Monday, April 8, 2013

Crafting: Quidditch Pong


Yesterday, while I nursed a slight hangover headache, I got together the pictures from Quidditch Pong. No action shots, but you should have seen these guys! My boyfriend and his brother absolutely dominated, and I'm scared to ask why my brother, who is seventeen and a half, was so good, too. (We play with water cups, so you are not required to drink alcohol to play.) I actually did not get a chance to play, nor did Brooke who still has never played beer pong! They switched to flip cup just as I was going out to the garage to get a game in, since it allows for more people to have fun. So we'll have to do this again, but it's someone else's turn to color all those cups (they got thrown away...).

Now I'm going to teach you how to do it yourself!

The Balls
Supplies:
Ping pong balls, however many you think you'll want. I suggest getting spares.
Gold spray paint

Well, so there was some debate on what to do for the balls. If you want to be accurate, they should probably be some sort of red, for Quaffles, since they're going through the hoops. One could also make the argument that since you're trying to get them into your opponents' cups, who are the players, it's like you're trying to hit the players. So you could paint them to be Bludgers. And then they're tiny little balls that go fucking EVERYWHERE if you miss, so they could be Snitches. Plus, shiny gold is just so pretty. And maybe I could have painted one of each, since we most often play teams of three. But how annoying would it be to buy whole cans of paint for one (or two; I made six total to have backups) ball each?

So, in the end, I decided shiny gold was the prettiest and made Snitches. If you're craftier than me, you can totally make cute little wings and stick them on, like in the inspiration picture. I opted out because I wasn't sure I'd have anything that wasn't so flimsy it'd break or dissolve in the water of the cups, and also I didn't want to mess with the aerodynamics of the ball. You could even try decorating with a gold sharpie and adding lines, like they did with paint in this amazing project that you should totally look at. I tried drawing on wings with silver and doing the lines and both looked really, really stupid, so I re-painted that one.

To make, simply buy a couple (or 36 *cough* cause that's totally necessary) ping pong balls and some spray paint. I bought metallic gold and they did not turn as reflective-shiny as I thought they might, but they're still metallic-ish, so I didn't care. Lay down a cloth, and spray. Use good spray painting techniques and get nice, pretty coats. I did mine a little too thick and got minor drippage, but when it was finished you couldn't tell.


The Cups
Supplies:
10-12 each red, green, yellow, and royal/navy blue Solo-type cups
3 or more each gold, silver, black, and bronze permanent markers

This was such a pain in the ass. They just took hours and hours to do. I picked up gold, silver, and bronze Sharpies and had some black. The three metallics should be available locally pretty much anywhere in their own three-pack. You can also find two-packs of gold and silver, which are the ones I needed the most of. Bronze seemed to be the best of the metallics at covering. Black was best overall.

I was able to find red, of course, with no trouble. You can find those anywhere. In fact, I had to buy 100 of them at once at Walmart because they don't come in overpriced small-count packs. I think I paid as much or less for that than the fifty-count of the green or yellow.

The blue cups came from our mutual friend Dani, who had them leftover from a party she once had. Yellow and green I had to get on Amazon. Even though I was looking right before St. Patty's and Easter, I couldn't find them. And Erik told me he saw them both at Walmart when he went without me, but the next day I went and they were gone, so he was probably crazy. As for the designs, once I couldn't get them all matching, I decided they had to all be different, so once I found the green (and I swear it's not as blue as the pictures look) I couldn't use the same version of yellow and the yellow I picked was a bit too banana yellow. It didn't look bad, though, once they were colored.


I suggest buying more Sharpies than you think you'll need because I needed more gold and silver than just three (especially gold), but wasn't going to go get more. Also, be patient and work carefully. Find a good order and stick with it. Don't let yourself get too frustrated or feel too rushed or you'll mess up a lot. I did. Also be careful to work up or down from the base of the cup in whichever direction means you'll touch the least amount of Sharpie. It dries fast, but you could still get it on your hands and smudge. You don't want that.

