Evan and Katelyn

We started this project in October…

Let’s rewind a few months to a time where the resin flowed in abundance… I’m talking about when we were working on Meatball, the pumpkin we encased in resin. As y’all might recall, because we were doing such deep/thick pours, we had to use a special super slow cure resin.

Well after one of the Meatball pours, we realized we had mixed way more resin than needed, and we had a bunch of sl...

We almost cheated… a LOT (Stained Glass Aftershow)

It’s so fun to have a new hobby/skill in the repertoire! In this Aftershow we talk about…

- A longer and more nuanced review of the kits (and why it was hard to give during our video)
- How bad was the cheap stuff really… (Evan rant)
- Why we chose to do stained glass
- How stained glass compares to resin (and how it's similar in a way)
- How we almost deviated from the expensive kit with more items (glass, patina, etc)
- How this has sparked ideas to incorporate st...

I used the glass grinder!!!

So I was a little intimidated by the thought of grinding the glass down. How hard would it be to hold all my tiny pieces? Would it be super messy? Would I be able to get the precision I wanted? Would the glass chip? All in all, turns out it was not too difficult to do everything I wanted to do. I just took a long time haha.

But I was able to eXeCuTe mY vIsIoN! Look at how nicely that all fits ...

I tried the expensive stained glass kit

So as y’all know, due to the results of the sacred “cheap vs expensive” rock paper scissors match, Evan got the cheap kit and I got the expensive kit. Not gonna lie - the expensive kit is a *little* intimidating. I mean just look at all the stuff it came with!

One of the biggest differences between the two kits is that with this one, I can cut the glass to be whatever design I want. So�...

Evan tried the cheap stained glass kit

Hey y’all! So we’ve made some progress on the “Cheap vs Expensive” stained glass kits, specifically on the cheap one. As per usual, we did rock paper scissors to decide who got what and Evan ended up with the cheap kit for the 4th time in a row haha.

Honestly at first we were pretty impressed. The glass seemed pretty nice and having it all pre-cut was super convenient.

2023-04-10 18:33:14 +0000 UTC View Post

We went to Vegas!

A while back y’all might remember us saying that we really got the itch to go to Vegas after watching Safiya and Tyler’s videos staying at all the hotels on the Vegas strip. We hadn’t been on a “just us” (not for work, not for family) vacation since we started the channel over 6 years ago, and the urge just hit us. So we did it! We actually just got back home yesterday after a 3 night trip.

We don't spend money on gambling and instead we spend it on FOOD, some fancy drinks, an...

We’re gonna try stained glass for the first time!

And since it’s our first time, we thought it’d be fun to do another “cheap vs expensive” where we buy a cheap kit and an expensive kit and test the 2 against each other.

I gotta admit - the expensive kit is INTENSE on this one. Just look at how much stuff came in the kit!

We’re both r...

What it’s really like to work with AI (AI Controls Our Project Aftershow)

Happy Friday y'all! In this Aftershow we cover:

• The project we almost went with instead (edible water bottle)
• All the research into glow powder
• Different “garden” designs we almost went with
• Was making Echo worth it?
• What we thought about incorporating AI into our project, was it a fun idea?
• Would we do anything different if we did this project again?

<3 Katelyn

The Glowing Garden is Complete! (*spoilers*)

Hey guys! We finished the glowing garden and I think it turned out really cool! Both in “dark mode” and in “light mode.” Here’s the same angle so you can really compare the two.

2023-03-28 15:31:51 +0000 UTC View Post

Making the glow “a secret”

So first off, Evan’s rotisserie was a success! (check out our last Patreon post for context). It held the weight of our heavy planter and we ended up with a smooth resin finish that’s still thick enough to glow when in the dark.

While thinking about the design of this “garden,” one idea we had is we want it to look like a “normal” (aka “non-glow-in-the-dark”) garden in the daylight, but then be a fun little surprise when the lights are off. So we started painting the pla...

Here I go over-engineering things again...

So as part of the "glow in the dark garden" our AI friend Echo has us working on, we wanted to make a glow in the dark planter to house everything. We of course went to the thought of covering it with resin... but how do we keep the resin on while it cures? If we do a pour over then most of the resin would drip off. We thought back to the resin tumblers we made, but didn't have anything to continuously turn something so big!

But my mind immediately went to some spare electronic parts I ...

Our AI has chosen a project!

You guys might remember a while back we asked y’all to name a little talking robot we were building for a future “AI Chooses our DIY Project” video. First off, we decided to name him Echo, so thank you Aaron for the suggestion (they asked ChatGPT what the name should be so it really came full circle).

Also, we’ve now asked Echo to tell us “3 weird DIY ideas that would make for a good YouTube video” and he had some thoughts! Our favorite of his ideas was a “glow in the dark...

Supporter-Only Q&A

Thank you for submitting all the questions! If y’all like this, we’d love to answer more. There were so many good ones we couldn’t get to (because apparently we like to give long answers and we ran out of time haha) -Katelyn

We’re testing a bunch of resin products!

For so long we’ve wanted to buy resin gadgets and test them out to see if they really work. So I did a bit of research and I’m gonna surprise Katelyn with some interesting tools/gadgets/toys I found…

I bought a few different mixing devices, 2 of which are supposed to be hands-free, AND I got a heating mat that’s supposed to speed up the curing process. Now imagine my surprise when in the suggested items, Amazon recommended a “reptile heating pad” that looked IDENTICAL to the...

One change that would have solved everything (1000 Wick Candle Aftershow)

Hey y’all, hope everyone has had a great week! We had SO much fun with this project. In this Aftershow we talk about:

• Katelyn broke the camera
• Poop spray story
• How we could have solved all our wick struggles
• Any practical uses for this?
• What the heck will we do with it now?

