Thirteen Scissors | advice. tutorials. links. inspiration. For people who make shit.

Posted by Bran on Dec 7, 2011

Tutorial: Reusable, reversible, gift bags

So I was sitting there last year, in the mountain of crumpled paper left by Christmas morning, and felt horrible at all the waste. My internal conversation went something like this: For next year, I should probably make some gift bags out of fabric that would be reusable. But inexpensive cotton tends to be sort of thin. It would have to be lined. If it’s lined, I might as well use something...

Posted by Bran on Nov 30, 2011

Inspiration: Nalbinding, Jackets, and Tolkien

Nalbinding! Woollen socks from 250-420 AD Egypt! I can’t explain how much these make me want to find the wooden nalbinding needle I have somewhere around here and remind myself how to do it. I would LOVE these socks. If I do make them, I’ll write up a post about the process. There’s this layered look (seemingly mostly popular in Japan) for men’s clothing that...

Posted by Bran on Aug 31, 2010

Props, Packing Tape, and Pretty.

Five links that have come across my radar recently: I adore props recreation. This is a documentation of an amazing builder as he makes (with custom fabrication of parts!) a copy of Luke’s lightsaber from “A New Hope”. The attention to detail is incredible. It makes me really, really, wish I had a good metal shop, a lathe, and a way to create in brass things with custom threading, like...

Posted by Bran on Aug 26, 2010

It’s nice to quit. Sometimes.

Sometimes you can just bang your head against a wall over and over again, trying to get closer to some perceived goal. And sometimes you can just…stop. Today, I decided to do the latter. To back up a bit: I’ve been traveling for about five weeks in WV and PA, seeing my chosen family, doing some pottery, and picking up some stuff I had in storage. Well, okay, a lot of stuff I had in...

Posted by Bran on Aug 24, 2010

It’s so stimulating being your hat.

Bran, I’ve been thinking about making papier-mâché rams horns to wear on my head at festivals and such. Any idea how I can do that, without having a hat or anything obvious to hold them on? Signed, A Capricorn Hey Cappy. Well, I think there are two things to be conquered here. First off, you’re gonna need to construct the horns so that they are the right weight, and secondly, you need to...