Fire breathing

Warning: Post contains fire. Fire is dangerous. Apparently inhaling cornflour can cause lung infections too. Blow, don't suck :P

So... Instructables is a very bad influence. It's probably been my biggest influence this week. Into my inbox came a newsletter with a section called Projects for Pyros...

I had heard of using cornstarch (known as cornflour in the UK) for firebreathing before; I even had it in my project notebook from several months ago. Using Bonfire weekend as an excuse seemed as good as any to try this out with minimum attention.



It's surprisingly easy to do, although it's a bit gross tasting and gunks up in your mouth but eventually dissolves. You stick a big spoonful of cornflour into your mouth and just blow out .... up and out, not down! Flames go up! - towards a lit blow torch. This would be the other fun use of a small blow torch, besides firing PMC (precious metal clay).

For some reason, this picture of my husband fire breathing is more popular than the pictures of me.


And here's a short video so you get the full noise effect.

Embroidery

Two of my friends decided to share a flat together... We're kind of taking the piss out of them so made them His & His towels and then I decided they'd enjoy the rude tea towels too.





Happily, they seem to love them, especially the tea towels as they were needed.

Raspberry... P.I.

Another joke gone horribly wrong. Overheard someone describing a raspberry pi as a "raspberry pee eye" and then decided this needed to be celebrated with a raspberry sporting a Tom Selleck 'tache.

Giant T-Rex

Oh so funny... something that was vaguely a joke...

Somehow on the trip back from Derby Mini Maker Faire, we came up with the Amish T-Rex as a description for me. T-Rex because I have short arms and I have to ask other people to get things off of high shelves for me. Amish because ... well, I like to think I had a hippy upbringing but maybe it was more coddled/sheltered/not allowed to do fun & dangerous things. Also all the previous domestic skills tend towards being "amish".

Somehow I found a 6ft t-rex made out of plywood on Instructables. This idea escalated to Let's Build This For EMFCamp then ... it must glow. Yes it must. I originally thought I'd use UV paint but then decided glow in the dark pigments would be better... It'd react to light and also to the UV Lights.

I gathered a budget, I got granted a budget (materials only), bought plywood, begged for base-coat paint from friends, and somehow... it all came together. Under a bridge under the M1 in Milton Keynes.

Less making, more having fun

I realised I hadn't posted here for ages... so I wondered what I was up to. Checking back through social media, it seems like I've just been out with friends mostly.

First, cable car!! Which including a boat ride and a bit of visiting a sort of hackerspace in Greenwich.
There was some ponies...
something called Meat Tuesdays... o_O
and a Maker Faire!
I've been barely alive since the Maker Faire. I am so glad the golf courses no longer exist..

Alas, I am no longer invincible to money problems... so I will have to only make do with what I've got. This sadly includes making do with a netbook for a while until I can save up enough money for a new laptop. Less Inkscape fun probably.

I have a bunch of stuff to post about but I'll try to space it out a bit. Yay making things!

Sometimes you don't need a reason. BUBBLES!

Tom and I made bubble wands and made giant bubbles until we ran out of bubble solution last night :D We made bubbles that bounced off the carpet!! And bubbles that seemed to last forever and ever. And GIANT bubbles that take forever to pop along their length.