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Erika Hammerschmidt
Hobbies
Welcome to my Hobby Page. Art, jewelry, miniatures, outdoors, and science fiction... what more do I need?
Jewelry-making
In my spare time, I love to make jewelry out of wire, beads, and stones I find on beaches. You can see and even buy it at My Jewelry Page .
Painting, drawing, photomontage, animation
This hobby has its own page, too: go here .
Kayaking
I love the outdoors, and when I used to live in Minnesota, taking a boat out on the lake was one of the fun things I did out there. Of course, since we lived in an apartment, we would have nowhere to keep an ordinary boat... so we found another way.
My inflatable kayak folds up to fit in a suitcase. I got it from my brother and mom and dad, who had gotten it a long time ago and wanted to find a new home for it.
It unfolds easily. It had a few leaks when I got it, so I attached rubber patches with Shoe Goo and covered them with Gorilla Tape, and it's not even thinking about leaking now.
I got the pump at the local thrift store for $3.99. It inflates the whole kayak in less than ten minutes.
But the pump didn't have attachments for the kayak's inflation holes. I needed one attachment for a screw-on valve and one for a small blow-up-toy-style hole. So I made them out of Gorilla Tape and a vanilla extract bottle.
I named the boat "Skidbladnir" after the mythical Norse ship that could fold up magically to fit in a pocket.
You can't christen a kayak with a bottle of Archer Farms grape juice, but you can pretend.
Here it is with the seats.
And with everything. This is with the old paddle I bought for $16... I have a better one now. The lifejackets are from a garage sale. It all folds up to fit in the suitcase plus one small bag... I can walk to the lake with it if I want to.
Dollhouse
I'm quite a collector of miniatures, and this is a dollhouse I got from my uncle when I was a very small child. It has ten rooms, a brick-stone-stucco-wood exterior and working electric lights. He built it himself, and when I was little, it was one of my greatest treasures.
Then, in October 2007, the dollhouse and the whole collection of miniatures disappeared. We were moving into a new townhouse, and before we could move the dollhouse and miniatures out of our old storage unit, the new tenant took it out and left it in the hall, and someone carried it off. We haven't seen it since. I can only hope some child is enjoying it now.
In any case, here's what it was like when it was mine:
Dollhouse from outside
Crane sculpture and children's sled
Mailbox
Birdbath
Dollhouse from inside
Attic
Dining room table
Kitchen
Tea nook behind the kitchen
Parents' bedroom
Kids' bedroom (the fireplace really leads from the chimney)
Baby's bedroom (doubles as laundry room)
Bathroom (I made all the furnishings myself!)
When my uncle gave me the dollhouse, he gave me a collection of miniatures to keep in it, and I've been adding to that collection ever since. Here are close-ups of some of my favorite items.
Shells
On top of the big cabinet in the attic, there is a collection of real shells that my grandma gave me.
Books
Inside the cabinet, there are books. I made them all; the stories are ones I wrote. I reduced them to a tiny font, painstakingly plotted them out into miniature pages, printed them, cut the pages apart and bound them.
Dollhouse dollhouse
The dollhouse has a dollhouse of its own, and if you look closely, you can even see a dollhouse inside that... it's the thing just to the left of the doll in the blue dress.
Granada ceramic
When I studied in Spain, I brought home some traditional Granada ceramic, including a miniature punch bowl with cups and ladle.
Guadix pots
During my Spain semester, I also visited Guadix, where they make very distinctive pottery. I brought home some miniature pots for my dollhouse, too.
There are no stereotypes in my dollhouse.
Dad Doll
He does the dishes.
Mom Doll
She reads good books.
Cats
They eat dog food.
Dog
He prepares to pounce on a mouse.
Kids
She plays with the train, he has a tea party. The baby plays with a gender-neutral xylophone.
The Armless Ghost in the Attic
She's (h)armless. She couldn't come downstairs even if she wanted to-- there aren't any stairs between the attic and the second floor. There isn't even a trapdoor. She just sits and plays chess with the rat that also lives up there. Don't ask me how they move the pieces. Maybe they're telekinetic.
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is one of my recent fascinations. I'm not an old-school Whovian who's been watching it since before it was popular, but I'm certainly doing some catching up now.
klein bottle tardis
A Klein Bottle TARDIS . It's bigger in the inside because the inside IS the outside.
A doodle I did, after hearing that there were some spoilers about the TARDIS changing in the newest episode that I hadn't seen yet.
My idea for a Doctor Who/Titanic crossover.
My observation on how the Eleventh Doctor wasn't the first to rock the bow tie.
My Dalek-themed Halloween costumes.
Sometimes, walking through downtown Minneapolis, I wish I were a graffiti artist. (A true artist can see the Dalek hiding inside her artistic medium; she simply works to bring it out...)
If you aren't into true graffiti, though, you can still do your own kinds of street art. In Wal-Mart, you can start a Dalek invasion without actually vandalizing, or even unpackaging, any of the merchandise. Done on March 20th, 2012, as a temporally-displaced April Fool's joke.
And finally...
Star Trek
(I love lobster gloves. And look what company mine are made by!)
Yes, Star Trek was one of my first loves, and it is still a huge hobby for me; it could fill several webpages! But here are a few Trek-related things I've done.
Starfleet Car Logos
I have observed the world closely, and one of the things I have observed about the world is that there are a striking number of automobile logos that bear vague, close or even startling resemblance to the Starfleet Insignia.
Here are some that resemble the insignia without having to be changed at all...
...and here are some that resemble it when they are turned upside down or sideways. (Car logos are often seen upside down or sideways, since they are shown on the center of the rotating hubcap as well as on the front or back of the vehicle.)
Coincidence???
Well, yes, probably. But please let me know if you find any more.
Pointed Ears
I have a pair of rubber pointed ear tips, but I got sick of sticking them to my ears with special adhesive, so I made them part of a beaded headband. Now they just settle over my ears, and the headband keeps them in place and covers the seam. Someone called me a "70's Vulcan" and other people say I look like a Lord-of-the-Rings elf; I really don't fit on a starship in that headband. But hey, I'll do anything to have pointed ears.
Me with pointed ears and headband
More recently, as a Romulan
Target
I work at Target, which can be a little like Star Trek sometimes.
That is, if you are the kind of person who obsessively thinks about Star Trek all the time and compares everything to it.
The kind of person who knows what a "targ" is, and makes puns about it:
Seriously, though. The similarities are almost creepy.
Smash
And here's a little animation that perfectly captures how I feel sometimes at home.
