why not?
Anders Adermark via Flickr*
We read that the decorating of Easter eggs came about in the 13th century, when the church prohibited eating of eggs during Holy Week. They couldn’t stop chickens from laying however.
How to identify those “Holy Week” eggs after the fact? Paint em’!
Soon the eggs, which were already an ancient symbol of new life emerging, became a symbol of the Easter.
It’s not too late to decorate an egg or two. You can do it the usual way by submerging hard-boiled eggs in a bowl of vinegary colored dye. But we’re wondering why not view an egg shell as a blank canvas, and draw or paint right on it? (Be sure to hard boil the eggs first).
Here are some pictures and resources, including read more…
04.01.10 |
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in copy this!, family + friends, inspiration blogs + sites, resources, strategies, wheels, why not? |
I was walking across 125th Street in Harlem the other day and noticed a guy standing outside of a store, wearing really surprising earrings in one ear. “Wow, cool earrings” I said, “Did you make them?”
“Yeah, and they’ve got a story…” He said with a smile. He told me he dreamed them, dreamed of earrings made of mailbox keys, etched with his astrological sign, Aries. So, he took a couple of mailbox keys to a jeweler and had them etched…in silver.
He was really proud of them.
…Original and beautiful, with a backstory I never would have guessed.. read more…
02.24.10 |
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in identity, paths + processes, people, reclaim, sightings, why not? |
Sally Schneider
When my trusty lemon squeezer broke, I toyed with the idea of buying a new one
, but found that design collaborative Platform 21′s Repair Manifesto (blogged last summer) had lodged itself in my consciousness. “REPAIRING IS A CREATIVE CHALLENGE“…and “TO REPAIR IS TO DISCOVER” subtly resonated. There’s a way to fix this, I thought, as I wandered around my apartment looking for a sturdy piece of metal to hinge the two enameled sides together; it would have to withstand the pressure of squeezing a lemon, and not react to acidic lemon juice.
The process was a simple one, really, once I finally focused on it (the broken squeezer sat on the counter for a couple of weeks while I mulled): I’d ask myself “What if I tried THIS? and then I tried the idea out, fiddled, failed a few times: a heavy-duty paper clip couldn’t take the pressure…I had no nut to secure a screw, which I suspected would rust anyway…Wire was reactive and would keep the hinge from moving properly. I found the solution in my office. read more…
02.02.10 |
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in housewares, inspiration blogs + sites, storage, tools, why not? |
stuant63/Flickr/CC
Writing the post about Gever Tulley’s Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) made us wonder about dangerous things adults SHOULD do in order to explore and learn about the world, figure out what’s what and live fully, just like Tulley thinks kids should do. And that made us think about the very notion of DANGER because, once you become an adult, dangers and fears become a really quirky personal thing: What seems dangerous and challenging to one adult might seem like a piece-of-cake to another, way beyond the obvious challenges like sky-diving or climbing Everest. It can seem dangerous to travel to a foreign country, write something, paint something, not wear make-up, live alone, go camping, learn to swim, buy a house, improvise a dish, love…
And that brings us to the idea of REAL danger versus perceived danger, and the IDEAS that stop us from doing something we want to do.
So we’ve come to think that a good thing for an adult to learn is to gently put aside a fear here and there – not try to get rid of it, but do what we fear anyway, or even just take a step toward doing something we fear. And gradually step-by-step we find ourself not being so daunted, or even feeling pretty liberated, or doing something amazing. And, just like kids, in the doing, we learn…
(This is one those one idea-leading-to-another posts that asks more questions than it answers…it is what some folks call “an inquiry”, an idea we’re mulling and exploring. We invite you to comment and add your 2-cents..)
photo via Creative Commons License
Related post: 5(0) Dangerous Things Your Kids (and You) Should Do
01.26.10 |
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in learn, paths + processes, projects + play, why not? |
Maria Robledo
After discovering the unlikely and delicious combination of leftover mousse of foie gras smeared onto potato chips (we were out of toast), I started making mental notes of the delectable combinations you could make with this ordinary ingredient. Good potato chips – cut slightly thick, fried in olive oil, and seasoned with sea salt – are easy to find many supermarkets these days, so I’ve found myself breaking my rather unrealistic assumption that I should make everything myself. I buy them instead.
And then I imagine what they’d be good with, that is, just about anything that goes with fried potatoes, which opens up a vast world of possibilities. Many of these combos would make a perfect hors d’oeuvre to serve with cocktails or champagne, for New Year’s Eve, let’s say…Just fill the cavity of the chip and serve or let people do it themselves.
Here are some of recent potato chip improvisations: read more…
12.30.09 |
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in family + friends, food, recipes, strategies, why not? |
Voting for the Homies Home Design Award nomination has ended and ‘the improvised life’ was officially nominated, thanks to your votes, though it didn’t make the finals. No worries; we did great!
Your steady barrage of votes kept ‘the improvised life’ on Apartment Therapy’s Hot Movers list for a day and a half, right up front. It made many people so curious about ‘the improvised life’ that they came to check us out; many left enthusiastic comments. Our traffic numbers were HIGH, meaning LOTS of people visited, which helps to expand ‘the improvised life’s visibility, and get the message out – essential fuel for a young blog.
Entering ’the improvised life’ into the awards involved no strategy on our part other than to say “Why not see how we’d do?”, and put ourselves out there. And we got back wonderful, and unexpected, rewards.
So a heartfelt THANK YOU for taking the time to vote, and for being in there with us!
12.29.09 |
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in community, identity, share, why not? |
Paula Scher/NY Times
The always illuminating New York Times Magazine Annual Year in Ideas issue is out, and we are guaranteed hours of interesting reading. Here’s a short-list culled from a wealth of subjects. The titles indicate only a fraction of the nuanced information in the article.