Or you could be less neurotic than me and just use the cups plain like a normal person. I'm not normal, though, and I suppose if you're looking at and reading all of this, you're not either. So turn on some good zone-out music, maybe get a friend you trust not to make a mess of it, and start scribbling!

Just to note, I used all the spare cups as the cups offered to my guests. As the packs were all (except red) 40-50, I put out approximately 30 of each, which was way too much but looked cool stacked in a row, and offered the different Sharpies for people to write their names. It allowed people to use their own House's cups for their drinks, regardless of which House cocktail they ended up drinking and was an extra-mile touch everyone enjoyed.

By the way, sorry about the process photos. I took them with an iPod.

The Hoops
Supplies:
3 wooden embroidery hoops, 5" diameter (or maybe 6", I can't remember...)
A thin dowel, approx 47" long
Duct tape
Really trippy silicone trivets my dad got at work...
Screws of some sort
Hot glue and hot glue gun
My dad

This was the part you were all waiting for, right? So I totally improvised all of this, based again off the inspiration photo. I think they used wire of some sort, perhaps old hangers. I found cheap (cheap for embroidery hoops, at least) wooden embroidery hoops at Michael's, but was going to probably try destroying some wire hangers if I hadn't.

I knew I'd use thin dowels for the stems and my dad happened to have one that would slice three ways perfectly. I went to him asking what he suggested using as a base so they'd be sturdy. He suggested using these cool trivets he'd gotten as a sample at work and screwing through them. The trivets are really neat and if I knew what the company is that makes them, I would totally promote them right now, but I don't. The arms fold up and make them compact and adorable, plus cool colors.

I had my dad do basically all of the hard work for these, which would have happened no matter what since he owns all of the power tools (he's works in hardware and tools, pretty high up the food chain at the company now, which is why their house is so pretty and massive and good for picture times). The dowel came to a little over 47", I believe. We cut the two side stems to around 13" or 14" and made "the rest" the middle hoop. Now, after throwing the balls around, I do wish the side hoops had been a tiny bit taller, making for easier shots, but because of height and their position on the sides, they were worth more points.

My dad drilled holes as straight as possible into the middle of the dowels, which wasn't entirely straight, but it was still awesome. Then he drilled through the middle of the trivets and screwed them into the dowels. Fantastic!

Now, I know not everyone is going to have these trivets. Really, I think no one will, and if you do, you're not going to risk destroying them (though ours are still in great shape). I suggest a one- to two-inch or so thick square block of wood. Whatever you think will be sturdy.

Next, we hot glued the inner pieces of the hoops (the solid pieces, not the pieces with the clamps) to the other end of the dowels and voila! Perfect hoops.

The next day, I used duct tape to cover the stems and hoops. Why didn't I just spray paint them with the left-over gold spray paint, which would probably have looked awesome? Well, for one, I wanted to make the hoops a little more sturdy. Also, the wood was a bit rough and I was afraid of splinters. The dark tape also made them more visible. Most importantly, I couldn't spray paint the trivets because my mom wants them back to use in the kitchen now. I could have unscrewed them and spray painted and then screwed back together, but that's a pain in the ass.

So then the next day I duct taped. There is no super easy trick for the hoops. I laid them lengthwise and then wrapped that, but because of the curve, there was a lot of stretching and it got rumply, but I don't think it messed up the look too badly. I do suggest ripping long stretches of tape for the stems and laying them down the length and wrapping them that way, rather than  wrapping several small pieces that will make it look kind of janky as they overlap and get bumpy or whatever.

Finally, when you play, whatever you use for a base, I suggest taping it to the table. This will prevent anyone bumping them or knocking them over with the balls, and it'll keep them exactly spaced and centered where you wanted them. Also, place them pretty close together. In the header picture you can see them rather far apart, which I rectified. It was impossible to get anything through the side hoops and into any cups except to two very edge ones in the row of four, if you were lucky. You'll see in these pictures that I fixed that with help from my mom eyeballing it.

