best of il: diy plant watering globes

www.sha.org/bottle/wine In tandem with Anthony Giglio’s summer sparkling wine recommendations, it seems fitting to reprise the idea we published a couple of years ago: using water or wine bottles as plant watering globes. These are simply inverted bottles that you fill with water and slam into the moist soil of a containered plant; they will slowly trickle…

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annals of gift wrap: newspaper, duct tape, string

Maria Robledo forwarded this image of a wildly-wrapped gift a friend received. Her words: Thought ud like this wrapping! Totally up our alley: newspaper, duct tape, string. Perfect! Related posts: diy stamped gift wrap (from erasers + potatoes) gift: endlessly useful furoshiki cloth…you can even wear it reader improv: ny times illustrated wrapping paper an artwork…

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the magic of an orange table top + high gloss oil paint

A slab of wood on a repurposed base made fab by the orange lacquer surface: the miracle of high gloss paint. The secret to getting truly shiny high gloss is to use oil base (alkyd) paint. When we did side-by-side tests of high gloss alkyd and water-base latex paint we made a big discovery: the…

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reader improv: fab shipping pallet staircase / stoop

We’ve been getting an increasing number of emails from readers their shipping pallet improvisations, as they push they realm of pallet invention. A recent favorite: this swell, stylish staircase by Natasha Figueroa and her husband Dan Husted who live in an up-and-coping gallery district in Copenhagen, Denmark. We have a private gallery/studio located in Kødbyen,…

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plydesign: an essential guide to diy plywood projects

As we’ve mentioned, ‘the improvised life’s laboratory is something of an homage to plywood. We’ve used it for many things, from window sills to cabinets to floors. We love the stuff, and are constantly hatching plots in our head for furniture, housewares, endless inventions. So we are smitten with carpenter and author Philip Schmidt new book PlyDesign which…

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