I’m feeling very honoured. This typewriter is the first of my paper models which I put up for sale and it has been sold! I’m so excited, thank you to the lovely buyer in the US. In case you would like to make your very own typewriter, here are the details of how I made it:
1. Sketch out the basic shape on foam board and pin or glue together. It is worth investing some time and research into getting the shape right, as this is the key to a realistic-looking typewriter.
2. Add a piece of foam board for the keyboard. Cover the outside of your typewriter in a light shade of paper and cover the inside where the keyboard is going to sit in a dark shade of paper, which will give the keyboard more visual depth. After some experimentation, I settled on pale blue and brown paper.
3. Cut a piece of round balsa wood as long as your typewriter is wide and cover it with paper.
Cut two round pieces of foam board. They need to be slightly bigger than the diameter of your round piece of balsa wood. Cover all sides of your foam board circles with paper. Push a short pin through the center of each circle and into the ends of the balsa wood. You have now finished the cylindrical platen / typewriter roller.
4. Cut out a rectangular piece of paper, roll it around the balsa wood platen / roller and glue it into place. If you like, you can add a line of printed text onto the paper, to make it look more authentic.
5. For the base of the keyboard cut four small pieces of foam board. All of them should have the same width, but each should be slightly higher than the previous one (1.5mm higher in my case). The lowest piece of foam board should have the same height as the front of your typewriter. The highest piece should be as high as the back of your keyboard field (where the brown paper finishes). A pair of tweezers will come in handy here.
6. To add the letters for the keyboard, it is the easiest if you use a graphic computer program, such as Adobe Illustrator, Freehand or Coral Draw. Layout the keys as they would appear on an old-fashioned typewriter. Print off your keyboard. To give the keys more depth, glue your print onto mount board. Now you just need to cut this to create the keys for your keyboard.
I found that for the scale I was working at (my finished model is 7 cm wide) it looked neater to cut the keyboard in strips only, rather than trying to cut out and arrange each key separately. Glue each strip onto its foam board base and add a spacebar key on the front.
7. Nearly done! Just add a little bit more colour in the form of some buttons, a label and the paper holder on top. Use tweezers to ensure precision.
Viola, there you go! You made a typewriter!
First of all: I wish you all a healthy, prosperous and happy 2012. May your greatest crafty hopes come through and many fun projects adorn your home.
Things were a bit quiet from my side as Mr P had some time off work and was looking marvelously after baby J. This gave me the opportunity to plunge into home improvement / DIY mode, get the dungarees out (literally speaking) and swing my paintbrush.
So I’m happy to report that our little shoe bench / cupboard finally got all the layers of paint it deserves. I have some spiffy plans for it to star as backdrop in some product shoots I have scheduled for the year ahead, but more of it later.
images above © warnerbros
While I was busy painting I listened to our best of 80′s CD’s which never fail to make me laugh, especially now where I understand the lyrics. (When I was younger my English wasn’t this good, but I’m not sure I missed out on too much in this respect). Anyway, this reminded me of the hilarious music video PoP! Goes My Heart from the film Music and Lyrics. I watched the video a million times and it never fails to make my laugh. It’s just the best parody of 80′s music videos.
So if you don’t know it, or just fancy a laugh, have a look here. And as a little bonus for reading all the way to the end of this post, I’d like to treat you to the picture below. Also a highlight of the 80′s (gosh I in my mind I still see a very similar picture, stuck onto the doors of my sisters wardrobe in our shared bedroom.)
image © easydaycharters.com
Have a great time wherever you celebrate.
I hope you find some time to rest and be merry.
All the best from London, Jacqueline.
(p.s. That’s the splendid window display in my local taxidermy shop – is there anything more British?)