A message came in from a reader today that knocked us out. It was forwarded from our friend and frequent contributor Susan Dworski:
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Surprising Painted Patterns on Floors, Walls, Ceilings
Why buy rugs to roll out on your floors, when you can paint them? Why collect art when you can decorate walls, floors and ceiling, with found materials? I’m smitten by these two wildly different, improvisational ways that artists have used paint to mimic and displace art in such disparate places as a house on the…
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Wake Up: Weave Wonder Out of Failure
Recently, it feels like no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to erase the ominous “f” word, spelled out across my interior blackboard in capital letters: F A I L U R E. My insomniac “fail” rumination was interrupted at dawn when a photograph flew over my e-transom, jolting me out of my…
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Solar Lanterns Become Wondrous Bubbles
“Sensual wave“, an art installation by French architects Marion Moustey and Alexandre Arcens, gave us ideas for late summer-fall gardens lit with Soji Solar Lantern. Susan Dworski first posted about the wondrous, inexpensive solar shoji lights she festooned her garden with. “Sensual Wave” takes her idea a step further.
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Ikea’s Knockout Video on the Power of a Book
(Video link here.) Ikea’s creative team is rivaling Apple’s…AND using Apple’s classic myth-making approach to its latest technology to describe the…power…of…a…BOOK. This brilliant ad for IKea’s 2015 catalogue lays out just why REAL books are so wonderful. With thanks to Susan Dworski for making sure we watched a video we’d ignored!
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Reorganization as Soul Cleanse
A 48-hour disappearance into the depths of my studio was finally interrupted late yesterday by a well-meaning friend. He peered in to find me on hands and knees wiping out the lowest shelves with damp paper towels. “Jeez. Still at it?” I swiveled and growled like a rabid dog, sweat pouring down, hair plastered, eyes raccooned…
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The Tree with Ladders: Tree Climbing for Adults
Wishing we could climb the ancient trees across the way, we wonder, WHY NOT put a ladder up to one to give our creaky selves a boost up. Then we saw The Tree with Ladders, an installation by François Méchain.
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Time to Take a Break…We’ll Be Back in September
If we had to sum up the past few months with a single image, it would be this one. We’ve been roping a wild horse — life — and trying our best to go with it as we launched our Friends with Benefits subscription service and Improvised Life’s Store, saw a dear friend through a major health…
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Lanyards are for Summer…DIY in Plastic, String or Leather
Susan Dworski’s post about her granddaughter’s lanyard reminded us of our own lanyard-making pleasures in summers long ago. Somehow we’d learned a number of patterns from braids to boxes and make all sorts of useful things out of them. But what we remember especially, is the dreamy hours spent making them. That, of course, got…
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Life Lesson from a Simple Kid’s Lanyard
Recently, I discovered a forgotten neon pink plastic lanyard at the bottom of a basket of cat toys. Made at summer camp two years ago, it was a gift from a small person, presented with a shy smile “I made it, just for you.”
When I read this poem by poet Billy Collins, I suddenly felt saddened that I had been so cavalier in discounting its importance. Finding it again felt huge––like a redemption.
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Ornithology Wall Mural: Proseck’s Practice of Seeing
(Video link HERE.) There is something enchantingly low-tech and intimate about artist James Proseck‘s painstaking process of making this wonderful, public wall mural: painting bird silhouettes a la Field Guide series of nature books. His technique is very interesting and could easily be applied to the walls of any interior or exterior space – bedroom, dining…
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Intuitive Method for Organizing Stuff
(Video link HERE.) I LOVE this video! Filmmaker/designer Casey Neistat describes his great Intuitive Categorization Method for organizing his tools and little stuff. I’m loving it especially because it showed up right on time, in time, this morning.
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DIY or Buy: Attention Grabbing Geometric Headboards + Panels
These distressed, pastel painted wood panels from Urban Outfitters are enchanting, but why not use the idea as a springboard for a summer DIY project to install anywhere in the house or garden?
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In Praise of Shadows and Quiet, Muted Interiors
I’ve been yearning for shadows since June 21st when the world took a tumble towards autumn, trailing crayon-bright, midsummer color and loud solstice revels. Parched by the bleached Scandinavian cottages and austere, no-tint white rooms that are everywhere online, I’m craving soothing darkness and a place to sequester in silence. This stark, in-your-face, white duvet bedroom suddenly hurts my eyes…and…
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PES’ Western Spaghetti
(Video link HERE.) This insanely cheeky, surrealistic send-up zaps cooking shows with sly, technological savoir faire. I needed several viewings to fully grok all the nutball details. —Susan Dworski *Editor’s Note: Incredibly imaginative film maker PES‘ “Fresh Guacamole” is the shortest film ever nominated for an academy award!
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Closet Strategies with a Simple Piece of Fabric
Since when is it hip, slick and cool to lie in bed and stare at your clothes and shoe racks––no matter how neatly organized––when you’re rustling up romance? I’m talking about a very particular theme of design porn these days: highly-styled, out-in-the-open clothes racks that make me wonder: What would happen in this uber-neuter scheme if…
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Micron, A Cheap, Great Pen to Repace the Rapidograph
Having used Rapidograph technical drawing pens forever, I finally switched to the disposable little Sakura’s Pigma Micron pen and love it. Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of the New Yorker, draws all his pointillistic funnies with one. It costs a mere $2.98, as opposed to $25+ for a Rapidograph.
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Passenger ‘Scare Away the Dark’: Romp in Mother Nature
(Video link HERE.) From Susan Dworski: How better to shout summer? A totally nutball, breakout romp in Mother Nature. Parental guidance: shots of fat guys in their underwear hugging trees.
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Slung Cloths: Simple Ways to Create Private Space
The quest for a restful night’s sleep can feel like an impossible dream, particularly for urban apartment dwellers or those who share tight living quarters and a noisy town. How to shut off the world – and the kitchen – to grab some privacy and nourishing shut-eye to help maintain emotional and mental balance, can be an…
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Use the Difficulty (Michael Caine)
(Video link HERE.) I was bogged down today in a creative funk, head-buttingly blocked, wandering in a dark wood, wrestling with a component for a necklace that is carved from clear, rock crystal so that it seemed, well… simply invisible. How do you showcase something invisible? I recalled something I’d read in an interview long ago with…
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