My favorite is “Good Enough is the New Great”, an idea I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. “Good enough”can be an antidote for perfectionism that keeps you from finishing something, or from doing what REALLY matters to you, or getting hung up in insisting on “Great” when it’s not really essential. For over-achievers, “good enough” can be a useful philosophy for prioritizing.
(Once you click the link, scroll down to find the article):
Good Enough is the New Great
Bicycle Highways
The Counterfeit Self
Massively Collaborative Mathematics
Gourmet Dirt
The illustration above is a selection of the year’s proprietary inventions: a testament to unfettered imagination…
12.13.09 |
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in inspiration, inspiration blogs + sites, inspiration books + zines, sightings, why not? |
Joel Holland/Lisa Katayama
Urawaza means “secret tricks” or “unmapped short-cuts” in Japanese. These are innovations and solutions to life’s little problems that humble people figure out for themselves, like How to Give Yourself a Steam Facial in the Tub (sit in the tub with an umbrella open over your head)…or How to Soothe an Itchy Mosquito Bite (put a piece of adhesive tape on it). I learned about urawaza from a charming book I stumbled on called Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan
by Lisa Katayama.
It lists loads of urawaza, like How to Tell Which Direction You’re Going In, and How to Restore A Shrunken Sweater to It’s Original Size, along with the reason why it works. But my favorite part of the book is a chapter called “How to Discover Your Own Urawaza”, a step-by-step guide that really describes the process – and mindset – of improvising. Here’s a really condensed version: read more…
12.03.09 |
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in cheap + great, gifts, paths + processes, projects + play, resources books + zines, why not? |
Ellen Silverman
It’s weird how easily taboos can sneak into our thinking: subtle, almost unconscious “don’t do that”s or “that’s not normal” or “not done”, that keep the status quo. They can apply the all sorts of mundane parts of our lives, and especially our living spaces. The standard height of kitchen wall cabinets is 18 inches above the counter which makes the work surface feel oppressive…why not make them higher? Why not make counters deeper than the standard 24 inches so there’s plenty of room to work, even if the carpenter or contractor says “You CAN’T”.
Ask “Why?” and you often get the answer “Because that’s how it’s ALWAYS done”. “But,” you ask, “if it’s the same amount of work to put an outlet in the middle of the wall (where it’s glaring and ugly) as it is to put it close to the counter where it blends in…why not do it the way that looks best, or is best for the way I live my life?” It can take persistence to identify an everyday taboo, and then to break it.
But taboos also apply to how we live, and what we think we can and cannot do. read more…
10.06.09 |
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in bath, bathing, elements, principles, reimagine, why not? |
Sally Schneider
At the end of an impromtu dinner party, my friend Josh served a chocolate cake with herbes-of-Provence salt his wife Ellen had made. To accompany it, he had whipped some extraordinary bio-dynamic cream from a farmer friend, and I popped a spoonful in my mouth, sans cake, to savor it. Perhaps it was the bowl of sea salt in my sight lines, or the conversation we’d had earlier about using an herb salt instead of regular salt in the cake that gave me the idea: I sprinkled a few grains of salt onto another spoonful of the whipped cream. And there, in an instant, was a completely “other” notion of whipped cream; the salt brought out the cream’s sweetness and nuance, without being salty, a perfect counterpoint to the rich cake. It was a revelation, and one that I’d use with future desserts.
Throughout my cooking life, this kind of fortuitous collision of two or three unexpected elements has often occurred often in the kitchen and at table. read more…
09.24.09 |
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in food, recipes, strategies, why not? |
Ellen Silverman
Although I am not a designer, I decided to try designing a table base myself. Using a ruler and pencil, I made a drawing with the totally cockeyed perspective of an outsider artist (since I don’t really know how to draw) with the exact dimensions. Then I faxed it to a guy I’d heard about at Tringali Ironworks in Boonton, New Jersey. He said he could make my base.
The reason I designed my own table is that I couldn’t find a base I liked or could afford to support a beautiful slab of slate I’d inherited. So I figured: “Maybe I can design one; what have I got to lose?” read more…
07.07.09 |
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in elements, furniture, hard, inside, inspiration blogs + sites, materials, plans, solutions, why not? |
It seems like it might be fortuitous to launch a blog on the eve of Independence Day, so I’ve decided to take my own advice and forgo the idea of it being “done”, “ready”, or “perfect”, and just send ‘the improvised life’ out into the world.
Though I’ve been writing posts privately on-and-off for a few months now, it feels like a wonderfully rash and liberating act to make them public, to try the idea out, LEAP! Once I start, I’m committed to posting frequently - all that I find and love about improvising and resourcefulness and creating with whatever is at hand - and following where it leads.
07.03.09 |
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in community, family + friends, why not? |
Sally Schneider
Laziness and exhaustion are the motivations behind many of my culinary improvisations; the desperate need to make something good as quickly as possible causes me flaunt notions I’d previously held sacred. In past cherry seasons, for example, I’d painstakingly pit pounds of cherries to make a warm stew to spill onto vanilla ice cream or crème fraiche for me and my friends. It’s akin to the inside of a cherry pie, and is magic because it is rare: few people seem to remember that fresh cherries are divine cooked quickly in a saucepan with sugar and a squeeze of lemon, and fewer are willing to pit them.
Then the other evening, I arrived late for an impromptu collaborative dinner with friends, bearing fresh cherries for our dessert. read more…
07.03.09 |
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in family + friends, food, recipes, strategies, why not? |
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? |
