When Modeling Skills Transfer To Real Life

[Tom Geiger]

My wife wanted Baby's First Christmas ornaments for the twins.  And she wanted them personalized.  I told her I could do that!

So we went to Hobby Lobby and found these ornaments for Baby's First Christmas.  That and the year were already on it.

And I made the decals for the personalization the same way I make decals for model cars. She also wanted their birth date.

I created the script she wanted in Word and scaled it very small, like 6 pica. I printed a mess of these,  on a quarter piece of clear decal paper.  Good thing, because they were very hard to handle and kept curling up.  Once I got them in place, I zapped them with setting solution which melted them down into place.   Not perfect, but everyone will be pleased.  My wife will give these to my daughter on Thanksgiving to place on her tree!

Edited November 27, 2019 by Tom Geiger

[Dave Ambrose]

That’s awesome. It’s nice to know we can do adorable when we need to. 

[cobraman]

Funny. I just made one for my first grandchild born a short time ago. I used a Hot Wheels van and added some things to that plus Babies First Christmas and his name.

[Snake45]

Very nice! Ya done good! 

I use my model-fu skills on non-models all the time. For example, The Lovely Mrs. Snake will sometimes bring me some little tchotchke like a figurine or something of a friend or relative that's broken. I'm able to superglue or epoxy it back together, and with my huge stash of both car and military paints,  can usually come very close to matching any colors necessary for touchup. 

[StevenGuthmiller]

The only thing that I ever get to do for my wife that requires any sort of modeling skills is to use my lighted magnifier to thread needles and repair jewelry for her.

 

 

 

Steve

[Tom Geiger]

9 hours ago, Snake45 said:

Very nice! Ya done good! 

I use my model-fu skills on non-models all the time. For example, The Lovely Mrs. Snake will sometimes bring me some little tchotchke like a figurine or something of a friend or relative that's broken. I'm able to superglue or epoxy it back together, and with my huge stash of both car and military paints,  can usually come very close to matching any colors necessary for touchup. 

I put the head back on a Precious Moment tchotchke  a few weeks ago.  Thick CA and Dullcote did the job with no evidence of repair!

[Tom Geiger]

So you may ask, "How did the Christmas ornament presentation go?"   Well, it didn't.  My wife just put them in a bag of other things my daughter needed to bring home.  They left the Thanksgiving celebration right after dinner because one of the babies went ballistic and wouldn't settle down.  Five minutes into the ride home she was sleeping.   Anyway,  my daughter saw them once she got home so I never got to see her reaction.

We slept over at my wife's sister's house, so this morning we got up and ate breakfast with them.  Then we left and drove the hour south to my daughter's house to babysit the three grand daughters so their parents could go shopping.   My daughter did open them up last evening, when she got home.  She said she couldn't figure out how I got the names onto the ornament, especially as small as they were,  as it looked like it came that way.   I explained how it was done and she was impressed.  Mission accomplished.

And I got to spend Black Friday with infants on my lap all afternoon!   A great day!

Edited November 30, 2019 by Tom Geiger

[misterNNL]

Not long ago we were working on a really old household door that had brass knob and knocker that were looking really nasty due to outdoor exposure. I chucked a small wire wheel into my Dremel Stylus and cleaned them up in a few minutes. A coat of clear and they are looking nice. FYI, brass was a common choice for those applications as bacteria does not survive on brass as it does on other metals.

[vamach1]

I painted ornaments for my daughter two years when she played basketball in middle and high school.  I'll have to dig them out this week.  I repainted the uniforms the color of her teams and put her team name and number on them.  She was really surprised.  Here's the high school one for the Oakton Cougars.

Edited November 30, 2019 by vamach1

[slusher]

I have had to repair my wife’s nic nacks when she breaks one and I painted a ceramic shovel with a squirrel on it and made her a stand for it. She still has it....

[Tom Geiger]

An interesting follow up...  See the above photo.  Somehow my daughter had the same ornament from 2017 for my oldest grand daughter!  

She asked me to create the decals for this one too!   Easy Peasy!  

 

 

[espo]

I had to repair a few Christmas ornaments again this year. Always seem to be able to match the paint colors and fill the missing pieces around the breaks. For those of you who may remember the old Red & Green TV show from PBS they had a saying. "If they can't find you handsome at least they can find you handy". 

[thatz4u]

2 hours ago, espo said:

I had to repair a few Christmas ornaments again this year. Always seem to be able to match the paint colors and fill the missing pieces around the breaks. For those of you who may remember the old Red & Green TV show from PBS they had a saying. "If they can't find you handsome at least they can find you handy". 

[espo]

1 hour ago, thatz4u said:

That's my Lodge Brother down at The Possum Lodge. We have all used Duct Tape  at one time or another, but no one could out do this man. And then there was his "different" cousin or nephew. 

[89AKurt]

Wife works at the local college in their dance program, was choreographer for their Phantom of the Opera show, which sold out every show, a huge hit.  They had a masquerade mask contest, so I wanted to try something different.  I based the design on several Picasso portraits, and one mask he did.  Made out of Celluclay, used sunglasses for the support.   (BTW: I started a similar topic: Tales from Mr. Fix-It ?)

Making the head from styrofoam:

Massive clip-on:

Sexy selfie in the bathroom shot:

At the theater: