d-i-y
handlernyc.com
One of the images Laura Handler sent us of her Montana Log Cabin was her “shrine”, with these notes:
A Mexican Day of the Dead smoking shrine found in Oaxaca Mexico – note the cigarettes on top.
I have not smoked for eleven years – it’s working!
We know quite a few people who have created personal shrines over the years: arrangements of privately meaningful and sacred objects, quotes, images that remind, give power, hold an intention or a wish…
..like this one of a friend; it changes every once-in-a-while: the placement of elements shift, new pieces are added in. Anything can be a shrine: the configuration and meaning in the eyes – and heart – of the maker. read more…
07.18.12 |
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in d-i-y, elements, hard, how-to, inside, materials, outside, projects + play, resources, sightings |
photo: sally schneider
The soap dish is one of those inventions that seem destined to NOT fulfill all the requirements we need them too. Designed to keep bar soap from sitting in water, the wet residue from the soap has to end up somewhere, either on the sink/tub surface or in the bottom of the soap dish, requiring cleaning later.
When we moved into our new space recently, finding a well-designed soap dish was not high on our list of endless more-essential things to accomplish. Without thinking, we improvised one: a simple dry sponge we’d had on hand. It absorbed the watery residue from the bar of soap with no mess, and because it barely got wet, there was no issue of mildewing. To clean it, we just wet the sponge and rinse it out. It seems we’d inadvertently found the perfect soap dish.
H-m-m-m. What if we got a nice looking sponge, like a white one ? (Is there such a thing as a white sponge)? We discovered Twist Naked Sponge on Amazon
. read more…
07.17.12 |
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in bath, bathing, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, housewares, inside, materials, resources, solutions |
photo: maria robledo
In summer, we sometimes find ourselves spending time in the badly-equipped kitchens of rented or borrowed summer houses that can be a great challenge to cook in. So we apply the concept of makeshift: When you find you don’t have a particular piece of equipment you need, improvise a substitute or “shift” the dish you are making to accommodate it.
When it comes to equipment, makeshift is an antidote to the inhibiting, very modern reliance on matching sets of pots and stylishly outfitted kitchens. It cuts to the heart of the matter: rather than letting a piece of equipment stand in the way, you come up with a makeshift solution, as resourceful people have for eons, so you can still make the delicious dish you were planning. Use a label-less wine bottle to roll out pastry dough, a coffee cup for a ladle and get by just fine with one good sharp knife (we often travel with a folding Opinel picnic knife). We heard of a woman who pulled out her ironing board when she needed more counter space.
We’ve come up with an array of makeshift solutions over the years. The example below (with a couple of recipe) will give you a sense of possibility for devising your own makeshift equipment when you need it. There’s only one rule: whatever works. read more…
07.13.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, family + friends, housewares, how-to, kitchen, recipes, resources, strategies |
photo: sally schneider
Since we started showing friends around our new space, several remarked on our shower hook solution. While our plan originally was to install hooks to hang towels on the bathroom door as we had in our last space, in reality, we couldn’t bear to hang anything on the beautiful 8-foot high-gloss-painted wood door. So where could we hang our towels to dry? Towel bars weren’t an option a) because we find that they take up a lot of space and don’t still dry towels properly and b) we didn’t want to take up so much space in our wonderfully minimalist bathroom. We’d worked hard to make it’s limited space LOOK spacious, and towels-on-walls would just close it in.
Our solution, at first makeshift, now permanent: we hung pot-rack hooks over our shower bar to hang towels on. read more…
07.10.12 |
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in bathing, cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, elements, hard, inside, resources, solutions |
photo: sally schneider
The other day, we got a snail mail note from a friend. While snail mail is inself a rare gift these days, there was an added surprise. When we opened the envelope, a cascade of pressed flowers fell out. In addition to bringing a charming blast of ‘garden’ into the apartment, the flowers were like little symbols of care and regard; our friend had taken the time to press the flowers and thoughtfully include them in her note.
We loved it. Pressing flowers (and leaves) is easy: you pick them, dry them, press them sandwiched between clean sheets of paper in a thick heavy book. Time does the rest. (There’s a great visual how-to here.)
But really, this is about the possibilities for enclosing surprises in a note or letter, that give it a totally “other” dimension. read more…
07.09.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, gifts, how-to, materials, nature, resources, strategies |
photo: dese'rae l. stage
We recently discovered Instagram, one of the hottest photo sharing/social media apps for iPhone and Android. It’s a GREAT way to maintain a visual journal/daily diary on-the-go for the sporadic or time-restrained journaler or, alternately, the more visually-oriented person who wants to document their day-to-day. It’s quick and easy: you snap a picture with your phone and apply filters at will for a retro film “feel”. If you like, include a caption or the location where the image was captured, and share it across various social media platforms. You can also choose to maintain a public or a private feed, and follow your friends’ Instagram feeds. Or just keep the images as a personal journal on your phone or computer.
