February 2012 - Page 3 of 3

pink’s existential dilemma

We were completely smitten with this wondrous PINK staircase, wondering how we’d feel if we had it to walk down/up everyday, when we came across a video by Minute Physics explaining why pink doesn’t really exist.

design your own textiles

We love the way the internet can increase people’s ability to design and fabricate things that have traditionally been the realm of professional designers and manufacturers. Our newest favorite online resource/service is digital fabric printing. Over the past three or four years, a number of online textile printers have popped up, including Spoonflower, Karma Kraft, and…

are you a ‘garage’ inventor?

Studio 360 recently aired a story about garage inventors; people who are innovating, pushing the boundaries of science, and creating without government funding or hi-tech labs. Garage inventors tend to be really smart and really tenacious; sometimes they come up with incredibly useful-to-the-world inventions, like William Kamkwamba who created electricity-generating windmills out of scrap parts in…

‘always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane’

(Video link here.) The great Waylon Jennings singing “I’ve Always Been Crazy.” I’ve always been different with one foot over the line Winding up somewhere one step ahead or behind It ain’t been so easy but I guess I shouldn’t complain I’ve always been crazy but it’s kept me from going insane His words describe…

a white-washed house goes from ordinary to modern

Never have we seen such a complete transformation of a house as that masterminded by Japanese architecture firm kurosawa kawaraten with just… paint – a paint job taken to the nnnth-degree. According to Design Boom: “…none of the exterior or interior structure is changed, only a thin coat of white paint is applied to the surface. Only…

reader’s finds + a great, simple approach to learning

(Video link here.) The results of our “what are you reading?” post have been incredibly illuminating. Thank you so much for sharing the many great paths for us to follow from Stinky and other Toon books for kid’s, to Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace to a pile of fiction and blogs. We…

the ikea ‘frosta stool’ saga (tell us what you think!)

Ever since we wrote about the discontinuation in America of Ikea’s great Alvar-Aalto-esque Frosta stool, – it is widely available in Europe – we have been involved in a curious correspondence with Ikea’s Customer Service Department; it has been a bit “like pulling teeth” (though much more pleasant) to get the information we are looking…

d-i-y color-block decorated storage cabinets

There’s a lot we love about this whimsically d-i-y decorated storage cabinet: The torquoise and yellow legs…

tom sachs on transparent design -> making and fixing

We’ve written before about Tom Sachs, an artist whose philosophy of making we really love. Sachs’ work, like the chair seen above, shows its seams, and doesn’t conform to the idea that a piece of art – or anything – is ever “finished.” We recently came across this quote from Sachs; his attitude about transparency…

favorite escapist blog: cabin porn

Many of the blogs we read have direct practical applications to our lives; they give us ideas we can use in our home, office, traveling, relationships, work, self-image… One category of blog is really for pure escapism; they offer us a break from our usual routine and vision. Of late, our favorite is Cabin Porn,…

sighting (india): ironing board computer table

Our intrepid friend Peggy Markel just arrived in India to prepare to lead one of her amazing culinary adventures, Tasting Royal Rajasthan. She sent us this amazing picture of an ironing board computer table and the story behind it: “We’re staying with a new friend, Rajiv Jani, friend of a friend. It is his rig,…

rough, hand-painted stripes on walls

Spotted in a long post on Desire to Inspire showing work of interiors photographer Paul Raeside: walls with roughly painted stripes. Right up our alley: graphical, imperfect, charming, do-able…though perhaps not as easy as it looks (we’d practice first on some scraps sheets of plywood or walls we plan to paint over, or even heavy…

artful body painting with mud and a bottle

We found this startling image on Roy Arden’s blog…as usual, no provenance. Oh, but the beauty you can create with some mud and a (Coke) bottle…like this curiously chic, modernist pattern stenciled right on. (We love the idea of our bodies as a canvas). Related posts: body as artist’s canvas “why doesn’t everybody paint their…

help kickstart ‘jam in the van”s new venture

(Video link here.) When we’re introduced to a venture, our first impulse is always to ask: what’s the story behind it? What were the seeds of the idea that grew into a fully realized project? It’s the stories that win us over, which is why we’re are so taken with Jam in the Van. Based in…

the wirecutter’s trustworthy technology reviews

We find ourselves spending a lot of time sifting through product review websites as we try to make smart purchases. This can be a tedious process, and often we end up more unsure of what we’re looking for than when we started. That’s why we were really excited to discover The Wirecutter ,”a list of only…

what are you reading that inspires?

Lately we’ve been wanting to expand our fields of vision a bit. We’re always on the lookout for new inspiration for the blog, but also just for shaking up our own thoughts and routines. After asking a couple of friends for some book and blog recommendations, we realized that we have the greatest resource in…

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