able to whip one up out of Lego blocks in no time at all.)
He was very happy with the new characters as well.

 I even added a Sand Person at the last minute. He requested some additional bad guy robots as well as "twentyfourty" more storm troopers and fifteen more Jawaws.
He was very pleased with the eye choice for the Jawaw and stated that they do indeed have gold eyes. I also made weapons for them and he was quite satisfied with their accuracy to the movie. So overall we had a happy camper!

I love that he understands that these are custom made for him! Can you imagine opening a store bought gift and requesting revised weaponry, additional characters, etc. to your own desired specifications!

This is what makes handmade gifts so special! They are custom made just for you!

Have you made a handmade creation for someone recently? How did you customize it to meet their particular interests, desires, etc.

Happy Birthday Storm Trooper!

My nephew's birthday follows shortly after Christmas so it's always fun to be able to carry the theme or creations from Christmas over and have a bit more time devoted to just to him.

In 2010, I made his Super Hero Cape to match the Super Monkey I made him for Christmas.

This year, I thought I would make him a Storm Trooper Helmet. It is made out of Milk Bottles! I used this tutorial. However I used white milk jugs. Unfortunately  they have an extremely different shape than the clear jugs used in the tutorial. So I had quite a bit of trouble trying to keep it truly Storm Trooper. I think it came out well despite the different shape and there was no spray paint involved. I just used acrylic paints including white that I used to cover up the hot glue from the hot glue gun. The nice part about this was that I could just wash off the bottles and start over if I made a mistake. I used black electric tape for the black band at the top and used vitamin bottle caps for the caps at the "ears." Hopefully he likes it! We are still waiting for an official fitting to put in the eye holes.

Also, at Christmas my nephew loved his Star Wars Finger Puppets, but as you would imagine as an almost 5 year old he had a few recommendations. He requested I add guns and some more "bad guys" so he could REALLY play with them.
So with some simple folded pipe cleaners and some more floss everyone was equipt with guns in a matter of minutes, except for R2-D2 and C-3PO. He said Leah should have a gun, because Luke let her borrow his. As for the bad guys he requested a Jawa and Darth Maul. So here they are in all their glory.

My mom is bringing some red pipe cleaners on Thursday so I can make his double light saber.

She is also bringing black pipe cleaners so I can make the Jawa's gun. My nephew was very specific about the gun since it has a very large barrel. He even knew what it was called. I did a google image search and sure enough, they do! I didn't even remeber they HAD guns! I really wanted gold eyes so I searched through my jewelry making supplies and found the eyes above. I know they are bigger, but I like that they make him feel smaller. Hopefully my artistic license is acceptable to my nephew.
Unfortunately we all got sick so we had to miss his big day. We are hoping to get together soon to give him his new Star Wars friends. Don't forget if you want patterns for the rest of the gang to shoot me an e-mail at mcgowan.rebekah@gmail.com

What projects are you working on over the winter months?

Drive By Delights!

As I was driving home Sunday from church, I saw a fabulous sign. It said those magic words FREE. It was a 'day after yard sale- Free for all!' Usually things are pretty picked through at this point, but I grabbed this fabulous Child's rocking chair and an interesting bird house. 

Recently Lucas made a jump for it off of his changing table/ dresser. Thankfully he landed in his laundry basket. Needless to say, he is now changed in his crib to protect him from his own dare devil self. So we moved the Owl Mobile above his crib so he wouldn't  miss his little friends.

This left a blank dresser. So what better accessory than an Owl house! 

The dresser we purchased on Craigslist for $60. It was a hideous retro looking thing in a horrid yellow wood finish with wooden knobs. With MUCH sanding, painting, staining, and new knobs we made this gorgeous piece.This refurbish was inspired by YoungHouseLove. They actually inspired our whole nursery! I'll tell you about that whole remodel in a future post.

 

The owl house still  needs a few touch ups, but was in good enough shape I thought we could start enjoying it right away!

Of course, I had to accessorize with more owl friends.

Bill was thrilled with my free finds and went right to work sanding the rocking chair.  It's finish is pretty thick so he ended up quitting after an hour or so, but is excited to finish sanding so he can spray paint it as soon as possible.We put Lucas in it and he absolutely LOVED rocking in it. It is a perfect size with plenty of room for him to grow into. We couldn't be happier.