What we like the best about Instagram is that it’s a great hand-held improvisational tool for creatively exploring the world around you. read more…
07.09.12 |
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in art, d-i-y, projects + play, resources, resources blogs + sites, share |
store.kaufmann-mercantile.com
As is our nature, we started to deconstruct this strangely beautiful fly swatter, thinking it could easily be made with a piece of hardwood and a bit of leather. Then we thought: why bother? It only costs $12.80 + $5 shipping at Kaufman Mercantile.
We figure it would make a great, slightly odd, original and much-appreciated house gift for summer weekends. After all, most fly swatters are ugly and made of funky plastic. This one allows for chicly WHAMMING the occasional fly or mosquito, while being nice to look at during its off hours.
Kaufman Mercantile has some swell pricier items that provide inspiration and self-evident-how-tos for making them yourself: read more…
06.29.12 |
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in cheap + great, d-i-y, elements, gifts |
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Maria Robledo sent us a link to Under the Sun, Roy Arden’s brilliant visual blog, which we are fans of but hadn’t looked at in some time; there’s ALWAYS something compelling there. This time, we found a picture of women wearing wondrous head dresses made of wrapped fabric. ‘We need to be able to do that’ we thought, and looked up how to make fab hats with a piece of fabric. Here are two short, curiously charming how-to’s to set you on the path (with the women, above, as further inspiration for improvising…a LONG swath of striped fabric folded lengthwise and warpped overlappingly). read more…
06.28.12 |
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in apparel, copy this!, d-i-y, how-to, materials, resources, video |
soupstudiodesign.com
Cynthia Caldwell sent us a link to this Post-It table she spotted at Design Taxi with this note: “Love this idea-post it size desk pad. Couldn’t find where you can actually buy one but I think I need it NOW for my son Russell.”
It appears the table is one of those tantelizing design one-offs that would cost a fortune to buy. We’ve seen a number of iterations of the idea over the past few years. For us, it has the essential design flaw of regular-size Post-It notes: that awful yellow color.
So of course, we set about figuring out how to MAKE our own custom post-it table, with paper we like. Here are two approaches: read more…
06.28.12 |
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in copy this!, d-i-y, furniture, how-to, inside, materials, resources, working |
photo: adam mørk
After we posted about clear white board paint, which would allow you to write/and erase any wood or painted surface, Diary of a Tomato alerted us to the very cool alt-whiteboards spotted at Noma Foodlab, an ambitious restaurant and food “experimentarium” in Copenhagen. In the huge high-design loft space, big slabs of glass are afixed to the walls to display notes and lists.
Just to make sure you really could write on glass and then erase it, we tried marking the bottom of a jelly glass with a Sharpie… read more…
06.25.12 |
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in cheap + great, copy this!, d-i-y, hard, how-to, inside, materials, repurpose, resources |
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photo: northfielder via flickr
Having no hidden rooms in our apartments, we have written a number of posts mulling ways to make an “instant”, impermanent guest room in our space. They are usually along the lines of something a kid would make, since secretly, we love the feeling of forts, teepees, treehouses. We are always on the lookout for materials with which we might quickly rig such a private space in our big open room, to enclose a guest bed, be a meditation room, a hideout.
So we were smitten when we read about Fort Magic
, a kit full of PVC pipes and connecters and clips with which you can make Tinkertoy-like structures to attach sheets or fabrics. Designed for kids but it see,s perfectly suits our adult fantasies. read more…
06.22.12 |
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in copy this!, d-i-y, dream houses, gifts, kids, materials, outside, projects + play, resources, rooms, strategies, tools |
Some time ago we wrote about IdeaPaint, special paint that can turn any surface into a dry erase “white board”. You can write all your brilliant ideas on it with markers, then wipe them off when you don’t need them anymore. Now the IdeaPaint people have come out with a great variation on the theme: CLEAR IdeaPaint
, that can be painted on virtually any painted wall or wood surface. Paint it on your exotically colored wall, or a plywood wall or door. It ain’t cheap—about $225 covers 50 feet.
But as we settle into our new space and laboratory, we’re constantly thinking about the possibility in writing our many ideas on walls…and then erasing. We’re reminded of the folks at IDEO, read more…
06.21.12 |
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in d-i-y, elements, materials, reimagine, walls + windows, why not? |
Time’s almost up for our current book giveaway! Tonight at midnight, we’ll be picking a commenter at random to receive a signed, first edition copy of Sally’s A New Way to Cook
. Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been posting seasonal recipes from the book, like Strawberries in Beaujolais Sauce, Classic Coleslaw, and three simple summer fruit desserts. But there’s more to be found buried away on ‘the improvised life’, over at The Splendid Table, and at Sally’s personal website. Below you’ll find a round-up of recipes to be had for free (just a fraction in the books 750+ pages.) Remember, all you need to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment! Good luck! Here now, our recipe extravaganza: read more…
06.19.12 |
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in community, d-i-y, eating, entertaining, family + friends, food, recipes, resources books + zines |
