We happen to be fans of Big Bang Theory and in one episode, we spotted a Rubik's Cube tissue box somewhere in their geek apartment (back in October?). Of course they're not the first one to have this idea but we got curious and were convinced they would make awesome Christmas gifts for our friends. In the end we overdid it a little and made every cubic (and geek-ish) item we could think of. The result? A certain annoyed person who had to cut all those small pieces of wood for us (he paid us back with cutting them half-heartedly and not so precise as usual but no hard feelings..). Every cube made in a different way (some painted, stenciled, glued,..). Many gifts and actually none left for ourselves to keep and no drive to make more, ... as always.

Now this wouldn't be a real Kanojo.de blog entry if we didn't tell you how it works, so here goes:

Use 1 cm MDF and for one tissue box you'll need: 2 x 15 cm x 15 cm and 4 x 14 cm x 13 cm

The bigger ones are for the top and bottom.

Make the hole about 6,5 cm in diameter.

It's all mixed up photos now. I'll note which tissue box is currently being worked on in which picture.

Game Cube

Aperture Laboratories [Portal Warning Signs]

Rubik's Cube

Mario Question Block

Companion Cube

Mario Brick Block

Mario Question Block [The 2nd one]

The kit that got me into building GKs, it's such a cute one (especially with her dolls Shanghai and Hourai). T's System has a lovely Touhou GK line and they're still releasing more. Most of the painting is done with the airbrush, details were hand-brushed (I love doing details!).

She's on display for quite a while now, I forgot when I actually finished her but she had been the reason for much frustration and headache. Every part of her decided to break off spontaneously until I had enough and pinned everything I could! One should still be careful with the dolls but other than that I think she shouldn't be prone to falling apart anymore.

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The first svg vector resource Wheee~! (I created the category along with it) After I overwhelmed the initial troubles with using Inkscape, it has become quite fun making and tracing vector images. They are easy to make and hey, you can print them on shirts for showing the whole world too! I'd recommend you make yourself familiar with Inkscape if you haven't done so. You could just search for a shirt you like on Spreadshirt of course and just buy it but it's more awesome (and you don't have to pay more :p) if you make it yourself. I always use Spreadshirt to let them make my shirts, granted. But the "you can only upload three vector files" really annoys me. >:(

Originally, NebuK and I wanted matching Aperture Science shirts and we picked the falling and crashing cube warning signs. I don't know why I traced the other ones as well but here they are. I haven't used them so I'd be happy if someone else does. I also included the Aperture Science logos but they aren't mine. Have snagged them off deviantArt, if you know who to give credits for, please tell me and I'll link them back.

To motivate you we took some pictures of our shirts ^_^

If you don't like shirts, print them on a mug, mittens, bags, make pins, stickers, whatever

It took us a while to get the idea what material to use as a base to start off from. We first thought to get round wooden sticks from the DIY market and grind them to half width, but that would've taken too long. Later on i found a flat-ish chopstick at my home, nice bamboo wood, cheap. So we went to a asia store and got a truckload of those:

(note the club mate to the right, its german hacker fuel )

So the basic idea is, take on or two of those chopsticks at a time, grind them down on a belt sander first on the more yellow-ish ugly side (the side that was the outside of the bamboo stick) first, then the inside. You also need to round the quite sharp corners a bit.

Note the round corners and smooth texture in the last picture.

From there on you can start postprocessing the sticks. You'll need a dremel or alike and these tools for it:

The result of the grinding action could look like this, presented by cute Miku-Chan:

So, first its best to try around on a not so well sanded stick if you're starting with the holes for the color.

So, take your measure and mark 8cm on the sanded chopsticks. They should be long enough for 2 Mahjong Counting Sticks each.

Now ... the pattern for the holes - how do i do that? you may ask. Well, i decided to leave that up to you, a rough guide can be found in my TeXed version of the rules. But really, think of a nice pattern roughly following the guidelines yourself .

