We find this teeny video of artist Shinichi Maruyama hurling water to make his evanescent sculptures strangely refreshing. We imagine ourselves doing it,too, in slow motion to catch the moment…
via Kottke
December 2010
best thrift stores and flea markets of 2010
Over the years, we’ve gotten A LOT of stuff second-hand, from thrift stores, flea-markets, Ebay. It’s a way to get great things MUCH cheaper than retail. (Our most recent purchase: a tag-still-on, in-warranty Eames Soft-Pad Management Chair, for a fraction of what it would cost new.) We appreciate Apartment Therapy’s national survey of Best Thrift Stores and Flea Markets of 2010. (It’s also a great last-minute resource for gifts.) A new one for us: Etsy, which has become one of the largest online retailers of vintage goods, with hundreds of thousands of sellers. Select “Vintage” from Categories and hone in on treasures from there, like this Bertoia side chair.
We love this folding circa 1960 camp stool for $26. read more…
tuscan herb salt, p-butter cups and other homemade food gifts
Maria Robledo
If you are in a last minute quandary about unusual and much appreciated gifts,visit public radio’s The Splendid Table where Sally talks with Lynne Rosetto Kasper about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts. All are easy-to-make and pack a big bang-for-the buck. Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato – olive oil pressed with lemons – from Italy. Tuscan Herb Salt can be endlessly improvised upon, and with; it’s an instant seasoning for meats, poultry, vegetables, eggs, even popcorn and Bloody Marys. (And you can use it to season a crown roast of pork or even the Christmas goose.) Homemade Peanut Butter “Cups” are sublime rethinking of the known (and a perfect dessert).
Check out the Splendid Table’s website for recipes. You can listen here.
And here’s a trove a other Homemade Food Gift strategies from past posts:
homemade food gift: alt-malted milk balls
food gifts: homemade chocolates for improvising (recipe)
our homemade food gifts on ‘the splendid table’ (’09)
d-i-y food gift: prunes in armagnac (recipe)
a d-i-y holiday e-card + the story behind it
Stuart Williams
Our neighbor Stuart Williams, who lives down the hall from us, sent us a holiday e-card that he designed : a great example of swell d-i-y greetings makable with design, drawing, or photo software. Use photos or graphics to design your PDF and SEND IT OUT via email, to say HELLO to lots of folks easily.
Stuart’s card also reminded us about the connectivity of ideas that happens in an apartment building or a neighborhood, when folks start talking to each other and asking “What are you up to these days?” On elevator rides in our building, we’ve gotten make-up lessons from a professional make-up artist, and learned about the Secrets of Paris Department Stores. We became friends with Couturier de Cardboard Matthew Sporzynski, and the recipient of his stealth gift-giving.
Stopping to chat one day, we discovered that our neighbor Stuart is a site-specific, environmental artist. He created the Luminous Earth Grid, a vast array of 1,680 fluorescent lamps, which swept over the undulating landscape north of San Francisco (in an expanse equal to eight football fields), like an immense electrified quilt: read more…
paint your (gift) boxes!
Maria Robledo
Maria Robledo sent us this email of a swell gift wrapping idea her family came up with: “Covering over commercial labels on gift boxes w a little paint and saving on wrapping paper!”
Just paint those boxes with a little acrylic paint. Gorgeous!
…great for all sorts of boxes…
Thanks Maria!
Related post: ps: how to transform a cardboard box
give your gift in a fab (recycled) box
greece for $31
William Abranowicz
Photographer William Abranowitc has been in love with Greece for as long as we can remember, constantly making time to go there to do his personal work amidst amidst his busy schedule as a lifestyle/landscape/still-life photographer. Hellas, his second book of photographs of Greece has just been published: 160 pages in full color. Most of the images are NOT what you would expect or normally see, ALL definitely give you a feeling of being swept away. For the land-locked-in cold climates, it’s the perfect gift.
lunar eclipse coming up (a cosmic triple whammy)
Ken Miller
In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, December 21st on the East Coast (late Monday evening of the 20th on the West Coast) there will be a total lunar eclipse. The Earth will line up exactly between the Sun and Moon, blocking the sun’s rays from striking the moon and causing an eclipse; there’ll be an amber shadow over the moon. In addition, the beautiful Ursid meteor showers will be happening, so you might just see a shooting star or two.
According to NASA, the Western Hemisphere should promise great viewing of this cosmic event. It will start at about 1:33 a.m. Eastern time (10:33 p.m. Pacific time on the 20th), with the eclipse becoming total around 2:40 (11:40 pst) and lasting until about 4 a.m. NASA estimates the moon will be totally amber at about 3:17. If the night is clear, all you have to do is LOOK, with or without binoculars.