Set up your cups, fill them with whatever you decide to use, and go! I made eleven per "team" and since we used water, each team had a "reserve player" in case one of them got smashed, and there were also more that I hadn't colored, which I've mentioned. This spare cup could also be your water cup if you do it traditionally and put beer in the cups.


Bonus: House Rules!
I typed up and printed out a paper with the house rules because everyone always needs to know what the house rules are. I'm relatively new to the world of beer pong, though, so it boggles my mind when people start going on and on about "well, do you guys allow...?" and "okay, but what about...?" I will never fully understand what they mean when they ask, "Do you do islands?" which is apparently something to do with calling the cup you're aiming for and getting two cups removed because you called it, which I thought was the same thing as just calling a cup, but might be different because the island is any cup that gets isolated from the rest as cups are taken away.

Yeah, this is why I wrote the rules down. Did you know there's an actual Beer Pong League? We got official cups with a triangular tray that had holes to hold them for Erik's brothers at Christmas. They make whole folding tables and have a logo and everything.

Well, I had to cup up with new scoring and such, plus outline what common rules we do and don't use. The game was pretty easy to figure out, though, once we figured it all out. If I can ever figure out how to link up a download on here, I will upload the document I used. It's pretty and has columns and special Harry Potter fonts, including a lineart Snitch. I will paste the rules themselves in here. If you have any suggestions, I welcome them!

Get the title font here and the dingbat font here, both free.

It looked so badass.
  1. Fill each cup with water, not beer, please. Drink whatever your own drink is when your team loses a cup. (Thus, yes, you are more than welcome to play with soda instead of alcohol.)
  2. Pick your players’ robes! (Pick your Solo cup colors.) Winner of the last round picks first.
    1. The first match of the night must be Gryffindor v. Slytherin and the older player picks first
    2. No inter-House (Gryffindor v. Gryffindor, etc.) matches.
    3. Red = Gryffindor. Blue = Ravenclaw. Green = Slytherin. Yellow = Hufflepuff.
  3. Play one-on-one, two-on-two, or three-on-three, up to three Snitches (ping pong balls) in play per game.
  4. Each “point” is a cup removed. Unless all the players agree otherwise before the match, this is how the points work:
    1. Through the side hoops and into a cup is three points.
    2. Through the middle hoop and into a cup is two points.
    3. A bounce into a cup, but not through a hoop is two points.
    4. A trick shot (off the wall, the overhang, or the top of a hoop but not through) is two points.
    5. Through no hoops, but still into a cup, is one point.
    6. If the ball is bounced, then makes it through any hoop, and then makes it into a cup (all in that order), you have “caught the Snitch” and get six points. This shot is susceptible to bludgers (see next rule). [Note: This turned out surprisingly easy to perform through the middle hoop, but because it could be hit out of the way or caught since it had bounced, it was still very valuable and pretty much never happened.]
  5. Bludgers are allowed unless the players agree otherwise before the match. A bludger is when a player hits the ball out of the way or catches it, only allowed after it bounces.
  6. If a player does not make the Snitch into a cup and it lands on the table but does not roll onto the floor and that team manages to get it back, they can shoot again. The same player must make the shot with their opposite hand and it counts for the same amount of points as a normal shot.
  7. No “celebrities” (calling someone to step in for your shot for a turn). However, if someone needs to step away, one of their current teammates can shoot for them until they return. If someone wants to quit playing for the rest of the game, someone else can take their place, but the player that resigned cannot play again that game and must wait until the next game.
  8. If the Snitch is circling in a cup, the Snitch can be blown out, but not flicked out.
We did not enforce the "you lost a cup, now chug" rule. We never do when we play with water cups. For us, it is more about who's good at pong and whatnot, not getting people shit-faced.

And that's all! I really hope everyone has fun with this! Please, link up to example posts and pictures if you play!

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