Wood blanks

Oooo, I am very excited about having received these beautiful wood blanks in the post yesterday! They were neatly separate into individual bags according to the tree species and are extraordinary, intricate, detailed and very special indeed. I can't wait to put them together with the first batch of puzzle boards as little wood knobs.

We are going on holiday next week but I know I will be itching to get back so that I can finally put together the first real puzzle boards for sale!

yule tid

 Greetings.

It is has been a couple of months since I popped in here. Wow, time flies. Busy busy times at the moment with christmas coming up. For the crafty and creative person comes a-whole-lot-of-stuff-to-do panic around about this time of the year. I took a chill pill the other day and made some decorations for our hallway. I have saved all these fruit netting bags to find a reuse for them and they finally came handy to create this hanging, pagan queen like woman...I love the simplicity of this piece and the best part of this is that I get to eat more ice cream now to get more sticks! This pagan theme is reminding me that I am finally coming to terms with the complexity of my scandinavian heritage and my newfound home in australia...I am working towards embracing both in finding a pathway for my creative streak.

Hanging decoration in hallway

Pagan queen

I also had some scraps lying around after finishing a bouquet arrangement for my friends wedding flowers. I used this awesome (but expensive) hat making mesh and it is quite stiff which makes for great folded flower like shapes with bits of fabric stuck in it. 

Fabric flower

It is the first advent on sunday (not that i am very religious but it is a nice custom regardless). Got some christmas decorations up, next on the itinerary are the stockings. Have all the materials, just need to finish the tie I am sowing for my partner for a wedding we are going to next weekend. Pweh, hard life being a maker. (NOT)

oh, ps. YES. We finally moved the TV away from our main living area, the conversations that has enabled over the last week is unreal. Loving it.

Bottom-up urbanism at its finest - Heath Nash at HIFA 2011

Recycle plastic bottle pattern - Image via designboom courtesy of Heath Nash

 This project includes all the things that I love about design and more specifically about the urban landscape and meaningful spatial site interventions. Heath Nash, project coordinator and designer produced and organised this work along with local artisans for Harare International Festival of the Art. HIFA performing arts festival 2011. The South-African designer, reused thousands of recycled plastic bottles and other materials such as plastic buckets and aluminium cans to create a set of canopies for the urban dweller to take to when in need of shade. According to designboom, Nash got the inspiration from simply walking the streets of the Zimbabwean capital whilst observing how people occupied and congregated under the city's tree canopies so to avoid the Southern African mercury. 

This observation was translated into a pragmatic and spatial take on the idea of recycling waste materials derived from consumption. 

Components of an extensive distribution system - Image via designboom courtesy of Heath Nash

The way in which the canopies are constructed is simply magic. Repetitive pattern is one of the most powerful ways of generating beauty and striking form in my eyes and the combining of cultural and social observation with a commentary of mass-consumption, leads way to a meaningful site intervention.

The project suggests a site intervention that is constructed at a 1:1 scale, utilising local craftsmanship with the organising mind of a designer. The other beauty in this project lie in the system that this 1:1 site intervention actually represents. Where all these bottles, cans and buckets come from remain unrepresented, perhaps it is not doable but I hope that you get the picture. A 1:1 intervention that assembles tens of thousands of small objects that was part of a mass-distribution system going out for consumption to then be returned to another system, that of recycling and end up in this meaningful installation. Simply beauty.

re-ordering, re-assembling, re-configuring - Image via designboom courtesy of Heath Nash

process - Image via designboom courtesy of Heath Nash

Light my pulp

A lovely design process by Enrique Romero de la Llana. The designer created these lamp shades using old newspapers, mixing them into a paste and drying them out into various simple and organic forms. I have totally developed a fetish for lamp shades these days!

Over at Design Milk, they observed the upcycling of the newspaper into a somewhat celebration of the tree that once was the paper. I find this to be the case because of the texture that the designer achieved for the lamps. It  reminds me of old gnarly and fairy like trees.

Images below from design milk

Ebony Bizys - Everyday Tokyo

These photos by graphic designer Ebony Bizys are just the type of everyday landscape that I am researching for my own design projects.

I love how this landscape of pots and interior furniture and fittings represents ordinary everyday life of the city's inhabitants and their desire to make a mark on their surroundings. Claiming a little bit of space, growing, nursing and caring for a little bit of life, a small scale intervention in a 21st century large scale city. You might want to check out: urban interior, a group of researchers based in Melbourne that recently released a book exploring the idea of urban interior.

image via otherpeopleshouses

image via otherpeopleshouses

image via hellosandwich

image via hellosandwich

Roskilde wee tree pee

p-tree by Aandeboom, via dezeen

I LOVE the Roskilde festival, I used to religiously go every summer back in my teens and I LOVE this clever urinal solution by dutch designers Aandeboom. I guess the only criticism I have with this intervention is: how will the ladies go with it? I guess in the state that I put myself in on these festivals, personal space is sort vanished anyway, bloody heck, I used to shower butt naked with thousands of people and nobody frowns upon it, so perhaps this critique doesn't belong here?

The urinal can be connected to the main sewer system or a tank via pump. I guess if it was a lemon tree that wouldn't be necessary because apparently the thrive in a p-environment. (do not take this too seriously tho)

Although, it would be nice to see a picture of a female using this.

p-tree by Aandeboom, via dezeen

p-tree by Aandeboom, via dezeen

Drawing on old chests

drawers remade into kitchen units, via dornob

drawers remade into chest, via dornob

These reinvented chest of drawers are amazing. Not only is the process of salvaging individual drawers from a life in despair at the local landfill commendable, but the combining of separate drawers with completely different histories and origins into a new frame of life is truly inspirational. That is the romantic DRAWING card for me here; igniting new life into the old and creating a unique aesthetic and functionality to each piece. I absolutely love the aesthetic of this work.

Although Hamburg based design company entwurf-direkt creates single drawer-shelves as well for attachment on walls and also for stacking; I have to  point out for my own records that although old is brought into new life, it is still serving the same function as it once had and has not completely been remade and rethought into a new function. It is a combination of the two. Hence, an alternative take on the idea of remaking. 1/2 remake.

I also like how the designers stamp and number their works. This creates another meaning to the pieces as they make their way out into the big world of people's homes and become part of a larger system.

assorted pieces. via dornob

It's interesting that some photos are taken outside of the chest of drawers. Interesting choice of environment. I wonder how this concept could be translated into an intervention in the landscape. Reinventing drawers from the landscape. How can I conceptualise the idea of drawers into the landscape?