Making Things

In case you're wondering, this above is our DIY Darth Vader. He's made out of towel roll tube, a paper cup, some black felt, stickers and little plastic pieces all painted black and hot-glued together.

Did I tell you that M is off his wanting to be an astronaut thing? So much so that he doesn't even care to go to NASA. Plus he actually suggested to tear down his big cardboard rocket! He gave us three reasons as to why the change of heart:

1. The International Space Station is too small, no place for running around;

2. Astronauts have to be there for long stretches of time;

3. Astronauts have to train in a huge pool and train under water.

This is a clone trooper wind-up toy we found at the flea market for $1. He's in a secret rebel hide-out. There's also a capsule waiting for lift-off.

For a period of about 2 days he wanted to be Mickey Mouse and that got me worried. Knowing how he really get into these things and stays with his "themes" for a while, I was afraid of having to sing "Hot dog, hot dog, hot diggidy dog..." and speak in a very high-pitched voice for months.

This plane has nothing to do with Star Wars. We went to a Trader Joe's store and M noticed all the planes made from recycled things and pieces of cardboard. So M immediately wanted to have a plane made out of junk. We didn't have anything for a fuselage, so we had to promptly drink a can of V8. We also used a paper cup, some cardboard from old boxes, 2 wooden spools, some wire and, of course, loads of ducttape.

Fortunately, he moved on. He's into Star Wars now, big time. Which is kind of a mixed blessing. Turns out, Star Wars has a ton of toys and every single one of these toys is very expensive. And the old ones are called "collectibles" and cost even more than the new ones. How inconvenient!

This is a Jedi Starfighter made out of some tubes we got at Scrap Exchange, another paper cup and some Popsicle sticks. Actually, M figured out how to arrange the pieces by himself and then Chris glued them together with hot glue.

But never fear! Fortunately at this point M doesn't care if a toy is store-bought or home-made. Actually, I take that back. He prefers home-made toys, the junkier the better. So lately there's been a lot of toy making at our house. We're actually starting to run out of spare parts. Hence the recent trip to Scrap Exchange. Our hot glue expenditures went up dramatically as well, but still we are ok compared to having to buy all these toys.

This strange contraption is a Probe Droid of the kind that Darth Vader sends out to find Luke Skywalker. This one is made out of some plastic containers from Whole Foods, a toilet paper tube, shoe laces, more spools, some beads and various odds and ends. M's contribution (other than helping figure out which part to use where) was creating the probe's tentacles.

Of course, now all the toys are Star Wars themed - Darth Vader, various spaceships and escape capsules, droids, etc.

This is Scrap Exchange, our new most favorite place to go explore when in Durham.