Anyways, also mark those points (here: 1000 points, riichi stick) on your stick... and drill. First with the small drill, then make the ones that need to be larger ... larger with the round sander tool for the dremel.

Then, paint them with acrylic color, be a bit patient as the color easily splills over the edge of the hole, which looks ... not so nice. You may also want to hand sand the sticks with a 300 or 400 paper in order to get rid of the residues from the drilling action.

After painting you may want to hand-sand 'em again, this time to remove leftover dried paint. The finished results look like this:

If you're playing mahjong and still miss some nice counting sticks, no need to buy crappy plastic ones or pay tons of shipping, just go to a asia store, fetch some chopsticks and make them yourself! With a few friends thats more fun anyways.

I hope you enjoyed this small tutorial-ish thingy .

That most of the work has do be done by hand was a blessing and a curse at the same time. Pulling out a sewing machine out of nowhere and hiding it again would have been too much of a hassle. But sewing by hand takes long and I'm sure my hands hated me back then. Of course I could've bought the plushie since there's an official one out there. Don't like it that much though (it looks so different from the game... ). Buying would've been cheaper but it's also smaller! And we know bigger is (not always) better! It measures 18 cm x 18 cm x 18 cm which sounds small but I assure you it's large enough to rest your head on.

It's a little skew if you look at it from certain angles so my work of craftsmanship is not perfect but I don't want to do it again. ^^"

It also has a hidden pocket if you remove a certain heart pad. It isn't very big but an IKEA lion plush fits in perfectly. Of course the pocket is optional but I thought it would be funny if you could leave home with only the cube (you could use it as a wallet or let it hold your keys! Think of the possibilities!). Whatever.

Here's the pattern !

The internet knows of quite a few people who have made Companion Cube plushies. Just search for it but I haven't found tutorial one that persuaded me to use. They inspired me nevertheless so I'm thankful.

I can't remember how much fabric I've bought. Ask for 25 cm of dark gray, light gray and a little bit of light pink and you should be on the safe side. Try to get a thicker light gray material. I did so by accident but I happened to be lucky. ^_^ I assume you don't want to make the pocket. But take some pink thread if you go shopping, you'll need it for the ornamental seam. Yes my version isn't correct, the lines coming from the center are pink and not light gray. But it was too late when I noticed ^^; Having a sewing machine is highly recommended, try to use it whenever possible.

Cut out everything first. You'll need a while. I decided to make the corner pieces from three smaller ones because it looks better. On each of the longer sides of a small corner piece there's 0.5 cm space you can use for sewing it on another part. Don't fret too much about it if it's a little off, you'll barely notice when it's done.

Prepare the center pieces next. Get the light gray circles and your pink hearts. Pin one onto each circle so it won't slip while you're working. Use the whip stitch (also called satin stitch) and follow the edge of the heart, try to begin and end your stitch on the wrong side of course. With the fluffy fabric I used, you can't see the stitch anymore. I tried to do it with the machine but that was a disaster. =_=

Apply those ornamental seams on your dark gray squares NOW. I did it *after* sewing them together and it was a pain. So do it now! And do it with the machine. Use whatever stitch your sewing machine is capable of and fits best. There's a high probability your machine won't like this because you're adjusting it with weird settings (big stitch-width.. like 2 mm and small stitch interval, at best you don't want it to look like a zigzagstitch). If you notice that it is not sewing forward, use a little force.... I haven't found another way, really u_u. Afterward, sew the center parts on. It's more convenient to do it now as well.

Sew the cube sides together (you're always working on the wrong side, remember?) and leave one edge open. Attention, they're originally arranged like this. You can copy this but I just arranged them randomly. Turn it around and stuff it, take your time stuffing so it's evenly distributed. Now prepare to master the ladder stitch because that's the only stitch you will be using from now to completing this plushie. Close the last edge and all you have to do from now is to use the corner and edge pieces and sew every one of them on.

Done!