DIY Surfboard Repair With Style

I know these days, not everyone can run right out and get their freshly dinged board repaired. For a long time, I saw many people using the standard silver grey duct tape to make temporary repairs on their surfboards. Nowadays, duct tape comes in a lot of colors, even in sheets, which I find especially handy, if you need to cut a shape out before peeling off the backing. You can get these for pretty cheap at the hardware store or in the hardware sections of the big stores, not just craft stores these days.

Yellow duct tape sheet

Back of sheet

Even if you don't need to fix a ding, this is another way to put some art on your board without permanently altering it. Here's my new little board that I'm still "getting wired"....but that's a different subject.

Yes, I waxed it everywhere, I don't know where I'll pop up....
if at all. Yikes.

It's a board by Brian Tudor, and his shaper logo is a bat, as seen on the board in yellow. His logo is under the glass. I have nothing against bats, but I love seadragons- specifically leafy seadragons, which are members of the seahorse family. So, I think I'll make my own logo on top of the glass, and if I drop it in the garage or ding it surfing Pipeline (ok, latter's not gonna happen) I have a solution.
First, I drew out a pattern on regular paper. I taped this paper to the yellow duct tape sheet and cut the shape out on the thin side.

Pattern on the sheet

Shape cut out

As you can see, I cut the shape out a little thinner since I'm going to place it on another sheet of black duct tape to make about a 1/4" outline around the image. Be very careful when sticking your image down, especially if it's pretty crazy like mine- take your time to minimize the bubbles in the tape.

Yellow duct tape image taped to black duct tape sheet

This the part where I carefully cut around the image to make an outline.

Duct tape logo finished

Just like I said before, be patient putting this on, since you're trying to keep bubbles out, repair job or not. Remember to clean off the surface of the board well, even if there's no wax, because there can still be salt, dust, fiberglass, etc. sticking out from your ding if you have one. You may even want to make a few passes over the duct tape with a small rubber roller or a squeegee. Here it is on the board:

Logo finished and on board

Hey, I know not everyone will know that's a seadragon, but I do, and isn't that all that matters???

Holiday Surfboard Cookies

Every year, a lot of people make holiday cookies with their families, or on their own, just cause they get a hankerin'..... I understand.
This year, I thought I'd try making surfboard and shark cookies. Here's my attempt.
First, I got some pre-made sugar cookie dough, a rolling pin, and a knife.

Dough, flour, knife, and rolling pin

Next, I rolled the dough out to about 1/4" thick. When I cut the surfboard shapes out, I made them on the skinny side knowing that they would spread a bit in the oven. I made the surfboards freehand, and I had a shark cookie cutter (yes, they make those!). I used a silicone baking mat so I didn't have to grease up a pan with more butter.

Ready to go into the oven

After about 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees, I took them out and let them cool for a good 5 minutes. I used white frosting as a base coat on the cookies:

Don't use too much frosting...

Then I got out some colored sugar and chocolate piping icing and had fun!

Sharks

A little quiver

Yeah, they're supposed to be bars of wax.

I'm no Martha Stewart or Rachael Ray, but they were fun to make and something a bit different for the holidays, or really, whenever.
Just don't make a whole bunch of surfboard cookies and take a bite out of the side of each to be funny. Don't be that guy. Really. That's gross.
Easy way to get dibs, however.

Lei Tree Garland, Hawaiian Style

Someone on the 2nd Light Forum suggested this idea to decorate your tree for the Holidays, and it's quite smart.
If you have some leis from your office parties, consider using them to decorate your tree instead of going out and buying yet more decor that just doesn't have that tropical feeling. I have two different methods to make your lei garland below.

