Keyboard ClockCreatively Sam's

To say that my mind doesn’t work like other people is putting it mildly. I look at everyday things & see something totally different. I see the possibilities. This is what happened when I went through yet another computer keyboard. (I manage to go through a lot of them) I’ve had this idea in my mind for months. I hope you enjoy.

It all started with an idea that I had for a gallery wall above the desk in the office area of our home. I’ve been collecting frames in different shapes & sizes to put the gallery wall together. I found a square frame & all the bells & whistles went off. It would be perfect for a clock! And a clock that went with the theme of an office made this idea come together.

Starting with one of my old keyboards, (I have several) I used a flat-head screwdriver to pop the keys out. (careful, they can fly) Once the keys were removed, I put them into a bag until I was ready for this project. (I should have separated them into numbers, letters & words. Hindsight is 20/20)

I put the bag of keyboard keys, a package of clock works that I got at Walmart, and the square frame into a project box until I was ready to put it together.

I use a small plastic bin to hold items for future projects. It helps me keep all of the supplies together & I know where to put the things I need as I purchase them.

I took the items out of the project bin & removed the glass from the frame. Then I turned over the print that was in the frame & drew lines to find the center. Once the center was marked, I used an X-acto knife to cut out a hole in the center for the clock works.

Once I got the hole large enough for the clock to fit, I turned it over & painted it white with acrylic paint. It took 3 coats of paint to cover the print.

While the paint was drying, I was looking at the frame. I love the silver & the beads around it, but since the keys are black, I felt the frame needed to be darkened. I got some black acrylic paint, some water & a small paint brush. I used the water to thin the paint down & just used the paint brush to mix the water with the paint.

I put a coat of the watered down paint on & around the beads, then wiped the excess off with a damp paper towel. I repeated this all the way around. The nice thing about this is that if you wipe off too much, you can always add more paint & repeat.

Now that the frame was finished, it was time to start putting the clock together.

I put the clock works into the base, following the directions on the package. Once the hands were on, I used the minute hand and a pencil to lightly mark where I wanted the numbers to go.

Getting ready to put everything together… (can you tell that it was a sunny day?) after all of the marks were made, I separated the keys to get the numbers out. Remember when I said hindsight is 20/20? It took me nearly an hour to go through all of the keys. Once the numbers were separated, I dipped them into a thick tacky glue & started to place them in their appropriate places. I used the tacky glue because it doesn’t yellow, where hot glue can.

For the number 11, I used 2 of the minus keys from 2 different keyboards. If you don’t have 2 old keyboards, you could use the dash/underline key. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.