(Video link here.) Barr Hogan sent us this compelling video about a man who invented simple, easy-to-make solar light “bulbs” using ordinary materials housed in recycled plastic liter bottles. He has literally brought daylight indoors to poor families in the Philippines whose houses are so close together, they block the sun from entering. Now the My Shelter Foundation and other organizations have started campaigns, hoping to spread this simple d-i-y lighting throughout the world.
We are always inspired seeing ordinary materials transformed into a useful technological wonder – making a powerful force for change – in this case light – out of virtually “nothing”. It reminded us of the amazing William Kamkwamba, who rigged a windmill out of bits-and-pieces to bring electricity to his village in Africa. The survivalist in us loves knowing the recipe for this strange homemade lighting. read more…
We’ve done several posts about Pasti-Dip over the years; it’s a paint-like substance you can dip an object into to give it a sealed, rubbery surface. We’ve seen tools plasti-dipped to make them more grippable, and flea-market cutlery to give it a modernist chic, even bookshelves coated in rubber paint via the great Max Lamb. We hadn’t imagined how useful it could be to dip the bottom third of a basket until we found this picture on 2 or 3 Things I know. It turns out IT came from a how-to posted on marthastewart.com about dipping baskets in paint…We’d just assumed they used PlastiDip, which would give the baskets a pleasing graphic element, seal their cracks and holes from small bits falling out, and fortify the weaving.
As we were writing about Occupy Wall Street and We Are the 99 Percent, Cara de Silva sent us a compelling and very timely story she spotted in the New York Times. “Back to the Land, Reluctantly” by Susan Gregory Thomas, is about how the 42 year-old Brooklyn mother of three, having found herself divorced, flat-broke, with a dwindling livelihood, figured out how to “live off the land” from her urban garden and kitchen. “Luckily, my late father hammered into me that grit was more important than talent…I figured, if peasants in 11th-century Sicily did all this, how hard could it be?”
It was survival, not any particular love of artisan cheese or the notion of self-sufficiency, that motivated her to learn how to raise chickens, grow vegetables and herbs, make her own granola, bread, perfume and cleaning products, harvest edible weeds, and stretch a single piece of cheap meat into a week’s worth of dinners, until she discovered she could and her family could live on $100 a week.
IT is a lot of work. You have to be organized and able to improvise on your feet. But, frankly, it’s awesome. read more…
We’ve written before about how much we love Made By Joel’s, Joel Henrique’s website that features his charming handmade children’s toys. This October 11th will mark the release of Joel’s first book, Made to Play!: Handmade Toys and Crafts for Growing Imaginations.The book compiles a number of great toy-making and craft projects for children and their parents. Categorized by fun themes (The Zoo! Cars and trucks! Music and art! Dress-up!), most of the projects use ordinary crafting materials, like paper, fabric, tape and glue to make versatile and simple toys that kids can be proud they had a hand in making. Many of Joel’s creations are appealing to grownups as well. read more…
Dutch Interior magazine VT Wonen recently commissioned stylist Frans Uyterlinden to create interesting ‘show house’ using an eclectic mix of materials. (Check out a preview at VosgesParis). Our favorite bit: a bench/sideboard made by lashing together recycled boards. We see big possibilities in this idea… read more…
We were poking around food editor and writer Jane Lear‘s website, when we came across a trove of great articles, including one of her pieces for Gourmet Magazine, where she was its Senior Articles Editor for many years. Called Transformers, the premise is that with 3 eggs and two lemons on hand, you can make 5 terrific desserts. Right up our alley. The recipe that caught our eye was a Dutch Baby with Lemon Sugar, basically a giant popover with pancake overtones cooked in an iron skillet, onto which you sprinkle lemon sugar for a bit of crackle at the last minute. It’s GREAT, easy and made with ordinary ingredients, our favorite combo. (On our second try, we monkeyed with the recipe slightly; see the Note below).
