Craft Corner: Spider Silk Thread

Just in case you have a lot of free time on your hands and a handy supply of 3-5 foot webs in your yard, Boing Boing featured an article today on how to spin your own silk from spider webs. If I had the time (and the source material) I would totally do this. Spider silk is stronger than steel and can stretch to 40 times its length. Plus, imagine the Goth cred I would get for a little black dress woven from spiderwebs?

Here's the Instructables page that details the steps:
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-Spider-Silk-Thread/

And, even cooler, people in Madagascar have actually woven a piece of silk that looks like something from the set of "Lord of the Rings":
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/spidersilk/





The AMNH article discusses how the spiders like to weave webs between telephone lines in Madagascar. This phenomenon also occurs in Viet Nam. I saw enormous webs spun between power lines all along the highway from My Tho to Can Tho. The picture is below. The spiders in the webs were large enough to show up in the picture and at the distance I was from the power lines, that makes them at least 4 inches across.

Craft Corner: Spider Silk Thread

The Coolest Thing I Found Today

I was doing a search of house painting stock images and came across this.



It's a doorway somewhere in Paris. I wonder how they got that by the Historical Commission?

The Coolest Thing I Found Today

How I found Shame-on Flickr

Dollars5 is always good for a fun tweet and this link to an online display of retro propaganda posters did not disappoint! (thanks Hongkiat.com!)

Looking at the amazing array of pro and anti fascism art reminded me of seeing anti-AIDS posters in Vietnam a few years ago. Usually the tableau depicted was a gigantic condom-shaped warrior waving a sword at a cowering Gollum-like creature. Tried looking for an example on Flickr and came up with this awesome Flickr set which I am linking to just because the idea of creating a photoset that titles the page "Shame on Flickr" makes me smile

How I found Shame-on Flickr

We've Moved!

Only down to about 12 square feet of boxes and a mysterious amount of space left over which I think is a good sign that we got rid of just the right amount of stuff.

We've Moved!

Web Trawling

It's been a busy busy busy day. Chloe's got a bad head cold and it's too cold to take her outside, but in between swiping her nose with a tissue and infusions of orange juice, I found some fun stuff today:

1) Combination birdcage and aquarium on Fazai38's blog.

2) Techcrunch wrote a good post on how to increase your Twitter following.

3) I found a pretty cool video on Youtube for a post I did on Salem Living about Lunar New Year at the PEM.

4) Web Design Depot has a great article about choosing a CMS platform that I can't wait to read as soon as tiny hands stop pulling me away from the keyboard.

Web Trawling

Jennsweb's Table-Top Photo Studio

My sister-in-law gave Chloe a present in this cute little take-out gift box. Serendipitously, I needed an image of a take-out box for a project I've been working on, so I decided to try and get an image I could easily work with in Photoshop. So I grabbed Chloe's easel paper, draped one end over the speaker, positioned the desk lamp and used a sunshield for a bounce card.


There you go, instant table-top photo studio!

Jennsweb's Table-Top Photo Studio