The HipMonsters’ team is constantly making new jewelry, steampunk contraptions, wands, woodcraft, and working robots. Here is where we show our latest creations and share how we made them!
Mythos
The wand Night View has a darker side. Made of poplar and dyed in dark herbs she is ready for night time adventures!.
Special Spell
Noctem Visus (Night Vision)
It is 13 1/2 inches long. Made of poplar grown in the Hip Monster’s realm. The wood was spoke shaven straight, soaked in oil with a blueberries and mint blend then polished with bee’s wax.
Happy Casting!
Inspired by our trips to Hawaii, the sisters team decided to make their own working DIY ukulele. We ended up making a whole lot of them because it is a good way to practice some woodworking skills. We advise using wood that isn’t to hard for the sides, because that makes drilling the center hole a lot easier.
We are missing some photos between the required supplies and the final clamping – sorry.
After lots of cutting and drilling, we clamped the front and back together. We used a big drill bit to drill the center hole after measuring for the right spot. Make sure that you don’t put two keyholes directly on top of each other, leave room for the strings to go down.
We put the keys in and glued the bridge on. We double-checked out measurements a lot so the strings would all align. We also made sure to sand it a lot, you don’t want to get a splinter while playing music.
(The keys and bridge came from a set ordered online)
Here is an indestructible DIY ukulele capable of fending off a troll. Made from poplar and bound together with the magic of the ages, its music will impress even fairies.
Happy Creating!
Embracing color and elegance our necklaces will bring joy to those who wear them.
Our collection of Color Splash necklaces are made from poplar wood, painted in pastel and with silver chain and pendants.
This necklace is called Ocean Color.
This necklace is Midday Sun
This puzzle box was inspired by Roy Underhill’s Woodwright Shop. Based on an early American grease pot design it is crafted out of poplar. It measures 8 inches by 3 inches, just big enough to hide special jewels or a secret treasure.
The clean dovetail is essential to making this puzzle box work. Ideally, you want to use a harder wood than you used for the box.
Use a chisel to measure the width of a dovetail. Cut two sets of parallel line and carefully remove the outer edges, then cut it off the wooden beam.
Make use to secure the wood and cut very slowly to get a clean cut. If using a Japanese saw let the weight of the saw do the cutting, instead of using lots of force.
We tried drilling the hole before cutting and found out the pieces did not align tightly. Even a thin blade takes a lot of material from a piece of wood.
Remember to carve out the dovetail before cutting the lid and lock. Be prepared to make mistakes- that is all part of the process. For the locking slider make sure it is angled to secure the lid. We made that mistake more than once, so we used the wood that we made mistakes on for other projects.
To make the dovetail pop, we typically use a darker stain. To make it harder to unlock, you can paint the whole piece to hide the locking mechanism.
Happy Creating!
When the sisters team discovered Transformer comics (Go WindBlade!) they wanted a whole city of Transformers to play with. While that was way too expensive, they could build their own shape-shifting toy robots out of wood.
Borrowing from wooden dolls, we settled on a design with rubber bands attaching the arms and head to the body and a bolt to attached the legs enabling the robot to shift forms.
First we cut and drilled all the wood based on a working design.
We used lego wheels for the robots that transformed into cars.
Attaching the rubber bands proved difficult. We used a jewelry tool to thread the rubber bands through the holes in the wood (many broke in the process).
A few more adjustments, including sanding the edges, and widening holes.
By using springs in the legs, the toy robot can hold a standing position.
After we perfect a design, it was just a matter of creating a assembly line to crank out droids! We did some that turned into cars, some that turned into bugs, and some that turned in to other forms!
The robots in alt form.
The robots transformed!
Happy Creating!
Severus Snape and Professor Sprout are two of our favorite characters in Harry Potter, and their story inspired the sister team to begin exploring potion making and herbology.
From our hidden garden in the city, the HipMonsters sister team will bring you tips on growing herbs in a city, how best to preserve and prepare your herbs, and how to have fun!
We started our herb garden by clearing and preparing several patches in our yard that were suitable for growing herbs. We ended up with two beds that received full midday sun and others that were in the shade most of the day during summer. Our yard is really old, so to prepare the beds we dug down 24 inches and churned in lost of fresh dirt. All of the beds had good drainage.
After the beds were done, we observed how much sun they received and how the water drained. Using this information, we researched the best herbs for each bed focusing on herbs that were well-suited for San Francisco’s climate. Here is a good article to start your research.
Here is a list of some of the herbs that worked best:
Most of our yard has is dedicated to native plants or flowers that are good for bees. This gives us flowers nearly year round. The credit for most of the planting is the prior owner who took great care to attract bees and birds. We have tried to follow in her footsteps and have several bumble bee nests throughout our yard as well as lots of honey bees from neighboring hives.
Many of the flowers are perfect for drying but most are not good in flower arrangement because they die too quickly once cut. Here is a great article on the types of flowers in our yard. Even though most of the flowers are native, we still need to care or them and fertilize the beds a few times a year using liquid kelp. The most important thing is to never rip up the flowers after they die. We leave them to assure the seeds will spread for next year’s crop. This does look a little unkept but the next spring will make up for it.
And now our Harry Potter fandom kicks in. Given our growing collection of herbs and dried flowers, we decided to make to our own potion cabinet hidden deep in our basement!
From our store we craft little bags and jars filled with ground up herbs and flowers as presents.
We also bottle up our best dried herbs to be used in our cooking and potion-making!
Happy creating!
The HipMonsters team does not like trees going to waste, so whenever we stumble upon a piece of wood too rotten or misshapen to be used for our projects, we create a wooden monster!
Born from a dead branch of a juniper bush, this monster is built to protect a child’s room. It is very possessive and will only allow one monster in the room at a time. Perfect for making sure human children have a restful nighttime sleep.
We made Allie’s eyes out of two styrofoam balls.
Allie was one of our first monsters and is at the front of our house very Halloween!
Happy Creating!
When we go hiking, we sometimes pick up some good pieces of wood to make into staffs or other creations. We found this one in a park close to our house, it was made from a fallen eucalyptus branch. Every staff we craft has a unique mythos and special spell. This staff is called the Twisted Wave.
Mythos
The staff Twisted Wave craves unexpected journey and visitors. Travelers should only journey with Twisting Wave if they want to encounter potential friends, it is a peaceful staff, and does not like engaging in battle.
Special Spell
Amicitia (Friendship)
Twisting Wave is 5 feet high, perfect for navigating tricky terrain. The wood was spoke shaven, soaked in oil with a red clay then polished with bee’s wax.
Happy Travels!
Mythos
The wand Crimson Lava pulls in the magic of volcanos so needs an especially strong witch or wizard to wield its power. It is said to have been crafted on the Big Island of Hawaii during a large eruption.
Special Spell
Accive Sassa Liquefacta (Summon Lava)
It is 13 1/2 inches long. Made of poplar grown in the Hip Monster’s realm. The wood was spoke shaven straight, soaked in oil with a red clay then polished with bee’s wax.
Happy Casting!
