May 2009
I am blown away by Andre Michelle’s awesome visual music synthesizer, an instant d-i-y way for anybody to make charming syncopated Steve Reich-ish music that repeats endlessly. The more boxes you touch with your cursor, the more complex the tune becomes. If you get tired of a tune, continue to build it, listening as it evolves. (Also try clicking on the pale, tiny words under the synthesizer screen for other of Andre’s intriguing “studies”, or find them on the main menu.)
The synthesizer is the antidote to the workmen hammering outside my office window, providing a gorgeous meditative background sound that, along with ear plugs, blocks out the pounding on walls going on around me, and is perfectly conducive to working.
This is going on my bookmarks bar.
via The Daily Dish
05.27.09 |
comments (2) |
in art, media, tools |
I was riding my folding bike to the farmer’s market when a Chinese man passed me on his folder, with an odd looking caboose in tow: a wheeled carry-on bag. Behind him rode a young woman on another folding bike that looked like it has been rigged too, with all sorts of cases and compartments. I followed them and when they stopped for a light, asked if I could take some pictures and find out more about their bikes. read more…
05.24.09 |
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in road warrior, sightings, travel, wheels |
I have a lot of sewing projects I’d like to do – making pillow covers our of sari fabric, aprons out of gorgeous linen, for example - but didn’t know where to begin. So I asked my friend Lydia, who is the absolute best and most gifted textile person I know. (She’s masterminding some projects that I’ll be posting, with patterns and pictures for d-i-y. ) Here’s Lydia’s advice for beginners: read more…
05.23.09 |
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in how-to, learn, resources books + zines, solutions, tools |
Ellen Silverman
Although I have a big built-in bookcase, there always seems to be books floating around my apartment; either there’s no room (because books – like food -are the purchases I make weekly), or they are books I am currently using. They need a place and a way to be that isn’t a mess, but is accessible and nice looking. My solution is to stack them on “stands” that I’ve found on the street, and that are to me, pleasingly elemental, like the three above. read more…
05.23.09 |
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in floors, reclaim, repurpose, solutions, storage, why not? |
In the wonderful daddy blog Stork Bites Man, Andy (who also writes Reference Library) wrote a brief post about making this blue tape painting in the hallway outside his daughter Elsa’s room. The two had been working on it for a few months,”a few minutes at a time. She requests a ‘little one, great big one, skinny one, or triangle one’ and I cut each shape to order.”
It’s a perfect, simple, visually charming project to do with a kid (or another adult), and is another example of the brilliant versatility of blue painter’s tape
(it’s masking tape so it comes off with no marks, if you could ever imagine taking such a painting down).
Here are more things to do with painter’s tape.
And don’t forget how great it is for making signs on walls.
05.23.09 |
comments (1) |
in family + friends, kids, materials, playing, projects + play, rooms, walls + windows |
Fernando Ariza, The New York Times
ColorCapture Ben, a new iPhone and iPod Touch application, allows users to zoom into a particular color in a picture on their device, tap the “match” key, and see a display of paints closest to the color, along with a range of lighter and darker shades. (The app, created by Benjamin Moore, will reference its 3,300+ paint colors.) You can save the color “chips” on your phone for future reference.
Its an incredibly useful app, if you bear in mind that the color match is of a photo, which are often different than real-life colors.
ColorCapture Ben will be Available in June 1, free of charge at the Apple App Store.
If you don’t have an iPhone and/or are really serious about paint colors, Benjamin Moore has a more accurate standalone alternative, Pocket Palette Device, that will do the same thing, with more serious calibrations (for about $300).
(via The NY Times)
05.23.09 |
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in reimagine, resources, services, tools |
Wired.com has a swell D-I-Y Wiki, that’s full of things I’ve always wanted to know. It’s a collaborative site of projects, hacks, tricks and tips on “how to make each day better than the last”. Anyone can contribute new items or edit an existing item, and the info is suprisingly good, if not terribly detailed; it will get you where you need to go, or lead you to some good info. read more…
05.22.09 |
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in how-to, resources, resources blogs + sites, solutions |
For years, I made short-shrift of concrete block, associating it with the clunky cinderblock-and-pine shelves beloved by frugal college students, or bleak, prison-like garages and homemade tool sheds. I’d pass cheap, strong concrete blocks at construction sites and lumber yards, and wonder what I could do with them. Although I’m crazy about concrete, I seemed to have no imagination for concrete block.
Lately, new visions of concrete block have come my way, and opened my eyes to possibilities. read more…
05.20.09 |
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in elements, furniture, hard, inside, inspiration books + zines, materials, reimagine |
www.domesticarchitecture.com
I am a big fan of writing signs on walls, either as decoration or reminder, or both. Using colored masking tape is one nice impermanent, easily change-able way. Painting words means more work and more permanence, but is wonderful looking. It’s pretty straightforward to do: Make a form for each letter with masking tape and paint inside. When the paint is dry, remove the masking tape. Or type your words on a computer, and trace the design on transfer paper right onto the wall; then paint (full instructions are at ehow.com). Googling “paint words on walls” yields lots of info. If you’re nervous about creating your own lettering, you can also order word stencils or custom letter stencils online.
What words would you paint?
Related post: rules for living: apologize everyday
05.20.09 |
comments (3) |
in elements, how-to, walls + windows |
Pierre-Jean Verger
For a while now, I’ve been collecting pictures of dream houses. Collectively, they fuel my imagination for the house I hope to have one day. Most aren’t perfect, but either have a feeling I like, or some elements that I’d cut-and-paste into the design of my someday home. They are a way for me to recognize what I’d like even when I haven’t been conscious of it.
A favorite is this one from Marie Claire Maison (via Remodelista): a penthouse of a former pasta factory, overlooking the port of Marseilles. read more…
05.16.09 |
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in cool spaces, dream houses, outside, repurpose |
Ellen Silverman
I use rocks a lot in my kitchen. I haul particularly good ones home when I find them at the beach or in the country knowing that, at the very least, I’ll enjoy looking at them and for sure, at some point, they’ll present an impromptu solution to something I’ve set my mind on. For example, I panfry whole, butterflied chicken and other birds “al mattone”, (Italian for “under a brick,”) using a big white rock I shlepped home from Shelter Island as a weight to keep the bird pressed flat against the pan. read more…
05.16.09 |
comments (5) |
in family + friends, food, recipes, strategies |
Peter Bialobrzeski
What would you do if you had to make a home with whatever you found around you? What would it look like?
You can often find the answer by looking at the constructions of homeless people, who take “live locally” to its root level, repurposing the detritus of their community. Or take a look at the work of artists Oliver Boberg and Peter Bialobrzeski whose photographs of buildings in poor urban neighborhoods of the Southern hemi- sphere illustrate incredible inventiveness and resourefulness.
read more…
05.16.09 |
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in buildings, inspiration, inspiration blogs + sites |