Method 1:
This can be used if you have those plastic leis, or if you have silk flower leis you'd like to use again as leis in the future.
I used my silk flower leis as an example- the best would be red flower leis, if you have them, but I worked with what I had on hand.
Here's one of the leis I used:

Lei being measured

Just measuring the lei without cutting the loop open, the length is around 21-22". I used three leis in my example, and strung them together keeping the loops intact by making lark's head knots. I show this on pieces of cord since it's hard to see on the leis:

Lark's Head

Leis tied together by lark's head knot

If you use this method, you will need more leis to get a good length, but you will get a fuller garland. This is also a very easy method of constructing a garland:

Three leis joined together by lark's head knots

Method 2:
This method takes a bit more work and requires leis you can string together, but makes a very long garland with just a few leis.
I used the same leis as in the previous example, but I cut the loops open- actually I just cut one loop open to begin with. A few flowers and spacers will slide off, but those will be strung back on easily.

Lei loop cut open, with a few strays that will need restringing

On one end of the lei, I will stopper the garland by knotting a small bead on the end:

Making a stopper with a bead and surgeon's knot

In order to have enough thread to work with, I will take the other end of the garland and tie it to a LONG length of thread.

Tying the end to a long length of thread to make the garland
Make sure to trim the excess thread!

Next, I strung the dropped spreaders and flowers back onto this thread, jumping over the joining knot.
I then cut the next lei, tying the end of that lei to the end of the long piece of the thread I added. That way, there's no need to restring- I just slide the flowers and spacers down over the knot.

Tying the next lei onto the length of thread

Pushing the flowers down next to the previous lei

So I can continue this with as many leis as I have. In this case, I only had three, so here's the result:

Finished three lei garland, about 3.7 yards long

We don't keep a fir tree in the house, so I demo'd the garland on our Christmas Palm!

Decorating the Christmas Palm

For us, however, this works the best on our door wreath.

Lei Garland around the door wreath

Again, this would look most festive for the holidays in red. The nice thing though, is that these will hold up to outdoor conditions pretty well if left outside. If decorating inside, you can make a garland from my other project using junk mail.
Mele Kalikimaka, y'all!

Palm Tree Christmas Hat

When I was in high school, one of my best friends and I decided that, for Christmas, the ubiquitous Santa Hat was just too boring. We got miniature Christmas trees from the craft store, decorated them to the nines, and attached them to headbands to wear on our heads all day long during school. The kids sitting behind us in class may have not gotten a full day of learning, but we had a blast, and we were lucky to go to a high school where the teachers let us get away with A LOT.
Anyway, I was thinking back to those times and needed to "dress up" for a Christmas SUP Paddle. I told my friend that I was going to resurrect the head tree- I needed to make it suitable for Florida, and for our coastal location.
Thus was born the Christmas Palm Tree Hat.
Here's how I put it together.
First, I used felt to construct the tree- you never know when the SUP may decide to part ways with your feet, so I figured this would be the safest material if it got wet. Plus, the felt's made from recycled soda bottles, so that's always good.
I hand sketched out what I thought would look like a palm frond and cut it out on a scrap of paper. I used this pattern to make 4 pairs of fronds, each pair made of one dark green and one light green piece:

Felt fronds cut out

Next, using green embroidery floss, I blanket stitched around the outside of one pair to join them together.

Sewing the pairs together..not a green bean.

From here, before I completed sewing all the way around, I stuffed each pair with poly stuffing to give each frond some dimension:

Filling out the frond

Next, after finishing all four fronds, I needed a trunk for the tree. I used a scrap piece of paper to cut out one elongated trapezoid as a pattern, and used this as a pattern for the felt:

Trunk pattern and felt cut out

I folded the trunk in half and proceeded to blanket stitch closed the top and down the side with brown embriodery floss. To ensure the trunk would have some "backbone" I got my spool of 20 gauge wire.

Trunk sewn up

To make the backbone, I used 5 long lengths of the 20 gauge wire, and wrapped a piece of the wire around the five piece bundle to strengthen it. I inserted the wire into the trunk on the folded side, and held it there while a stuffed the trunk with poly stuffing.

Wire in the trunk, cut a bit long to make it easier to hold while stuffing-
it will be cut flush with the bottom of the trunk when stuffed completely

Next, I needed to sew the fronds together into a group. I sewed them together at the center, but towards the top of the center, so I could slip the trunk in underneath and sew this secure to the fronds on the bottom.

