Tournament of Made-It-Myself: Round 1.4

As noted in yesterday’s matchup, which is still open to voting: You may vote for yourself once, and you may solicit friends and family to vote (again, one vote per person–the same applies to all readers).

If you want to follow this tournament, you can subscribe to this blog in Google Reader or on our Facebook page. If you’re new here, feel free to poke around a bit. I respond to comments even if they’re on entries from years ago. A good place to learn about the blog is on the About page, which caters to the type of person you are.

Due to the odd number of contestants, we have three entries going head-to-head-to-head today.

First up is Stetson P. with what he calls “C4-D2”:

I’ve made and repaired several items in my short life but this is one of my most recent and prized. It’s a C4 grill/smoker, which stand for ceramic charcoal cooking capsule. I made it on the weekends at work from scrap/prototype parts. It looks like I just assembled it, but I made it. It took me around 20 hours or more to make. I had to grind the “brushed” finish into all of the stainless steel. There is a picture of what the bottom looked like before finished and a couple of short videos that show me grinding. I also had to grind the ceramic insides to fit together as we’ll as drill holes for the SS rings that hold the ceramic pieces in. I also had to drill and tap the threads for the handle.

Stetson

Second is Ansley K. from Birmingham with her homemade necklace  holder:

My best friend needed a place to put her necklaces so they wouldn’t get tangled up. I had spent quite a bit of time pondering this first world dilemma when I happened upon a strange piece of driftwood in the middle of the UAB campus. As this was a surprising discovery (the nearest beach is 4 hours away), I considered it fortuitous and took said driftwood.

How might a piece of driftwood help you on your quest, you might ask. Well, I put the driftwood on my dresser and meditated on it day and night for four nights. I didn’t wat. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t move a muscle. I simply pondered.

On the fourth day, 19th hour, 26th minute….it hit me. The perfect way to use this gift from the sea to solve my friend’s problem. I purchased some kitschy little doorknobs from an overpriced store near my house. I considered each one in the bin until I found five doorknobs that fit the decor, color scheme and personal style of my friend’s bathroom.

Thus, on the sixth day, I was ready to create. Using an antique awl made from the femur of a Confederate deserter, I painstakingly bored holes into the driftwood and inserted the doorknobs at a perfect angle. My vision was almost complete.

The final step was to use recycled material (coke pop tops) to allow the masterpiece to be hung in the bathroom of my dear friend. I used a length of dried deer gut tied between the two pop tops as a means of hanging my work.

And it was complete. And it is glorious.

Ansley necklaces

Third and last is Nancy I. from St. Louis with a very creative entry, a haunted house balled Blackford Haunt:

The haunt is 8 – 10 rooms and we build it on our driveway and garage. We change the theme every year and the website shows 2011 (not up to date). This haunt started about 10 years ago and has grown from two rooms to what it is today and even includes a vortex tunnel. We make most everything and have great fun doing it. It became a family project. There are about 10 live actors also in the haunt. We are very proud of what we do and that we have kept it free.

Blackford Haunt

Time to vote! Polls close on Sunday at 2:00 CST.

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