For Father’s Day, I wanted to do a special project with my boys. We started but didn’t finish it on Sunday (paint sure dries slow in the Atlanta humidity), but the wait was worth it. For both my boys (and two nephews), we followed the instructions provided by author Scott Bedford in his new book, Made by Dad: 67 Blueprints for Making Cool Stuff, and this dad and two boys are quite happy with the final results.
Here’s the thing about this book — every project is 100% doable by any dad out there, no matter the skill level (or lack thereof). These are awesomely geeky projects, and I just don’t even know which one the bad boys and I will tackle next.
I already had silver spray paint, so after purchasing a few metal bottles for $2 each and a can of slime green fluorescent paint, we got started. The book’s version features a radioactive warning symbol on the front, but I went with the biohazard symbol instead… that was our only deviation. (One on front and one on back.)
A few coats of silver were allowed to dry before applying stickers and then holding the slime green spray can REALLY close to the bottle neck and holding it down to get that nice runny slime look. You’ve gotta put it on pretty thick to get it running, but once it dries it has a nice 3D look and texture. After the spray runs had dried, a few coats of clear sealed it all up (and will hopefully protect the stickers).
These things look awesome. I think I’m going to have to make me one of my own, slightly larger and maybe with fluorescent purple slime and the radioactive symbol — just for variety, not because I love toxic waste or anything…
Again, the full color book is 330 pages, comes with full-size templates for many of the projects (so you won’t have to draw some of the really cool custom artwork unless you want to do so) and eye-catching instructions that kids and parents will appreciate and understand.
Nice work, Scott Bedford — my boys give four thumbs up (mutation from all that PowerUp Juice) and Dad is now on the prowl for the perfect bottle for his own MutaJuice Canister.
This is a great idea! My son thinks that he’s outgrown Thomas the Tank Engine, so this is a great way to reuse his old Thomas water bottle.