339/365: Radesh and Zulka help make the Christmas gifts

339/365: Radesh and Zulka help make the Christmas gifts, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

December 5th

They also write emails with their butts. I was in the kitchen earlier and suddenly the error beep on my computer went off like a siren, over and over and over. Yeah, someone was trying to sleep on the keyboard.

Oh, and that's the nightlight I made. It will go to my grand-niece. She's only one, so it may take a few years before she appreciates this, but with any luck it will give her a nice childhood memory.

Here is a full view:



And here is a closeup:



It's meant to go on the wall, like so:



And here's a post about the ones I made last year: http://madziabryll.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-i-made-for-christmas.html

337/365: My tinker is back

337/365: My tinker is back, originally uploaded by Magic Madzik.

December 3rd

It's been a while since I made a Nightlight. A whole year, actually! And I had meant to make more and sell them...well, I suppose that's a resolution for next year. :)

Project 365 2010- don't forget to start!

You lazy bums, you promised! Where are the photos?

I just phoned up my sister (whose 365 blog I will link to once she starts one, and whose lovely photos I link to meanwhile) to remind her. The fact of the matter is it is January 1st, and if you don't start today, you will find it much harder to start tomorrow. People are odd creatures. They like milestones. They like clean slates, fresh starts, new beginnings, laundered underwear. January 2nd is rubbish. January 1st, ho, now, there's a date that commands respect!

Go take that picture before you fudge up your chance of a clean streak on the very first day.

Me being the party-hater that I am,  I spent New Year's Eve chillin' (oh and how) on a bridge over the Vistula, waiting for the city to provide a memorable firework display and praying the fog would not spoil it. The fog obliged but the city did not, and so I have only a mediocre photograph to mark the beginning of my Project 365 2010. No matter. It is symbolic, it was taken precisely at midnight, and it will do.

Happy New Year, everybody. And comment with links to your 365s, please, so that I can follow you.

What I made for Christmas

Well, there are another seven days until the end of Christmas, but at least the gift-giving moment is over and I can post some pictures of what I've achieved.

Some of you may remember this nightlight I made a while back:

It lives in my mother's kitchen now, but for Christmas, I made the following:

A Cracow on Christmas themed nightlight for my grandparents. They have lived in Cracow all their life, just steps from the wonderful St. Mary's Basilica and I know there are few things in the world they love more than their beautiful city.

The nightlight is a huge improvement on the one with the ship, not only because of the materials I used but because of the experience I gained making the first light.

All of my nightlights so far are powered by two AA batteries. The lights are LEDs, so they are safe as far as heat is concerned and I expect them to last a very long time. As the shopkeep at the electricity store down the street said (to save on explanations, I told him I would be making a doll's house): "Oh, the kid will be bored with that house long before those LEDs burn out."

Well, I hope not. ;)

If you click on the photos, you will go to Flickr where you can see larger sizes and a whole set dedicated to what I've done in the nightlight world so far.

The reason I call them nightlights (and I think I need a better name) is because they can function as such. The LEDS are bright enough to light up a dark room, but not so bright that they disperse the darkness completely. My original idea was that people could put them on a child's dresser, and they could look at the scene before falling asleep. Something for good dreams...

Another gift I made was this apartment block for my sister:

It is made out of an empty wine-box, as the more perceptive drinkers have probably noticed.;) I like recycling. And there is a trick to it. When you press the doorbell, the windows light up, and when you look through the windows...

...you will see little people.




The box is wooden, but everything inside except for the occasional scrap fabric curtain is made out of paper. Like in the Cracow scene, every single little person and piece of furniture are hand drawn and painted.

I have two more houses like this in the making, back in Lodz, I can't wait to get my hands on them again. They will be a lot nicer than this first one- again I have learned which materials are best and how to put everything together properly.


As before, the whole thing takes two AA batteries, and replacement is fairly easy. The lights are LEDs. I love LEDs. They're so handy and so efficient.

Like I said, I painted the people and furniture myself, but some of the wallpaper is actually origami paper...I was never any good at making anything but cranes, and I had a packet which I'd received as a gift lying in my paper box for a good few years.

This, dear friends, is why I never throw anything out! All sorts of scraps and odds and ends have found their way into these nightlights. The windowsills on the house, for example, are made out of cat food tins. Oh, yes. I wash all my cans and save them, they are extremely useful, if only for holding my various pens, pencils, and markers.

I made two more nightlights like these, but I will save them for another post. One of them has still not been delivered to the person I made it for, and on the off-chance that this person reads my blog, I wouldn't want the surprise spoiled.

A good post, I think, to end the year with.

I know there aren't many of you reading this at this point, but I wish you all a wonderful New Year, with lots of creative and fruitful endeavours. And if you're just the lazy sort and happy with that, then I wish you what we in Poland call 'holy peace', and that is to say, the cherished lack of excessive noise and unnerving distractions which can normally drive one to curse at the skies.

Have a good 2010, everybody. Oh, and don't forget, January 1st is the PERFECT time to start your 365 Photos Project! I will be posting mine on this blog starting the day after tomorrow, so don't let me make you jealous. ;)

Do siego roku! May the New Year truly be New!

Crafty things

Christmas gift teaser (if you are reading this then, no, it's not for you.):





More soon.

Of nightlights and getting excited

I follow a lot of people on Twitter. One of them is Wil Wheaton- I have a soft spot for the dude not only because he seems to complete the trifecta of being smart, funny, and talented, but mainly because my greatest fear is being disliked. This guy played a character that was deeply disliked by the majority of a very significant fandom and has come out of it a cheekily grinning winner, without any condition of regret- he's rightfully proud of his career and he's not a dick about it.

Yesterday as I was playing with sharp things, a link to Wil's latest blog entry came up on my twitter feed. You should go over there and read it for yourself but the title sums it up well:"Get excited and make things" .

And I thought, YES. Very good post, and it gave me heart. Because that's what I've been doing since I got back from California this September- getting excited and making things. I've not only been racing for a deadline with illustrations for a reprint of Betlejem, but also playing at another version of the gift I gave my parents for their anniversary last year. It was a little moonlit forest enclosed in an antique cabinet, with a battery-powered lamp stuck in the back for lack of electrical experience- something I have to dismantle now and rewire with an on-off switch so they can enjoy it better. In the meantime I made another attempt; to call it a nightlight probably describes it best:



My mother put it in the kitchen and switches it on from time to time. The inside is papercraft, the moon is lit up by an LED powered by two AA batteries. Overall not a bad job, though a lot of it needs improvement. I used a chisel to cut a hole for the batteries in the frame- the same chisel which I drove into my hand not once, not twice, but six times in the last three days.

Fearing for my life and limbs, I bought a Dremel tool yesterday along with a router attachment. It has already made it to the Hall of Fame of Best Purchases I Ever Made, right next to my bicycle, my Macbook and my camera. It is very helpful in creating what the nightlight project has evolved into, and what you can see a glimpse of in the photo below:



So I am getting excited and making things. As Wil calls for in his blog, I'm doing it right now, because right now is the best time to do it. I don't know if I'll ever manage to make these diorama nightlights nice enough to sell, or if anyone will ever want to buy them, or if this hobby can be in any way affordable, but I am having tremendous fun and will have good gifts for Christmas this year.

Pass it on, people: get excited and make things. Even if you lose a little blood and sanity in the process. ;)