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"This handy little device can take the most boring and dull locale and turn it into whatever sort of emotive resonance you prefer! You simply load it with "Wave Files" or their less complicated cousins the "Musical Programme Type Threes (or "MP3" for those who enjoy abbreviations) and then activate the device to change the ambience around you! Astounding!"
The Ambience Enhancer project that I am going to share with you is a basic but beautiful looking retro-futuristic style cover for anything you'd like it be, although I built mine as an MP3 Player Cover, you could build a watch, a cellphone cover, or even a PDA into it. Its totally up to you! Use your imagination...
This device was blogged by Wired, Boing Boing (thanks Cory!), Tekzilla, Make, Gizmodo, Engadget, and some others, and now you will be able to see how exactly how its made!
My goal here is to inspire people by showing them just how easy it can be to make something unique and wonderful to use in their daily lives. I take this everywhere I go, and find its a great conversation starter! I will give ideas for different ways to make this project your own, and I plan on eventually taking this design a lot further, so I'd love to others run with it as well!
The headphones shown in the picture are another project all together, and I will be sharing it on a Jake VonSlatt's website The Steampunk Workshop in early January, so please visit his site and check it out, his stuff puts mine to shame!
My name is Molly, and I'm a 32 year old self employed artist. I mostly make things like this for fun, but I also sell things. If you'd like to see what I have been up to, come on by and check out my Deviant Art page:
http://porkshanks.deviantart.com/gallery/
I have more strange fashion and jewelry than you can shake two or three sticks at (warning: your stick mileage may vary). Have a great holiday season with your most treasured loved ones, and take care all!
The Ambience Enhancer project that I am going to share with you is a basic but beautiful looking retro-futuristic style cover for anything you'd like it be, although I built mine as an MP3 Player Cover, you could build a watch, a cellphone cover, or even a PDA into it. Its totally up to you! Use your imagination...
This device was blogged by Wired, Boing Boing (thanks Cory!), Tekzilla, Make, Gizmodo, Engadget, and some others, and now you will be able to see how exactly how its made!
My goal here is to inspire people by showing them just how easy it can be to make something unique and wonderful to use in their daily lives. I take this everywhere I go, and find its a great conversation starter! I will give ideas for different ways to make this project your own, and I plan on eventually taking this design a lot further, so I'd love to others run with it as well!
The headphones shown in the picture are another project all together, and I will be sharing it on a Jake VonSlatt's website The Steampunk Workshop in early January, so please visit his site and check it out, his stuff puts mine to shame!
My name is Molly, and I'm a 32 year old self employed artist. I mostly make things like this for fun, but I also sell things. If you'd like to see what I have been up to, come on by and check out my Deviant Art page:
http://porkshanks.deviantart.com/gallery/
I have more strange fashion and jewelry than you can shake two or three sticks at (warning: your stick mileage may vary). Have a great holiday season with your most treasured loved ones, and take care all!
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Signing UpStep 1The Plan
So, you'll need to gather your materials and decide what you are going to make the cover for. I used faux leather due to our household's view on using products from an animal, but you could make this out of just about anything. Thick and durable materials will be better suited to this particular project, like canvas for a more military look, or thicker vinyl if you want a more industrial look. For my MP3 player cover, I used 2 different colors of faux leather because I wanted to match it to my dieselpunk leather aviator's cap that is brown and black, but there's no reason to follow that exactly, choose your color to make it look however you want!
Here's what I used in my project:
Brown Faux Leather - I bought half a yard of it, but this project uses much less than that
Black Faux Leather - Same here, half a yard is more than enough!
1 Brass D Ring
1 Brass Rectangular 'Ring'
2 Brass Lynch Pins
1 Large Brass Grommet
1 Small Brass Grommet
1 Inch Wide Elastic Band - about 8 inches is good.
Threads - I used upholstery thread because its strong, although quilting thread is fine as well. I used black for most of the construction of the cover, and white thread for the pictures on the buttons.
and of course, the MP3 player... mine is a Sansa and has a distinctive shape, I will be showing you the patterns I made, but remember that you'll want to adjust your design to fit whatever it is you're building a cover for. I will try to explain it in a way that will help you do that.
When I was coming up with ideas for this project, I found it amazingly inspiring to look at the work of other people who build retrofuture devices. My favorite gallery is here:
http://www.eager-beavers.net/products/shouhin_guide.cgi?temp=TMP0
If that fantastic stuff doesn't give you ideas, nothing will!
Grab a paper and pen, lets get working on step 2!
Here's what I used in my project:
Brown Faux Leather - I bought half a yard of it, but this project uses much less than that
Black Faux Leather - Same here, half a yard is more than enough!
1 Brass D Ring
1 Brass Rectangular 'Ring'
2 Brass Lynch Pins
1 Large Brass Grommet
1 Small Brass Grommet
1 Inch Wide Elastic Band - about 8 inches is good.
Threads - I used upholstery thread because its strong, although quilting thread is fine as well. I used black for most of the construction of the cover, and white thread for the pictures on the buttons.
and of course, the MP3 player... mine is a Sansa and has a distinctive shape, I will be showing you the patterns I made, but remember that you'll want to adjust your design to fit whatever it is you're building a cover for. I will try to explain it in a way that will help you do that.
When I was coming up with ideas for this project, I found it amazingly inspiring to look at the work of other people who build retrofuture devices. My favorite gallery is here:
http://www.eager-beavers.net/products/shouhin_guide.cgi?temp=TMP0
If that fantastic stuff doesn't give you ideas, nothing will!
Grab a paper and pen, lets get working on step 2!
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Long may Steampunk Live:)
Hmm, I'd ask you to sell it, but I wanna make, dunno when that will happen.
Wave files are far less "complicated" than MP3s. They contain nothing more than a stream of samples. MP3s are a compressed version of the same data, and therefore more complicated (albeit smaller) by most standards.
MP3 = MPEG Layer 3. MPEG itself stands for Motion Picture Experts Group, and therefore the MP in MP3 stands for Motion Picture.