Tacky Living - Hipster Clock

Home & Garden: Hipster Clock Make a cool-looking hipster clock based on Ikea products, or just get annoyed while reading our instructions. Our mistakes included so you can avoid repeating them! Supplies clock or clockworks placemat contrasting coaster and/or decorative foam bits glue thin cardboard

		This is a clock sold by Ikea called the Rusch. We're basing our design on it because it's dirt cheap, about $2.99 U.S. as of the time of this writing. We'll salvage its hands, clock movement and mounting bracket. One can also purchase a clock movement from a craft or DIY store. However, prices will probably be considerably steeper

		We're going to disassemble the clock into its component parts. Let's begin by removing the clear cover. If this step proves difficult, give the clock to a toddler having a temper tantrum: the cover is readily loosened by being thrown against a wall.

		Remove the hands. They should pull straight off.

		Turn the clock over and remove the black housing which holds the works and battery. To do this, you may need to depress the white tabs.

		Here's the back of the clock once the mechanism is removed.

		Turn the clock face up and peel off the paper with the numerals.

		Saw or cut off the curved outside bezel. You needn't be too tidy about this; you're just trying to remove the outside curve while keeping a nice flat expanse you can glue to later.

		Now we're going to make a new, more decorative clock face. We're going to start with another Ikea product, the PANNÅ placemat. Ours was purchased for $1.99 U.S.

		It's time to try out the placement of hands and design elements. Here we've placed the hands and a contrasting PANNÅ coaster on top of the placemat. This is a nice, clean design. However, it does have some problems, which you'll hear more about shortly.

		Some foam pieces are added to identify the 6 and 12 positions. This doesn't look as hip or clean as the previous layout, but it does add clarity.

		How about adding some additional shapes to mark the 3 and 9 positions? Mmmm. No.

		Here we try centering the clock back over the hands to ensure that once it's glued on, it will be entirely covered. If it had overlapped the edge, we would need to reposition the coaster and the hands.

		Holes are poked through the coaster and placemat, and the stem of the clock works is shoved through.

		Houston, we have a problem! We need both the narrow and wide portions of the white stem to be exposed in order for the clock to work. However, with the coaster and placemat sandwiched together, the thick portion of the stem is covered up. To solve this, we'll trace around the pink coaster and cut a matching hole in the green placemat, so the coaster can nestle down inside the placemat.

		Ugh. See how ragged the circle we cut is? Yeah. Bad idea. If you do this, be more careful.

		Here's the coaster nestled in the hole in the placemat. If you stand across the room, it might look okay.

		Up close, though, you can see this kind of business. Yikes. It's time to dig in the junk drawer and see what we can use to plug up those gaps.

		Woohoo! We had some yellow yarn squirreled away! It doesn't look too awful when it's glued around the edge of the coaster. Of course, it would look even better if we hadn't had to use it at all. Note: the yarn really has to be shoved down in the crevice, otherwise it'll stop or slow the hands of the clock later. While we have the glue out, we go ahead and glue the small pink dots in the 6 and 12 positions.

		Next, we flip the clock over and glue on very, very, very thin cardboard to make the placemat less floppy. Emphasis on THIN - otherwise, not enough of the stem of the clock will protrude through and the clock won't work. Poke a hole in the cardboard which matches the one in the coaster, so the clock stem can be shoved through. Insert the clock works in the clock back, and glue the clock back to the cardboard.

		Oh. One more issue. You know how we have this nice, cool, asymmetrical design? Yeah. That means the clock isn't going to hang straight on the wall, because the off-center weight is going to make it tilt. Not to worry - a couple of pebbles glued in the right locations will solve that problem.

		We paint the second hand yellow to jazz it up a bit, press all the hands on and ... woohoo! Our clock is finished! Of course, it would have been even better if we hadn't made the hole for the coaster ragged or glued on those little pink dots, which are looking goofier and goofier the longer we stare at them. Still. It's done. It's hip. It's cheap. So cheap, in fact, that we may go make another one that's better.