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…
Read MoreSusan 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…
Read MoreRecently, 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.
Read More(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…
Read More(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.
Read MoreThese 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?
Read MoreI’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…
Read More(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!
Read MoreSince 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…
Read MoreHaving 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.
Read More(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.
Read MoreThe 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…
Read More(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…
Read MoreArtist Robert Dolan intended to make a tee shirt for a young man with leukemia who is now in remission. He made a history of his creative process for a grammar school art class to show the twists, turns, and often messy failures that he went through to arrive at…Plan B. Not a tee shirt,…
Read MoreThese charming little structures got us thinking about beach shelters. Of late we’ve seen some pretty chic, pricey ones, like Sombrilla Beach Tent for $189. It’s based on a simple, classic structure, one of many you can make yourself.
Read MoreWe came across another good idea from the portfolio of journalist and photographer Amandine & Jules that seems to be something of a trend: NOT painting moldings and doors a separate color but rather the same color as the walls, to make a uniform, less busy and, depending on the color, more contemporary look.
Read MoreEagle eyed Susan Dworski spotted this polka dot wall and floor in the portfolio of the write/stylie + photographer couple Amandine and Jules. We love the idea of a graphic element flowing from one to the other, softening angles, and make the space seem more…fluid. Here’s another example of using paint to define a space in…
Read MoreI’m betting that one thing we all could use is a Get Out Of Jail card to help us learn how to love our bodies – just as they are. I’m also wagering you may be asking yourself, as I did: why is this woman on the right smiling? What’s wrong with her?
Read MoreI’ve always struggled with Mother’s Day. Too pink, too saccharine, too much forced happiness when the reality so often cloaks a good deal of ambivalence, sadness, and hidden anger. That all changed when I opened our Little Free Library on the front fence yesterday and discovered Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi’s extraordinary graphic memoir of…
Read MoreFrequent contributor Susan Dworski passed on this photo and commentary from her brother, who lives on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala: West side neighbor’s guardian’s solution to lack of long enough wood piece for a hand rail along the camino publico…….. While not entirely w/out a certain rustic charm……. Flip side of well orchestrated indigenous handicraft……… Cockamamie for…
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