Fronds sewn together, spaced out equally

Before sewing the fronds to the trunk, however, I wanted to make a bottom for the trunk, so I cut an oval piece of brown felt approximately the size of the rounded opening on the bottom of trunk created by stuffing it.

Bottom (base) of the trunk

This was blanket stitched into place just like all other pieces. I then stitched down the fronds to the top of the trunk, wrapping the thread underneath and whipstitching the fronds in place to ensure that the fronds would not move off of the trunk. Here's the result:

Happy little tree

Since it's Christmas, I wanted to put lights on the tree, much like how my favorite Corona commercial shows every year. Yes, I wish I had done ACTUAL lights, but I didn't have a lot of time. Instead, I took scraps of my brightly colored felt and cut out little pseudo light bulbs:

Light bulbs, NOT mittens!

I took a piece of red embroidery floss, and strung a bulb on, knotted it in place, moved down an inch, and strung another bulb on, and so forth until a I had a light strand:

Felt light strand

From here, it was just a matter of winding the strand around the tree and securing the tree down to the hat to wish to use. Ideally, a baseball cap is best, but I already had my beach bucket hat I use, so I stitched it down to that. I can easily remove the tree from the hat so I don't have to celebrate in my hat year round...

Tree attached to hat

Hat on my head, in action!

Remember, the tree will require you to keep your head upright, so it's a good festive decor to give the DD in your group. Then you get hammered and tell your friend in slurred speech:
"Dude, did you know there's a TREE growing out of your head, man??"

Foster's Can Koozie from an Old Wetsuit

Ok, so this week I've heard that some people are interested in crafting insulative beverage holders- or "koozies", as they are scientifically known- from old wetsuit neoprene.
While there are a lot of different patterns available on the internet for standard koozies, I haven't seen any for super-sized adult beverages, such as a Foster's. I can't stand beer personally, but I love this picture of Kelly Slater slamming a Foster's after he won his 8th World Title. Maybe, he could've used a koozie to keep the beer cold...

Ke11y and his Foster's during his 8th World Title

First, I acquired a can of Foster's to use for measurements:

Measuring height

The height of the can from the bottom to the top lip is about 5 1/2". Next, I traced the can's bottom onto some paper.

Tracing the inside bottom

I took a compass to estimate the radius of the can inner bottom you can do this around the outer edge instead, if you'd rather:

Taking a measurement from the tracing

From here, I could draw up measurements. The can bottom is 1 and 5/16" in radius, the width of one side of the koozie is 5 and 1/4", and the height of each side will be 5 and 1/2" tall:

Dimensions laid out on paper

Now, to give you a better idea of how this pattern will be cut, I'm going to cut out the shape of the paper, cutting around the circle, but not all the way- you want to keep a bit of each side of the circle attached to each side. Cutting out the pattern will look like this (keep in mind that the height of each side should be 5 and 1/2", but I was constrained by the 8 1/2" by 11" sheet of paper I used):

Pattern cut out

Next, you can trace this pattern onto your neoprene scrap using chalk, or you can staple the pattern to the neoprene and cut out around the pattern.

Neoprene cut out

Before I sew up each side, I'm going to add a little clear window to put a message, name, or thought into on the side of the koozie. I used a folded over piece of clear heavy duty shipping tape- a piece of clear plastic, like a piece of shower curtain can be used too.

Tape I used for a window pocket

Cut a piece of folded over tape out, and cut out a little notch to take pieces of paper in and out

I sewed this window down on three sides by hand, leaving the top open using 4 lb test fishing line and a heavy embroidery needle.

Window sewed down, bubbles in the tape are not a big deal, they won't show on the paper.

Next, I whipstitched the sides together with the same fishing line, making sure the edges are lined up. I didn't have enough neoprene to reach the full can height, but it's still pretty tall.
Here it is finished, with a fun message inside:

Classier than those wine tags, right?