makezine.com: TNT, Round 11: Gift-Making

TNT Newsletter for December 15, 2006

Android games, you need your mead, a fruit bowl in record time, how to make a kinara, the Hanukkah lowdown, and making solid perfume.

Dear Readers Who Make:

I've been spending a lot of time trying to think of really good gifts to give people, and of course the ones you make are the ones that warm hearts most. (Remember when you gave Grandma the picture frame you made in kindergarten? She loved it!)

I've included a bunch of ideas for homemade gifts and holiday projects, however you celebrate the ending of the year, but if you're more in the mood to give the tools with which your loved ones can make you gifts, be sure to check out MAKE senior editor Phil Torrones Gift Guide for the Intelligent Designer (so titled in an audacious re-appropriation of the term for smart people everywhere). The suggestions are culled from an impressive roster of geeky geeks, and range from antique sewing machines to digital calipers, laser cutters, and a subscription to Nature Magazine (MAKE is a given, right?).

Phil is also a judge for NPR's Holiday DIY Contest: Create a menorah, a kinara, an ornament, along with Carla Sinclair, CRAFT's editor-in-chief. They should be announcing the winners soon, but in the meantime, be sure to check out the Flickr photo pool of the entries. They range from the lovely to the hilarious: check out the lego menorah, a "missle toe" ornament, what surely has to be the world's smallest menorah, and a USB-powered LED candle holder, made from a plastic peanut butter jar, a garland, some LEDs and an Apple Pro speaker.

And if that's not enough holiday fun, check out the Homemade Gift Contest over at Instructables. Some of the entries are included below, but it's not too late to enter yourself, so start brainstorming! If you come up with a tool, tip or project you want to share with other readers in the TNT newsletter, send it to me, and I'll send a free copy of the MAKE Pocket Reference to stuff in your stocking.

Make sure to enjoy the next few weeks and keep the spirit of the holidays homemade and maker-friendly.

Cheers,
Arwen O'Reilly
Staff Editor, MAKE Magazine
toolbox@makezine.com

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Order today or be sorry tomorrow.

Dreidel Droids

Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.starwars.com/kids/activity/crafts/f20051216/index.html

Hanukkah is fast approaching, so you better get your dreidel on. Want to make your own, but don't have time to make one out of clay? Try out this awesome paper version (using a PDF printout, cardboard, and a pencil to spin it on) that plays on the words Dreidel and Droid. Yes, that's right! Your very own R2D2 dreidel ... Life is good.

If you do have time (or are just not a Star Wars fan), check out these instructions on how to make a more traditional (and sturdy) clay dreidel, in the second half of this article.

Discussion

Solstice Sipper

Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.meadmadecomplicated.org/

If celebrating the winter solstice is more in your line of things, the night won't be complete without some homemade mead. Follow the instructions here, and you can raise your glass in a time-honored fashion. (Plus, fermented honey is pretty tasty.)

Discussion

Vinyl Fruit Bowl

Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/E85YU5MBMOEV2Z91AS/

Have an old, scratched-up LP you were going to toss? Don't! Turn it into a fruit bowl instead, following the steps in this well-done Instructable. A lovely way to reuse otherwise an otherwise useless object, and music lovers are sure to be enchanted (although be sure to explain to them that the record was damaged so they don't freak out).

Discussion

Baby Block Kinara

Reviewed by Meara O'Reilly
http://www.ehow.com/how_11122_make-kinara.html

Kwanzaa may be a relatively recent holiday, but its focus on culture and creativity is a beautiful thing and something all makers should be able to appreciate. Like Hanukkah, to celebrate Kwanzaa you light a candle each night in the kinara. This is a quick how-to for making your own from baby blocks.

Here is another article from Care2.com listing easy tips for making Kwanzaa celebrations eco-friendly, i.e. DIY. (Would that making instead of buying was the norm!)

Discussion

Perfume Made Easy

Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.instructables.com/id/E4AIU4TACAES9J58F6/

I'm not a fan of most commercial perfumes (they don't really smell like anything in particular), and neither, apparently, is Instructables user Rapiertwit. Check out this nice instructable on making solid perfume. It couldn't be easier--the hard part is deciding which scent to use and who to give it to.

Discussion

Chanukah? Hannukah? Hanukkah? Khanike? Hanookuh?

Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah#Alternative_spellings_based_on_transliterating_Hebrew_letters

For me, it's always a moment of doubt: just how do you spell Hanukkah? Asking around the office, I found that a number of us were confused or at least curious at the wide variety of spellings we've seen, so I decided that this was the perfect opportunity to explain the concept of "transliteration."

For in fact, there is no one right way to spell Chanukah. The original word is in Hebrew, so in trying to spell it, we are trying to approximate the sounds of a completely different alphabet (which, in the case of Hebrew, rarely uses written vowels--just to complicate things). Most of the commonly accepted spelling of Hannukah keep the 'h' at the end of the word because removing it would change the gender of the word in Hebrew, so there is still a nod to the original sense, even though we don't have gendered words in English.

Transliteration is meant to be a "mapping" of one written language into another, with as little loss as possible in the doing. There is a complicated system to do so, and the rest of us have to deal with the final decision. There are many different ways to spell any foreign word, and fashions change as linguists, literature professors and pundits find more "accurate" ways to translate one written language into another. (Tolstoy was once Tolstoi, Crete was Krete, Muslim was once Moslem and even Muselman.)

(For more on transliteration, see the Wikipedia entry.)

So: Have a very Happy Khanike!

Discussion

Build Your Own Stonehenge

Reviewed by Arwen O'Reilly Griffith
http://www.exo.net/~pauld/activities/astronomy/stonehenge.htm

For most of us, celebrating the winter solstice at Stonehenge is a bit of a hike. Paul Doherty has a solution for you: make your own. His fact-filled website has instructions for designing a structure with angles that point to solstice sunrises and sunsets in your chosen location, wherever in the world you happen to be. Bring your mistletoe and your mead, and you're set!

Discussion