As we were gobbling it, we thought: Couldn’t this also be great savory instead of sweet? We imagined it baked with grated Parmigiano Reggiano, to make something akin to a giant gougere, an eggy, crispy cheese puff usually made in bite-size portions. We we tried our idea out then-and-there. read more…
When You Have Been Here Sometime recently posted some images from Architectural Digest, New York Interiors, 1979, we were struck by this one. Although lamps and pouf and carpet are all pretty dated and rigid, a great idea remains: covering a homely piece of furniture with beautiful fabric. Who knows what’s under the ochre yellow panel? It could be two horizontal file cabinets placed end to end for all we know. Layering fabrics adds substance and a mix of textures and colors. The fabric covers don’t HAVE to be hemmed: intentionally ripped linen can be beautiful… read more…
Our post on artist Holton Rower‘s gorgeous d-i-y leather cabinet pulls has been one of our most popular in recent months, and continues to make its way around the internet. But until yesterday, we hadn’t seen someone take the idea and make it their own. Rikkianne Van Kirk’s post on Re-Nest gives a step-by-step of the drawer pulls she made for an old desk, using an old leather belt that she cut into strips…the perfect material: strong, good-looking and recycled…
Harriet Bell alerted us to this beautiful candy wrapper chair and the story of how she found it…one thing leading to another in the course of a few minutes:
Our friend Peter Davis just returned from San Miguel de Allende; knowing that I love handbags made from Mexican candy wrappers, he brought me three! One candy wrapper in the bags looked weird, so we started poking around the web to identify it. And we found this amazing candy wrapper chair.Thought you’d get an improvised kick out of it.
The gorgeous chair designed by Mexican designer Emiliano Godoy takes a very old and simple idea – weaving candy wrappers (which we remember doing as kids) into a strong “textile”, and EXPANDS it, literally. The large size squares and monochrome palette gives it a definite chic. We found a step-by-step how-to here, and a video (below). We’re imagining scaling up the method to larger sheets of whatever cool paper-like material we find (magazines, high-end paper shopping bags…?…It might even be done with leather or some of the out-there synthetic materials you can find at fabric and art stores these days. You can drap and stitch it…Think of the possibilities for using this strong geometric weaving as furniture covering (of an ordinary wooden Ikea chair, perhaps), rug, tablecloth, satchel, room screen!!!!???
We were researching the idea of making cardboard prototypes of ideas we have for furniture when we stumbled upon a series of designs, with pictures of folded cardboard furniture at DesignBoom. They are easily copy-able and stimulate thinking of cardboard furniture possibilities. Our favorite is this lovely “folding chair”/stool/side table designed by Carine Imhof:
“Kui-Kui is a folding chair made out of a single piece of carboard…and a stick of wood serves the purpose of holding the stool together. By folding the flat cardboard as seen in the following pictures, you obtain the necessary rigidity to make a square-stool…The square form is given from the folding processes. This stool is light, easy to build, and can be made in different colors.”
We’re thinking a chopstick might work become the “stick of wood” that secures the folded cardboard…
Practically every wine-loving American I meet – even those who say they don’t know much about wine – is sure of one universal “truth” that couldn’t be farther from it: Red wine should be served “room temperature.” What does that mean? And who said so?
Poking around in old British wine books from the Victorian era, I can only imagine that our wine-loving forefathers, taking every viticultural word from Europe as Gospel, embraced the idea of “room temperature” from men wearing wigs and capes in freezing-cold London. Before modern heating, few homes reached today’s “average” room temp of 72°, except during summer months. Especially in London.
But ask any sommelier worth his or her spittoon what the proper serving temperature is for red wines, and they’ll tell you between 55° and 65°. Where’s the disconnect? It seems to be a translation error: somewhere along the line, “cellar temperature” morphed into “room temperature.” Proper wine storage is around 55° -“cellar temperature” – which also happens to be a great temperature to serve light-bodied reds, like Pinot Noir, Gamay/Beaujolais and Cotes-du-Rhone. The maximum serving temperature for the most full-bodied reds is 65’, well below modern-day room temperature. All red wines of all body weights taste best when served in between those two numbers.
