DIY Sci-Fi

My younger daughter is all about outer space.  She loves everything about it - both the NASA and the sci-fi.  Her absolute favorite sci-fi show is hands down "Star Trek".  She is totally obsessed!  Her every day hat is a knit beanie with Spock ears.  She regularly wears her Spock uniform as clothes.  She sleeps with her stuffed Spock and Kirk dolls every night.  She has the opening memorized and giggles every time I put an episode on for her (she even knows the names of her favorite episodes and asks for them specifically).  She was a Tribble for Halloween.  So it was only logical that she should have a shuttlecraft for a bed.  Now, to buy one would cost money - lots of money.  We don't have lots of money.  The solution: make one!  She and her sister were already sharing an inexpensive bunk bed we picked up at Ikea.  To turn it into a shuttlecraft, my husband and I simply painted the bed with leftover gray paint from another project, and added sheets with logos (photo transfer paper run through a regular printer) and insignia.   Easy-peasy, right?

But she isn't narrow minded.  She also loves Star Wars.  Now, I know that historically Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans tended to be polarized.  I get it.  I certainly love Star Trek more than Star Wars.  But my daughter just loves adventure and space.  Once I saw George Takei's appeal for Star Peace - a truce between Star Trek and Star Wars fans - I knew we needed to add a bit of Star Wars into her room as well.
 

Here is how we did it.

Materials: unfinished wooden knobs, styrofoam cups, sand paper, ModgePodge, brush, pictures.

First, we took her cheap inexpensive dresser and removed the plain wood knobs.  Using the sand paper, I cleaned up and smoothed out the surfaces a bit.  Then we (she liked this part) poked the screws through the bottoms of some styrofoam cups to hold them steady and upright while we worked.

She very carefully cut out pictures of some of her favorite Star Wars characters.  I had printed them out as thumbnails on regular paper.

Then all we had to do was put each picture on a knob and "paint" them with the ModgePodge.  She wanted them shiny, so we used high gloss.  

 

In no time at all, she had six customized Star Wars knobs for her dresser.  She is a happy little geekling.