(And yes. I did hide the poop spray again. Who knows when it’ll pop up again. -Katelyn)

Exclusive Q&A

Hi y'all, we realized it's been over 2 years since our last Q&A and a lot has changed since then! We're not sure if we're ready to boot up our podcast again so we though we'd do a Q&A video just for our supporters. Leave your questions below and upvote your favorites for us to see!

We burned the candle!

We lugged the 63 lb candle (yep, we weighed it) to my parents house and burned it!! This thing burned like a champ.

We had it going for like an hour and it only went through maybe 1-1.5 inches of wax, but I can’t say it was a clean burn haha. At some point, we realized it was no longer the wicks burning - it was just the wax itself, like a big pool of oil fueling the fire.

2023-03-07 16:40:10 +0000 UTC View Post

Being Very Safety

We thought before we burned the candle, it would be a good idea to make a giant candle snuffer. We’re also gonna bring a fire blanket and a fire extinguisher, but a big snuffer seemed the least messy way to put it out.

We got a trash can lid, and first we tried drilling holes through the handle and adding a metal rod. It worked pretty good for a few seconds. But then we realized that the metal rod was starting to bend…

2023-03-03 16:31:08 +0000 UTC View Post

Disaster struck but the candle is ok!

Well that might be a little melodramatic. Basically, we accidentally prematurely popped off the template while trying to loosen it from some hardened wax that had spilled on top of it.

Not the biggest deal, but it does mean that one side is gonna have wicks that are all kitty wampus haha.

Event...

How are we gonna place 1000 wicks?

How are we gonna place 1000 wicks? With a laser cut template of course! The tricky part was we wanted to make a template that served 2 purposes: 1) it would allow us to space out the wick bases when we adhesive them to the bottom.

And 2) It would allow us to pull it upward and rest it on the edges of the container to hold the wicks straight while we poured wax.

2023-02-25 15:35:42 +0000 UTC View Post

We’re making ANOTHER oversized project…

Hey guys! So we’re making another oversized project, but this time we’re gonna set it on fire… because it’s gonna be a candle. With 1000 wicks. That's a lot of wicks!

We bought 40 lbs of wax and I worry it may not be enough haha…

We bought a galvanized drain pain off McMaster-Carr to ...

We’re exhausted (World’s Biggest Laptop Aftershow)

We’re exhausted… but SO happy with how this laptop turned out! So it was all worth it in the end. In this Aftershow we talk about…

• Project exhaustion
• Filming in public
• Evan’s huge detour on DC power and the “cool” things he found
• A design element we nixed (openable panels in front)
• Thoughts about the failures (crooked TV, having to redo the top piece due to sideways CNC carve)
• How the first emblem design was gonna be WAY har...
  2023-02-17 16:18:35 +0000 UTC View Post

World’s Biggest Laptop Reveal! (SPOILERS)

Omg we did it! It’s done and it works!! We’ve put in so much time into this giant laptop, and we’re really happy with how it turned out (despite all the bumps in the road haha). It’s so crazy… it kinda looks photoshopped when you see it in pictures.

We decided to take it to a park to get th...

We’ve failed so many times, but at least the resin looks good!

Hey guys! Wow since we last checked in about the laptop there have been several failures. First off, mounting the screen was pretty tough and we realized partway through that it was actually crooked AND off center.

So we removed the monitor, filled the holes with wood putty, drilled new ones, and re-hung it. And it was STILL slightly crooked 😭. We decided it wasn’t too bad and we’d move...

Updates on our BIG project!

Hey guys! We’ve been making good progress on the giant laptop project, and we’re also realizing it’s gonna be a lot more work than expected. We’ve added a few elements that are starting to really bring the vision together - especially this 43” monitor and MASSIVE keyboard

But there’s still so, so much to add. We actually had to bust out a folding table just to handle overflow suppl...

We’re building something LARGE!

Our next project is gonna be a strange one! See, Evan has always had an obsession with tiny computers (I remember back in college playing smash with him on one of his early ones) and for a while he’s wanted to try making one, but getting electronics really tiny is a challenge. You know what’s way more doable? Making a GIANT laptop.

Now it’s still challenging in other ways (we have to bui...

Name our talking AI robot! (Mini Vlog 64)

Not sure if/when this video will happen but we’re gonna be running some experiments soon! Let us know your name suggestions in the comments (and like/heart your faves) -Katelyn

Cutting ourselves some slack (Lava Resin Axe Aftershow)

It was so fun doing this resin axe, even though it turned out a bit different than we expected! In this Aftershow we cover:

• We almost did FOUR axes
• How the night after the vacuum chamber mess Evan made his right angle air diverter
• How worried we were after demolding that it would look lame
• Anything we’d do differently? Lava, rocks, etc?
• How we almost didn’t film the skit at the end
• Other resin weapons we want to make 

Random Life Updates!

Hey guys! This is a little bit of a different type of post, but we thought it’d be fun to share some non-work related stuff. First off, I’m SO BORED with my hair. I’m considering coloring it AND getting bangs (though maybe I should do one thing at a time haha). I actually bought a few wigs to try out the colors I’m considering (brown-to-purple ombre, brown-to-red ombre, black-to-light brown ombre).

2023-01-24 17:40:37 +0000 UTC View Post

The resin axe is done! *SPOILERS*

Hey guys! The resin axe is all complete! Now I’ll admit, while I am proud of making a resin axe, it didn’t exactly end up looking like our vision (at least in the daylight). Even after multiple rounds of tests, resin lava was hard to do.

But when it glows in the dark… that’s when it really shines *pun intended*

2023-01-21 16:39:28 +0000 UTC View Post