What does all this mean? You can, and should, chill your wines read more…
Our friend Anthony Giglio is a journalist, sommelier, and the author of many acclaimed books on wine and cocktails, including the Food & Wine Magazine’s Wine Guide 2011. He travels around the country leading wine tastings and helping people navigate the vast world of wine, cocktails, and “what goes with what”. He does all of this with a sense of humor that borders on irreverent, often shocking connoisseurs with his candor. A great cook, he is also one of the best dinner party hosts we know – invitations to his parties are coveted! – largely due to his ability to put himself in his guest’s shoes and think of ways to delight them from the moment they walk in the door. (He taught us Mama Lucia’s Insalata di Pomodoro, THE best approach to real summer tomatoes, which he’s dishing out in the photo above.)
We’ve been so impressed by his smart, simple strategies for entertaining that we’ve asked him to guest blog for ‘the improvised life’, starting with read more…
After the Japanese Earthquake in March, the nonprofit Bezos Family Foundation invited children to mail origami cranes to the Seattle headquarters of its Students Rebuild program. Each would trigger a $2 donation, up to $200,000. The group received more than 2 million and doubled the donation.
Last July, a truck full of the origami cranes was delivered to the Brooklyn studio of Brazilian artist Vic Muniz. The trove contained cranes from 38 countries, made out of all manner of foldable materials: hall passes, math homework, love letters, saran wrap, candy wrappers, restaurant menus, aluminum foil, vocabulary lessons, Kleenex. The smallest was the size of a thumbnail.
Muniz created a giant 36 x 40 foot mosaic out of them for a fund-raising poster. Said Muniz:
It’s alchemic. The idea worked because everyone wanted to help.
…bits of folded paper became symbols, that raised money, that help people in need, and became an artwork that raised money that….
We totally love this collection by of elements and connectors for making whatever you want, designed by Louise Cohen. It is like a perfect fusion of built-it-yourself Lego/Tinkertoy/K’nex/ErectorSet-esque material for adults.
The CREATE YOUR OWN Collection is a building system consisting of 18 galvanized elements and 5 kind of connectors. According to individual desires unique living accessories can be composed.
Constructions for all kind of purposes can stand, lay or ride, hang from wall or ceiling. read more…
(Video link here.) We recently came across this great talk by Joshua Foer that explores the success of “experts.” The video is 17 minutes, which we know is long, so we’ve culled the gist for you, hoping you’ll listen at some point; we think it’s truly useful and super interesting.
According to Foer and the scientists he draws from, becoming an expert has a whole lot more to do with psychology than innate ability. We generally push ourselves to achieve at a given skill only up to the point at which we can get the job done. Foer uses the example of typing—most of us type for at least an hour a day, yet we don’t get measurably faster…we settle into a speed we think is good enough. We hit an “OK plateau.”
Psychologists who study skill acquisition have found that experts across a wide variety of fields know that you can’t improve at something as long as you’re stuck on the OK plateau, and routinely use the four strategies below to ensure that their minds continue to climb uphill, so to speak. Even if you’re not striving to become an “expert” in your field, we think these strategies are helpful for anyone trying to pick up a new skill or practice, or get better at an old one. Here they are: read more…
that comes with 5 tinting colors to play around with.
, is about how the 42 year-old Brooklyn mother of three, having found herself divorced, flat-broke, with a dwindling livelihood, figured out how to “live off the land” from her urban garden and kitchen. “Luckily, my late father hammered into me that grit was more important than talent…I figured, if peasants in 11th-century Sicily did all this, how hard could it be?”
.The book compiles a number of great toy-making and craft projects for children and their parents. Categorized by fun themes (The Zoo! Cars and trucks! Music and art! Dress-up!), most of the projects use ordinary crafting materials, like paper, fabric, tape and glue to make versatile and simple toys that kids can be proud they had a hand in making. Many of Joel’s creations are appealing to grownups as well. 
. He travels around the country leading wine tastings and helping people navigate the vast world of wine, cocktails, and “what goes with what”. He does all of this with a sense of humor that borders on irreverent, often shocking connoisseurs with his candor. A great cook, he is also one of the best dinner party hosts we know – invitations to his parties are coveted! – largely due to his ability to put himself in his guest’s shoes and think of ways to delight them from the moment they walk in the door. (He taught us 
