Lego Lichtenstein

A while back I decided to undertake a winter project and create a 4' x 4' recreation of Roy Lichtenstein's "Girl with Hair Ribbon" out of legos.

Here is a picture without the border.

I had so much fun with it that I decided to make another.  I chose a different Lichtenstein painting this time ("Fast Car") and blew it up to 4' x 5'.

A little background on the process.

Step 1: Buy lots of legos.  I purchased them from a online lego supermarket (www.bricklink.com).  They have pretty much every type of lego you would ever need and the prices are good.

Step 2: I built the back from a sheet of plywood and some 1" x 2" wood bracers nailed to the back.  

Step 3: I then glued lego base plates over the entire wooden board in order to be able to stick the lego pieces on.

Step 4:  The tedious part!  I gridded out a 8.5" x 11" picture of the painting and just like that project most of you have done in grade school I recreated each square of the sheet in legos on the main board.  I had to order parts several times as I never ordered enough legos at once.

Step 5: The finishing touches!  The boarder is made from black flat tile legos stuck on in a 2" boarder around the picture.  The boarder overhangs the board slightly to conceal the wood behind.  After the legos were all on, I painted the boarders of the wood for a nice finish

This project was very time consuming but still a lot of fun.  Overall cost was around $350 for the first one and $600 for the second.

DIY Patio Project from Salvaged Material

Today was just the kind of day that makes me glad Amy and I moved to Charlotte. Its only March 1st and yet the sun is shining and the thermometer is pegged at 79 degrees.

I couldn't pass up the chance to get outside so I spent the day working on a backyard patio at our new place. The area was covered in vines, leaves, and trash before I began so it took a good amount of time to get everything cleaned up and ready.

I had a budget of $0 for this project. Ok, I didn't do it all for free. I had to spend $40 on the patio furniture (craigslist), a few bucks on the planting pots (thrift store), and about $10 on potting soil from Home Depot. Everything else was free.

I got the bricks from a guy not to far from us (via craigslist) who was tearing up his patio to build a wood deck. The soil in the backyard is a thick red clay that worked well to fill in the cracks as mortar. The concrete pavers were buried in the backyard under mud and leaves. A little cleaning up and they made a nice border and walking stones.

Amy and I bought a ton of seeds to plant so I decided to build a raised planting bed (the idea courtesy of our gracious Irish hosts Alfie and Margaret). I used a wood pallet from home depot that they generously donated. They probably would have had to pay to have it removed so I was really doing them a favor. I knocked the boards loose from the pallet and nailed them together leaving an open bottom for drainage. When the it gets closer to planting time I will fill it up with potting soil and drop in the sprouted seeds we have in our indoor greenhouse.

And that was all there was to it. The grand total on the project was $55 or so and took about 6 hours. Check out the pics below.


I had some left over brick and stone so we made a little fire pit.


The one regret is that I didn't take a before picture to compare with the finished product.

New Etsy Shop Up and Running!

www.Etsy.com/shop/ShutterandSparks

Our new shop is up with a few orders already under its belt.  The shop uses a unique pricing concept as far as Etsy shops go. Each week on Tuesday morning we will post 10 new items and at that time the 10 items from the previous week are dropped in price!


The items for sale drop in price by 25% for the first 4 weeks.  Once they reach the 4th week they will stay the same price until they are sold.

These price drops will occur on Tuesdays at Noon EST so if you are waiting to buy an item, you will know exactly when the price will be changed. Price drop times are designated in the item listing.

The goal of this shopping experience is to offer great items at prices that our customers approve. There is a little bit of fun and chance involved, so if you love an item and you love the price, buy it before someone else does! If you love an item, but not the price, wait a week and come back, but be careful, someone else may have that same idea!

Check it out! www.Etsy.com/shop/ShutterandSparks