A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… (Clock upcycle)

I should hire my kids out as quality control testers. I really should. None of this going-to-school nonsense. They could be making big bucks already! They are able to break everything. Everything. And they often do.

They set a personal record this past Christmas 2013 when the seven-year old’s new remote-controlled car was kaputt within three hours. Three. [At this point, I do need to tip my hat to Dickie Toys. In response to my e-mail about the broken remote control and my devastated seven-year old, the company replaced the remote free of charge. Thank you, Dickie Toys!]

Anyway, let’s rewind the tape a bit further. Back to the beginning. Grandma and Grandpa gave each of my boys a personalized clock at his birth, and we hung these clocks in their room. The boys were very proud of them. Each had his own clock.

I have to say, a lot of things pass through my hands in a day, but a wall clock? Not so often. Then again, I am not a seven- or eight-year-old boy. I bet you can see where I am going with this story. Guess what happened to the clocks? I suppose I should be happy they lasted as long as they did. It was a lot longer than the three-hour car.

After nearly nine and seven years of service respectively, the rim on one of the clocks was broken, and the covering for the face was cracked on the other. So, I decided to take the usable pieces of each clock and upcycle them into a new clock. I couldn’t use the broken stuff or the personalized clock faces. Obviously, the upcycled clock couldn’t have the name of just one of the boys on it.

Each clock has a gear inside it that looks like this. I was able to salvage both of the clock gears.

Theoretically you could use anything as a face with this gear—like a book or a plate.

And, I had to come up with a suitable new face for the clock. The theme of the clock was obvious because everything in my boys’ lives these days revolves around Star Wars. So, I asked the kids to make a list of their favorite Star Wars characters.

Once I had their list, I searched the Internet for black and white pictures of these characters.  It was harder than I thought to find drawings of approximately the same style and weight. Then I set about the job of resizing them to similar sizes. I pasted them onto the new template I had made for the clock’s face. (The easiest way to make a new clock face is to trace the old one. Remember to mark the positions of the numbers on your new template.)

 Finally, I assembled their new upcycled Star Wars clock. 

By the way, this can be done with most any clock that is constructed this way, such as an IKEA Rusch clock, which I personalized here.

Fun fact:

Clocks and watches are most commonly photographed with the hands on the 10 and the 2.  There are several reasons for this phenomenon. First, the 10:10 position is symmetrical, and the human brain appreciates symmetry and order. And both of the clock hands are visible and can be appreciated themselves. Also, the manufacturer’s logo, usually found centered under the 12, is nicely framed. Finally, the 10:10 hands look “happy” because the hands look like a smile. 🙂