diy Archives - Improvised Life

Transforming Ordinary Materials Just for the Hell of It

We love when some visionary soul shifts ordinary objects into the visually beautiful and surprising. And reveals the ordinary for what it really it: material full of possibilities…

‘Dream Bed’ Dreams…

My deconstructing mind was smitten with the possibilities of a “dream bed” I stumbled on on Instagram. So I went on the hunt to figure out what it would take to make it, and in the process, learned a LOT, including about myself.

Swirly Cutouts in Wood Antidote and Amplify “Modern”

For years, I thought this image was of a fireplace mantle and admired it for the swirly cutouts that softened the usual rectangle while maintaining a curious modernity. It’s an image from my file of wooden things quietly embellished with swirls, loops, curls, scallops. They give me ideas for my trove of uncut plywood, as do these from Brancusi, Blossfeldt, Margaret Bourke-White.

A Streetside Vitrine Dispensing Free Handmade Pottery… and Joy

San Francisco ceramicist Nina Saltman created an inspired riff on the Little Free Libraries that have popped up across the nation. Nina’s Little Pott Shoppe is a tiny outdoor vitrine that offers her handmade cups and bowls for free. It’s a way she can give away “seconds”— work with minor flaws— and bring joy and serendipity to passersby. She never imagined how much her little offerings would affect people.

DIY Kintsugi Repair for Beloved Broken Things

Photographer Ellen Silverman recently sent us photos of her Kintsugi mending project which we SO admire. We’ve had it on our list to try kintsugi, the Japanese way of repairing broken things with the mend celebrated rather than hidden. Ellen repaired two beloved vessels in no time, while amplifying their history and personal meaning, and the ideas of impermanence and imperfection.

Stenciling Ugly Concrete Sidewalks (and Other Things)

I didn’t realize how naturally brutalist concrete sidewalks are — drab gray, strangely crude— until I saw leaves painted on the sidewalk outside a Harlem plant store. The harsh, dreary slabs were transformed and seemed to be casting light and a feeling of whimsy and charm. It made me wonder why sidewalks are rarely embellished, and how to do it…

A Website Can Be a Sanctuary

We hadn’t thought of a website having the ability to act as a sanctuary until we read about Laurel Schwulst’s odd, charming Firefly Sanctuary It is at once a digital space that mirrors a physical one — her Brooklyn apartment — and a quiet meditation on the “invisible, mental counterparts” to visible, physical things.

DIY Backrest for Comfortable Improvised Daybeds

The art consultant and dealer Peter Heimer’s postwar Berlin townhouse has all sorts of cunning details. We love the yellow daybed Heimer designed himself. The slanted pillows are brilliant, forming a comfortable backrest when reading or lounging. I’ve discovered that you can get the same effect with a simple DIY.

Clothes Quickly Tailored with Extra Buttons and Magnets

Lately clothing ads coming over my transom have been featuring men’s shirts with an extra side button. When you put the usual buttonhole around THAT button, it pulls the shirt into an asymmetrical form-fitting wrapped number. Of course I immediately thought of how I’d do it myself…

Mark Betty’s OMG Inspired Lampshades

This lamp by English lampshade designer Mark Betty has this description “Lamp and Brown Paper (or whatever you want)” . The brown paper rolled into an asymmetrical cone and secured with a pin seems to have been made in a single gesture. Like all Betty’s shades, it has its own unique personality, as though it were alive…

Picture Frame as Magical Objet

We love this skeleton of a picture frame hung pictureless on a wall. As we gaze into its empty space, we find ourselves imagining all sorts of things while we enjoy its austere shape. It reminded us of the old silver frame we gave to artist Maria Robledo years ago. Picture frame as magical objet.

An Ad Hoc Indoor Pond for Spring Blossoms (Su Tung Po)

Blossoms knocked off their stems make for free flower arrangements in the form of ad hoc indoor ponds like the one photographer Maria Robledo devised (the perfect accompaniment to this poem written over a thousand years ago)

Irritation is the Message: Turn Ugly Shopping Bags Inside Out to Make Them Beautiful

I pondered the maxim “Irritation is the message” a long time before understood that the things that irritated me were the things I sought solutions for. I started transforming ugly shopping bags.

Mend Peace (Yoko Ono, Louise Bourgeois)

We were instantly riveted by @tumanualidades.de’s tiny videos of mending because they were so restful to watch, offering seemingly simple solutions to fixes we have in the past spent too much time worrying or procrastinating about. They called to mind a cosmic view of mending and sewing from some favorite artists.

How Rice Paper Shades Give Their Blessing to a Room

In the messy digital file I keep of ideas for possible Improvised Life posts, I found trove marked simply “paper shades”. Their big message: A rice paper shade or two adds A LOT to even the most “undecorated” room. They have a unique, rather magical presence that pulls the room together. Here’s how.

Artful Lessons in Styrofoam from Lino Schenal and Max Lamb

In the 1970’s mysterious Italian designer Lino Schenal clad his house in sculpted styrofoam, from walls to simple, stylish furniture. Fifty years later we looked to Max Lamb to reveal the secrets of the ubiquitous material for making artful, practical creations.

Hot Weather Joy: Communal Water Music (Hermeto Pasoal, Vanuatu Women, Stephen Nachmanovitch, )

Listening to the water music of women from the northern Vanuatu and Brazilian musician Hermeto Pascoal takes us into the realm of joy, and gives us ideas for our own hot weather revelry. Steven Nachmanovitch, tells us how to access our own inner music…

The Cosmic Meaning of Polka Dots and How to DIY Them (Yayoi Kusama)

We love the green polka dots in this down-at-heels kitchen, a perfect way to jazz up a wall. It got us thinking about their cosmic meaning and how to make them without laboriously holding up stencils.

Matisse’s Homemade Wallpaper

When we looked closely at this stumbled-upon image of Henri Matisse, we realized that the wallpaper behind him was really tacked up prints and drawings. Brilliant. Looking for more, we found a trove of ideas to employ.

How to Make Shadow Magic

“Just a pair of hands and a whole lot of clever imagination” perfectly describes this 1933 film from British Pathe. The performer moves his hands slowly so that the audience can see how the shape is formed. The setup is minimal: a darkened room, a bare patch of wall, a light source to cast shadows.…

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