DIY Life

Every week, I eagerly look forward to Wednesdays and head over to Design*Sponge to see what has been created that day. Derek and Lauren never cease to amaze me, and this week is certainly no exception. Once again they have come up with an excellent DIY project.

A simple piece of wood, a clock mechanism kit, and a wood-burning tool are materials necessary in making this gorgeous little clock. Derek and Lauren provide complete and detailed instructions and pictures describing the process of putting the clock together.

Making or finding inexpensive wall art is not always an easy task. Some people, me included, have to have just the perfect piece of decor, so we spend hours trying to make or find that perfect elusive item.

Sometimes inspiration hits full force. Such is the case for this amoeba-inspired biological clock that doubles as wall art. Shelly made the clock project for her local newspaper, and I just have to share the awesome tutorial with you, as well as the picture gallery showing how she makes the clock.

Shelly went to her local Goodwill store and bought a cheap clock for less than $2, then cut a piece of plywood into an interesting shape using a jigsaw. She spread Mod Podge on her fabric and on the clock, and glued the fabric onto the plywood. Check out her tutorial for the full directions.

If you have a friend who is counting down the years or days until their biological clock stops ticking, then this is the perfect gift for them. For guys, maybe just changing the shape of the design or color of your fabric will make it a perfect Father's Day gift.

Every once in a while, a really neat digital clock comes along that makes us gaze over those red LED segments as if they were magical lights or something. Nothing beats the age-old LED clock by encasing it in solid wood and shining that ever-so-scarce time directly through it, right?

If you're handy with a drill press and have extreme precision when it comes to using it, this clock project is right up your alley. Now, you'll need some electronics expertise and quite a few red (or any color) LEDs to fit in quite a few holes that you'll be drilling into one of the wood planks used in this clock. If you have the patience, time and skills, though, this makes an excellent clock and would be perfect for ringing in the new year next Monday night.

So, round up some glue, sandpaper, some LEDs of multiple colors and some standard DIY tools and you'll be off and running. Hint: to geek out even further, this "clock" can even be used to play retro video games ala Atari 2600.

Wood workers are special people and that's why they deserve special gifts. Most of us wood workers are earthy types and hands on people who thrive on creating things of beauty and utility from nature's raw materials.

It's not hard to buy gifts for a wood worker but sometimes it's hard to buy just the right one. If your wood worker isn't giving any hints about what you might give them, I have some suggestions here that might make the endeavor a bit easier for you. I present to you my Holiday Gift Guide of Classic Gifts for Wood Workers.

Few words excite us do-it-yourself types more than the word "kit." Have I got a kit site for you! Klockit is the world's leading clock parts and movement supplie, with build your own clock projects for almost every style and skill level. Klockit makes it easy for you to exercise your craftsmanship talents by providing beautifully designed time pieces for you to build. Clocks are daily necessities which can act as decorating and design elements in every room, and they can also be timeless gifts (pun intended).

How would you like a hand-built solid walnut desk clock? Klockit's Breckenridge kit might be just the thing for you. At $36.00, it rivals anything similar you might find in a local gift shop and you get the satisfaction of building it yourself. Our lady woodworkers might like to make this mini grandfather clock jewelry box, but be warned, for $22.00 you get the movement, the glass, the hardware and the plans. The wood parts you must cut for yourself. For those woodworkers with exceptional skills, how about building your own grandfather clock from the ground up? Klockit has several styles to choose from, and nothing says heirloom quite like something that daddy built with his own hands.

If you're into clock building, you're probably good with mechanical gears, woodworking, precision work, and, in some cases, you're a lubrication expert. Aside from the mechanical variety, do you delve into the electronic variety at all? As in LCD or LED displays and electronic timers?

There's nothing like a bright red LED display to evoke memories of that late 1970s-era Texas Instruments calculator, or Mattel handheld Football game, and there's still something to be said for clocks using this kind of display. If you're handy with a simple breadboard, some LED segments, and a power source, you're set.

A basic clock is pretty easy to make: you just need a clock kit, which has the workings and the hands, and something to be a clock face. Clock kits usually cost less than US$10 in craft stores. Clock faces can be almost anything (flat-ish) you imagine, from a porcelain plate with a hole carefully drilled through the middle, to an old vinyl record, to your friend's wedding photo, to an actual, formal clock face.

IKEAhacker posted a great clock hack of this nature from the November Dreams blog, which involves only making a few holes: a space for the clock parts, and holes for the hands. If you don't happen to have an IKEA near you, no problem. You won't be able to duplicate the project exactly, but you'll be able to find very similar items at almost any craft store.

Be sure to check out the IKEAhacker post for links to four other fun, easy clock projects!

Whenever I think of my original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), I get a warm, glowing feeling inside. Growing up in the early 80s, I have such fond memories of all those classic games -- being the first kid in my class to beat level 8-1 on Super Mario Brothers, finally figuring out how to kill Ganon in The Legend of Zelda (gold cartridge, of course), becoming an accredited, Nintendo Power-certified Tetris master -- so you can imagine the great and profound sadness I felt when I finally had to put down my original NES console. I've since replaced her with a nearly-new model from eBay, but I keep my original system in the closet, and still pull her out from time to time just to reminisce.

As the years have gone by, I've begun to wonder if I could find another use for my old NES friend. I hate to have her sitting in the bottom of the closet, gathering dust and spiders, when she could be repurposed for a different, grander purpose. After looking around online, it's amazing just how many DIY projects exist for old NES units.