Even more amazing is that for the first time in centuries, the eclipse will occur on the night of the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year, celebrated by many cultures as a time of rebirth, when the darkest day is behind us. It’s widely believed that prehistoric Stonehenge is aligned on a sight-line that points to the winter solstice sunset… read more…
art wrapping paper for gifts
Joel Henriques
We are big fans of d-i-y gift wrapping made of found, free, repurposed or cheap materials. Why spend the money on bought wrap when there’s so much good stuff just lying around. We really like Joel Henriques’ idea (of the ever-inspiring blog Made by Joel): use torn out pages from old art magazines…
or design magazines…
or foreign language newspapers newspapers…
…or kid’s drawings…
His paper-cutouts-as-ribbons are swell, too! read more…
homemade food gifts on ‘the splendid table’
Sally Schneider
This weekend, Sally’ will be talking about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts on public radio’s The Splendid Table. Learn how to make a Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato – olive oil pressed with lemons – from Italy. Her Tuscan Herb Salt can be endlessly improvised upon, and with; it’s an instant seasoning for meats, poultry, vegetables, eggs, even popcorn and Bloody Mary’s. Check out the Splendid Table’s website for recipes. You can listen here.
Related posts: homemade food gift: alt-malted milk balls
food gifts: homemade chocolates for improvising (recipe)
our homemade food gifts on ‘the splendid table’ (’09)
d-i-y food gift: prunes in armagnac (recipe)
pates’ tapes: hours of terrific music – free
William Abranowicz sent us an email this morning that contained a big gift: a link to Pates’ Tapes, hours of cool mixed tapes to listen to free online. They are the masterwork of Charles Pates, the Creative Director at Garnet Hill who, since 1977, has been creating mixes from his remarkable collection of vinyl records. Over the years they’ve gone from old-fashioned cassette to online music player, with an increasingly large following. It’s not easy to create a good mixed tape; it takes lots of thought and consideration and time…and a kind of improvisational mindset. Pates’ Tapes is a labor of love.
You can choose a tape to suit your mood or what ever’s going on, from Global Mixes, to Blues, to the best collection of Christmas Music we’ve heard.
All you have to do is choose the category, and hit PLAY!
Addendum: Charles Pate wrote us today to say: “Stand by for 10 more tapes per category, and some other bells and whistles coming out in January…not the least of which is goodbye Christmas tapes, hello my Classical pile.”
Hurray!!!!
via A + B See….THANKS BILL!
why not modernist gingerbread houses?
If we were going to make a gingerbread house, we’d forego the Victorian thing and go modernist, living out our architectural fantasies. We typed “modernist gingerbread houses” into Google Images and found a trove. Our favorite is Kristina Hahn’s wondrous creation, The Cake Study House. The list of Special Features evoke stunning possibilities:
banana succulents
almond cacti
hazelnut flowers
chili pepper palmtree
almond grass
pepper ferns
tea candle fireplace
seed-grassy backyard read more…
out of work?: retrofit your business card!
The past couple of years, quite a few people we know lost their jobs and were faced, suddenly, with a big life change. Most discovered that losing their job actually brought all sorts of good things into their life, even as it meant financial uncertainty. They started doing the things they loved and hadn’t had the time or focus to do, taking more risks, putting themselves “out there” in new ways. This transitional path is not an easy one though, and it helps to connect with other people in similar circumstances, and find ways to affirm the positive.
Cards of Change is designed to do just that. It’s a website that posts the annotated and retrofitted business cards of creative people who have been laid off.
Our mission is to collect as many business cards and stories of positive change of people who have recently been laid off and connect them with new opportunities from potential employers, business partners and people who make the effort to look on the bright side of life.
…Cards of Change is a place where the glass is always half-full. A destination where all the bad news of the day takes a back seat to stories of individual success.
The cards are quite amazing, like therapeutic little artworks.
Cards of Change is the brainchild of Tom Van Daele, a former creative director at advertising agency TBWA/Chiat/Day who, having been laid off, started his own studio, Unknownlab.
According to Ernest Beck at Design Observer, the idea for the website originated with read more…
holiday gifts: cheap + fun/useful/cool…
Even though we mostly give charity donations as our holiday gifts, we DO like giving a few more tangible gifts as well, ones that are not too pricey and give a big bang for the buck. So we’ve compiled our eclectic list of favorite things to give…and get.
In addition, on Friday we’ll be talking about some Homemade Food Gifts on public radio’s The Splendid Table (for last year’s food gifts, see the links below). And if you were to type “GIFTS” or “KIDS” into ‘the improvised life”s Search box, you’d find lots of gift possibilities we’ve written about over the past year and a half, from books to leather-welding-gloves-as-oven-mitts (not to mention my brilliant sister’s oddly brilliant gift ideas).
One of the most appreciated gifts we’ve given lately are these French paring knives with colorful painted handles, made by the venerable knife company L’Econome. They are inexpensive as paring knives go – about $10 each – and do what any good paring knife should: feel good in the hand, sharpen easily and stay sharp, look good, even as they age and weather. EVERYBODY needs a good paring knife. A green handled one is now the favorite knife of my friend Maria, who LOVES green. (We buy them in different colors to keep in our “gift” drawer, just in case.) read more…
a 4-minute video vacation with ‘the emeralds’
The holidays, winter and too much work are making our head spin; why don’t we take a little break?…
Music = Candy Shoppe via The Emeralds from the album Does It Look Like I’m Here
Video = an anonymous edit of Dziga Vertov’s Man With Movie Camera (1929)
via BoingBoing
no, THIS! is the best d-i-y christmas tree
Victoria Roberts/The New Yorker
In our imaginary Best D-I-Y Christmas Tree Contest, this one wins hands-down.
