So these just showed up in my living room....

[eve11]

Should I be worried?



Okay, it took a little more time than that for them to arrive


Materials: Styrofoam cubes (2 7/8 in.), glue, posterboard, and to finish them off, shiny adhesive vinyl specialty paper (like contact paper) that I found in the scrapbooking section of Jo-Ann's. Also, headless cat. Sorry, Ash, I was not focusing on you in this pic!


To make the cubes smoother before putting contact paper on them, I dress them in posterboard. This involves lots of careful measuring, that always seems to almost work.


Cardboard coated cubes. I could be done now, but decide to spend another four hours doing more careful measuring to make them look more shiny and mysterious.


Here is the pattern for the outer shell covering. I adapted it in later iterations to have less fold-over since the folds are noticeable. It took a little while to remove the backing on the middle square after cutting the contact paper out, and there were some mistakes, but overall it worked as I'd thought it would


Sat the cube on the middle square and then I was able to peel off the edges one by one to put the outer layer on smoothly.


Putting on the outer layer. Yes, in my awesome purple Halloween candy corn pajama pants.


Two finished cubes next to the two cardboard-only ones. I think it's an improvement!


Still life with cubes.



So that's cubes 101. I started with 2 7/8 by 2 7/8 by 2 7/8 and after coating them ended up with 3x3x3 inch cubes. They might be a little bigger than the ones on the show, but I am still pretty satisfied with them.

Comments

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

Oh, these are cool! :)

[eve11]

Thanks! They look better from far away, but I think they came out pretty good.

[ladymercury-10.livejournal.com]

Those are awesome!

I can't believe your cats just left them alone, though. Sleeping next to craft supplies is practically sleeping on the job if you're a cat! :P

[eve11]

Haha, I did come back after changing the laundry loads to find Ash sitting on the pattern. My cats don't play with crafty things; they just sit on them. Unless it's thread. Then Ash tries to eat it.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

So brilliant! And actually, they look about the perfect size! O_o...

You should only worry when more than a year has passed and they start counting down...

*HUGS*

[eve11]

Thanks! I was thinking about trying to put holographic countdowns on them... and then remembered I only have less than a week to get everything in order for Chicago TARDIS. So, early cubes it is :D

[praedestinatio.livejournal.com]

They look fabulous!

[eve11]

Thanks very much!

[lostrack621.livejournal.com]

They look amazing!! Good job!!! Creepy, too.

Candy corn purple snuggle pants FTW!

FYI, before the episode aired there was a thing on FB where BBC provided a printout pattern to make your own cube (it was at 3) ...just in case you want another option for the future.

[eve11]

Thanks!

I saw the "make your own cube" cutout but to me it didn't look like it would translate correctly to a physical object, and I'd have to get them printed out at Staples or somewhere like that. So I just went with my own materials :)

[lostrack621.livejournal.com]

Well, you did a fab job!

ANDDDD the ones online do work out to a pretty decent box, if you take the time to cut properly and glue. :) One of the girls did that here with our Curiosity Rover mockup and posted it on FB. It was cool.

[goaliepam.livejournal.com]

They came out awesome! And I agree with ladymercury_10...if cats aren't sleeping on what ever project you are working on (patterns, term papers, monthly bills) then they aren't doing their jobs. :) Have fun at Chicago TARDIS!

[eve11]

Thanks! Heh, all my bills are electronic, but my cats have experience in the rest of those, definitely :D

[galacticprobe.livejournal.com]

Wow! That looks like a lot of work went into making those little things. (It's amazing how something so simple-looking can be so complicated to make.) They came out great.

If you ever decide to make loads more to scatter around your house (for some really worrisome photos), but you don't want to hassle with all of those cuts and glues and such, I saw some 3-inch hollow wooden cubes (and 2-inch solid ones if you want baby cubes) at either AC Moore's or Michael's (can't remember which, but it was one of them). Their price was very low so you could buy a dozen or so easy. Then with some careful painting you could fill your house with these cubes!

Those wooden cubes have a very smooth finish already so I don't think any sanding would be needed, which is good for anyone else who wants to make some of these, but (like me) doesn't have the steady hand or keen eye that you have to make ones like you did, which are brilliant. (I said great before, but I'll move up to brilliant!)

Dino.

[eve11]

Thanks! The camera is definitely good to them in these pics, LOL. When you look at them up close you can see a lot of little imperfections. But hopefully they will come out well in pictures :)

And I will be on the lookout for the wooden variety! If anything it removes the need to cover them first in posterboard. I like the contact paper look but it may take some more iterations to perfect. And a black spraypaint and glossy clear finish might work just as well for the wooden ones.

I think it cost me about $4/cube (plus labor) to make these. The styrofoam cubes were $2.50 apiece and the black contact paper was about $2.50 per sheet (fitting 2 outlines on each sheet). I got big posterboard sheets at 70 cents apiece and could get 3 covers from one. But it did take a while to do all the precision cutting.

[scifileslie.livejournal.com]

Those look great! About your headless cat...should he not own a monk instead of you? :)

[eve11]

Thanks!

Ha, yeah, the Order's taking anybody these days I suppose....

[laughingmagpie.livejournal.com]

Those are super cool! Excellent idea!

[eve11]

Thanks!

[slythgeek.livejournal.com]

I made a bunch of those (much quicker and dirtier than you did - painting wooden cubes black) the day "The Power of Three" came out and hid them all over my friends' house by getting up to grab drinks or use the bathroom during the recap episode before.

I heard nothing for a few weeks, and then I was at a convention with them this weekend. Cathy said, "The strangest thing happened when I was packing up my dolls to bring them. I found a perfect black cube underneath them." I figure they'll just keep discovering the ten cubes we left until they finally bring them over to our house and hide them again. :)

[eve11]

Ha, I have a feeling one could do as well or better with painting wooden cubes, certainly. And it would be easier. I ran across the styrofoam ones at Jo-Ann and picked them up on a whim. :) I was thinking a while back about bringing lots of cubes to Chicago TARDIS too and leaving them around. Maybe someone else will pick up on the idea as well :)

[knitchick1979.livejournal.com]

Oooh thank you for this! I had grabbed a styrofoam cube from the Dollar Store to try and paint but this looks like its an even better idea than just paint! I might need to go grab some poster board & try to make a couple before Chicago TARDIS. :)

[eve11]

You're very welcome; I hope to see more at Chicago TARDIS!