We couldn't leave this out of our film festival series: Flickr user yarnzombie put together this curtain made of vintage slides and a few metal rings. She kindly includes more photos and details of how she did it. The curtains even open!
This is also a teaser for our next Process 376 challenge. Details coming soon….
As photography and film-making go digital, fewer and fewer people are spending time in the darkroom, and all those boxes of vintage slides and family Super 8 reels are fading into oblivion. My father was a photographer, and I spent many hours of my childhood in our basement darkroom, helping him with his latest round of photos. For me, there's a romance and sweetness to tiny strips of black and white images or a family's blurry vacation footage. But this post isn't about holding onto the past. This is about what you can do with all the waste generated by a switch from one medium to another.
I'm loving this necklace made from little chunks of reclaimed farm machinery. There's something almost perfect about it. Simple, modern, industrial, and even a bit romantic, but not something any DIY maven could easily reproduce. The Steel Fork has more necklaces and earrings, too. A portion of their jewelry sales goes to support sustainable agriculture. If you want larger ornamentation, they also sell furniture made from vintage tractor parts.
Images from The Steel Fork. 
As everyone makes the switch from incandescent to CFL bulbs, I've been wondering what becomes of all those old light bulbs and thinking that the glass is so pretty, it could be re-imagined. I had these designs percolating in my head and sketchbook, and it’s great to see that someone actually built them. Actually, two someones, and they did a beautiful job!
Up first, the What Watt light by Tim Fishlock. The artist calls it a "memorial to the incandescent lightbulb." The metal caps carry more visual weight than I thought they would, but it’s very interesting. There’s a fantastic video of it being put together here.
Next, these stunning urchin-esque fixtures by designer Helen Gifford of HelenBilt. These are made of reclaimed candelabra bulbs from chandeliers, and you see nothing but the glowing glass. Lovely.
Both projects save me the trouble of collecting bulbs, because now I know what they look like, and I don't feel as obligated to build them myself. Of course, if I ever find a place for that urchin fixture, I'll have to find a source for spend chandelier bulbs.
I’ve been lighting obsessed recently, trying to find affordable eco-friendly fixtures for our remodel. My typical approach is to scrounge on Craigslist and at salvage yards for some unloved vintage thing that could be modernized, but if I had the money, I'd be shopping at Eleek.
I love finding new ways to use old textiles, and this is genius. ABC Carpet takes damaged rugs, then "neutralizes" the color. Finally, they overdye to create new, highly saturated, modern rugs. I've tried to find out what "neutralizing" is, and how green (or not) it might be. If I learn more, I'll update this post.
The final product costs a fortune, but if you have a place to dye something this large, there's no reason this couldn't be a DIY.
Images from ABC Carpet. Via Apartment Therapy.
Nice concept--it's hard to see in these images, but there's a tree branch running through this table. It drops underneath and finishes inside one of the legs. Student table by Monique Habraken.
Images from Monique Habraken. Via DesignKlub.
I love vintage school things--old chalkboards, old desks. I like the graffiti past, the idea of all those students, bored, wallowing in teenage angst, waiting for the lunch or recess bell, carving their names or doodling on the surfaces. I'm not the only one, and occasionally I'll find an artist who is doing something really interesting with them, like Ben Turnbull. That brings us to today's subject, the Japanese architecture firm Sschemata, who have used epoxy to create a whole series of "Flat Tables." The school desks are by far my favorites.
I just scored a pair of these off Freecycle, and now I'm inspired.
Designer Christopher Moulder uses the structure of this shade to serve as the conductors for the series of low-voltage LEDs that ring around the perimeter. The technology and design allow for a clean design, with no wires needed to power the LEDs.
