I found the box in the garbage while walking the dog yesterday and I knew I had to make a fiddle. It looks like it was a chunk cut out of a cheap veneer door or something. This was my most ambitious instrument-a-day, coming in at 6 hours.
The bridge is cut from poplar, the strings are nylon guitar strings, the bass bar and sound post are garbage wood, and the neck/fingerboard is, of course, a rotten stick. This fiddle actually leaves mildew on your left hand when you play it.
The bow I made yesterday literally disintegrated overnight - the screws unscrewed themselves and the hairs fell out! So I played the fiddle with a rosin-coated popsicle stick. Bear in mind that (1) this is a horrible, horrible fiddle and (2) i have no idea how to play a fiddle, before you listen to the sound sample.
They’re for you, TAD peeps. yep. You know who you are.
Sculpey™ toast gets crust paint.
Old Man Bicentennial quarter is in there for reference. (Old Man reference dime is in the wall forever (see yesterday’s TAD post)).
Sculpey™ travel box
I had a great pink left over from the donuts and so I painted my Sculpey™ travel box. I made an ugly green for the other side. ha. Oh hey … there’s Old Man Bicentennial quarter for size ref. Peace out! -jhj
Bart Hopkin calls it a boo - a tongue drum made from a tube of bamboo or a box. It might not seem complicated compared to some of my earlier instruments, but for me, cutting and attaching these five pieces of wood was like brain surgery. Notice that no two sides are the same length, and the notches for the tongue are all slanted. Anyway, it goes a little bit like this.
Ever since I saw it in the instrument collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I’ve been obsessed with the trumpet marine, a giant one-stringed instrument that’s supposed to sound like a trumpet. Besides its monstrous size, the most important characteristics of the trumpet marine are that it’s fingered at the harmonics and played with a bow (like Glendon’s harmonic violin) and that it has a buzzing bridge that gives it the brassy sound of a trumpet. The bridge has to be carefully balanced to get it to buzz, which is done by adjusting the tension on a string called the guidon that tugs the main string sideways. (You can see the guidon in the closeup shot.)
My instrument with no bow at all is a pretty poor imitation of a trumpet marine, but it does sound a bit salty. In the sound sample, you can hear as I fiddle with the guidon to get a buzz that I like. On the last four notes in the sample, I supressed the plucking sound in software to simulate what it might sound like when bowed. (And I cranked the reverb way up.) It does kind of sound like a trumpet!
What was I saying about making stringed instruments too big for myself? This one is over seven feet tall.
I’ve been more productive today then other days. There was a lot of cleaning and then a stitch marker set and some envelopes. It seems my envelopes run out faster then I assume they will. I made around ten thinking no one will buy anything and they do! I’m trying to use the scraps of paper from the other envelopes that I have made to make more. This set of stitch markers I have made similar ones before and they have sold fairly fast. Like always I hope these sell well also.
this is my new jewellery box. inside is decorated with black velvet and the outside is just glitter glue colour. see what comes out when squishee is bored
matches a handful of different perpetual calendars i have recently made! oh, how i love the striped paper on the sides… i’m not sure it’s done, i think i’ll add a little somethin’ to the front and back, but i’ll save that for later!
Well, so I had a brilliant idea to take a Christmas-themed box my Mom gave me and fix it up nice as part of a gift for a friend. Well, the initial idea for it just didn’t work. I painted the top and bottom of the box to cover the Christmasy part. Then I pasted on paper designs. Well, the real error was when I thought I would coat over it with a clear protective coat. That ruined it. As a matter of fact, I’ve just finished peeling the paint off it completely and am back where I started. I have a new idea for it now and will try tomorrow.
So, I also had a better idea for a cute little purse. I crocheted two circular pieces, the same way I start when making kufis. Then I used fabric to line the two circles and sewed the circles together. It’s not done yet either. I have to figure out what I want to do for a handle, a closure, and perhaps some decorative piece for the outside. So that will also be part of tomorrow’s work.
I’m still experimenting with origami. It’s something I always mean to try, and just didn’t until my first box yesterday. Today I made another origami box, this time the theme was sand and I added some typical beach items on the top to dress it up a bit, make it more interesting. Inside I decided it would be a good place to store our sentimental beach finds some shells and driftwood pieces. Origami is easier than I thought it would be and enjoyable. Tomorrow, I stretch from my comfort zone and do something a bit more complicated.
I made an origami box today using this grass paper I found. The daisy isn’t something I made today though or ever. It’s an old craft item I’ve had hanging around, and thought it might make a cute accent. More photos on flickr.
little mailboxes made as a special order. gotta make 4 more for this person. they crack me up, they’re SO CUTE!!
matches a handful of different perpetual calendars i have recently made! oh, how i love the striped paper on the sides… i’m not sure it’s done, i think i’ll add a little somethin’ to the front and back, but i’ll save that for later!
