Magical Heartbeat Tree: A Fantasy World Experience

It’s exciting to work on projects that take you to fantastical settings. A magical gateway is a tree that lights up and is powered by an Arduino board. The project involves creating a tree that uses LED lighting and a heart rate sensor to respond to the user’s heart rate. Programmable LED ropes will be used on the tree’s trunk, while colorful LEDs will be used on the foliage. I was inspired by a special tree in Oslo that drew my eye as a fervent…

The Enchanted Wine Bottles

Three wine bottles have been upcycled, and fairy lights are hanging from them from a reclaimed wooden surface. The project incorporates distinctive components like lace to improve the design and was motivated by the romantic aesthetic. The fabrication procedure is explained, and the finished item is assessed in light of its functionality and visual appeal. InspirationThe romantic style and the use of wine bottles and fairy lights in interior design served as inspiration for the project. While I used reclaimed wood and delicate lace to…

Upcycle Project: Romantic Aesthetic

I can’t help but be excited about the possibility to develop a genuinely romantic aesthetic as I work on this upcycled project. I adore the concept of repurposing something obsolete into something fresh and lovely while also contributing to the environment. I first collected three different-sized and-shaped wine bottles, making sure they were all clean. I’ve considered painting them in a muted colour scheme of ivory, pink, and lilac. I kept my eyes on the wood’s surface. After smoothing it out with sandpaper, I designed…

20th Century Design Aesthetics: Shadow Art

For my final project, I want to create an artwork that casts different shadows as it rotates. I have discussed my original design aesthetic in my previous post. This is my original design: Here, I explored other design aesthetics inspired by the 20th-century including organic design, biomorphism, and streamlining:

Light Up Pearl: Final Design Report Part 2

I believe I accomplished the main intent I was going for with this project, but it didn’t turn out aesthetically exactly how I had envisioned it to. This was due to a combination of lack of skills and money. I had very ambitious goals for this project and wanted to create/design something I had never done before. With that in mind, I did have to be mindful of the skills I already possessed versus learning new skills. I had originally wanted my design to have…

Pearl Progress 4/13

I made a lot of progress on my project this last weekend and am about to make even greater strides tomorrow and this weekend. This last weekend I laser cut all of my pieces out, the map and the pieces to create the 3D buildings. Then I spent time cleaning them all off in preparation for spray painting them. I got a frosted glass spray at McGuckin’s that wold help give my extremely clear acrylic the more opaque look I was going for. This was…

Bottle Table Lamp

My bottle lamp has been “completed”! Overall, I’m proud of the finished product, but I definitely have some ideas for improvements to make to it over the next few days/weeks. Let me get into the actual process to go from the bottle below, to the lamp you see above. Initial Ideas, Research, and Inspiration As far as design goes, I followed a fairly standard process like this one my team and I came up with in-class: Design Loop (Credit: Roshan Misra, Created By: Chris Coffman,…

Decorative Aspen Branch Light

Initial Design Process My original idea for this project was to create a thing. I knew that I wanted to make something cool, so I looked up pictures of upcycled projects on Google. I saw a lot of cool things, and I thought that I wanted to make something out of doilies. I had in mind a doily vest, maybe I would even have dyed it a cool color. So I went to the thrift store hoping to pick some up. I didn’t find any…

The Bird’s Nest

My project has come a long way from my brainstorming and loose materials into the upcycling design it is now. Below I explain my process and my goals and desires for this project and how I felt I reached my goals or not. Reality vs. Imagined My actual process was very different than how I imagined the process to be and also differed from the design process we created in class. I started out how I would normally begin my design process with my other…

Progress on Aspen Branch Light

I love aspen trees, and I thought that using them to make some sort of decorative light would be really neat. I started by gathering a bunch of fallen aspen branches and logs on a hike up by Nederland High School. I didn’t want to cut anything off a living tree because firstly that would be rude, and secondly, I wouldn’t know how the branches would act as they dried. As I discovered while loading the dead branches into the car, the thin ones are very,…