How-To's Day: Comic Party Ball Decorations

Kevin here,

The Avengers is out today on Blu Ray and if you are a geek like me, you'll be watching it a lot.  I like to imagine it'll be my revenge for KC's Twilight marathons that can go several days.  So if you are planning on having a marvel marathon viewing party of your own, why not be uber geek and make custom decorations out of comics!

I enlisted KC's help showing me how she made the Party Balls at the last Etsy Night at CAFAM.  These are instructions originally from Mark Montano's demo. I'm going to use old and freeby comic books instead of the Robert Pattinson gossip magazines she uses. These party decorations made from comics are going to make my re-purposed geek party a hit!

Materials

• Paper (30 pages)
• Hot glue gun and sticks
• Scissors
• Pen
• Large throat stapler and staples

Cutting Steps

Step 1
Create a template to trace a 7" diameter circle on your papers.

Step 2
Cut the circle shapes out on 30 pages.

Step 3
Cut 12 little notches proportionally around the circle stack.  Draw lines across your template to line them up first.

Step 4
Group a stack into 15 pages and fold them in half straight through two notches on either side.  Along this crease, staple three times evenly.  Repeat this step, you will have two stacks prepped for gluing.

Gluing Steps

Steps 1-3
Starting between the 1st and 2nd pages of a stack, place glue dots on the first, middle and last notches.

Step 4
Turn the next page down and put glue dots on the two notches not glued on the previous page.

Repeat this process until all the pages are alternately glued together, resulting in a half moon shape.
Do all these steps again for the other stack.  When 2 completed stacks are glued dry, carefully unfold these halves and complete the paper sphere by gluing them (pictured below).

If you have any trouble, Check out more details here too.

I hate to waste good comics, so I used promotional and free stuff.  I plan on creating enough paper decorations with ribbons to disperse around the ceiling of the party room.  Let me know if you guys make some and what kinds of images you use!

-- Kevin Sears

RE Made Hacks- Rubber band ball

RE Made Hacks- Beer widget rubber band ball

We are going to start posting a section RE Made Hacks.  This section will feature creative ways to "Upcycle" random and unusual objects.  I really enjoy thinking of every way possible to rethink and rework every material.  Sometimes it's more helpful as a second time product than what it was suposed to be used for even! Sometimes its cheesey. Normaly, it's just a fun quirky was of assembling things together.  It won't replace our Tuesday Tutorials, which my apologies for loss of steam- but hey... it happens.  These segments will be quick and I'll post them as I am testing out an idea.

Paper Decorations for UNIQUE LA

As you may or may not already know we try to feature a How-To or a Tutorial section on our blog on Tuesdays.  Todays segment is going to feature more behind the scenes as well as making a re-purposed staple for fun Eco-crafting.  

Here is the details on some pretty paper rosettes-

One treat I am really looking forward to for our UNIQUE LA display this Holiday season are these re-purposed paper rosettes we are making as part of our reused paper decorations.

We really love these Mrs. Meyer's Dryer Sheets. They smell super great and are biodegradable versus whatever dryer sheets are made of. Does anyone really know???  They smell super good and hold up as perforated dotted paper after used.  

I have realized my niche is re-using things.  I am pretty sure I would be classified as a "consumer" still. I just make most of my purchases with a unique set of requirements. I feel super smart about making decisions and purchases around how many times I can continue using "the raw product" of each item I purchase. This item especially is one product that excites me to use fully.

These sheets make a great decoration for their second life, and I have been collecting them for months getting ready to utilize them for decorations. At UNIQUE LA's 2010 Holiday Event we are going to deck the decor with these awesome Paper Rosettes made from these used dryer sheets.

Here is the basics.  You save the sheets.  Cut them in half where they are perforated so that one sheet is now two.  Then accordion fold the sheet lengthwise wide enough to accommodate the staple in the middle to bound.

  These bunches are super fun looking all together.  

I can't wait until they are all glued and expanded. They are going to be fantastic!!!

This picture kinda illustrates the finished stapled bunches as of now... I am sure we will collect some more and I will post a finished count for the ridiculous amount above soon. 

***Prize for the person who guesses the right amount of rosettes we have in our booth at UNIQUE LA***

Now we spread each side of the sheet to meet each other and hot glue together. And whala! Beautiful paper rosettes that are super fun and pretty.

REFIND ORIGINALS

I just found out about ReFind Originals, and I wanted to jot down a quick post of why I like them.  I get updates from Inhabitat with a style section called Ecouterre.  There is a wonderful giveaway for a fab purse- You should enter and see if the winner could be you :) 

1st, This Butterscotch Shoulder Bag that is amazing!!! Based out of Indianapolis ReFind Originals' creator Anita Hopper makes amazing, luxurious fashion forward purses.  She gets her materials mostly from re-purposed leather and other apparel fabric.