DIY Song lyric art – the gorgeous Elsie over at abeautifulmess.typepad.com has come up with this really cool idea for some one of a kind, DIY art for your home. A paint by numbers painting is used as the base for the design, but I thought you could pretty much use anything you wanted! Or have a look at your local op shop and see what they’ve got that you could use. We all have those song lyrics that mean so much to us and what a cool way to have them around you all the time. What about one for the kids’ room?
abeautifulmess.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/08/song-lyric-wall-art-diy-project.html
Image from abeautifulmess.typepad.com
Now in beta testing, OneReceipt’s slogan is “keep the purchase, lose the receipt” with the service giving users a way to store all their receipts in the cloud and access them whenever they need. Once signed up, you link your account with an email address which will then capture any electronic receipts and paper receipts can be photographed and emailed to the service for storage in the same place. Even better, OneReceipt also indexes all the relevant information providing tags and categories to help you filter, file and later find your receipts.
That’s one smart cloud!
Easter will be here before we know it and while we’re all munching away on yummy hot cross buns, here’s a really cool idea to make for the kids or for your friends coming over for Easter lunch that they’ll definitely remember!
Cupcake Project has listed the details for their suggested recipe, but you could really use any cake recipe you love.
http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2011/04/easter-cupcakes-baked-in-real-egg.html
We’ve all got old t-shirts laying around and here’s a great idea to recycle them into grocery bags!
All you need is a pen, some scissors and access to a sewing machine. No fancy stitches either, nice and simple. Check out the two page, easy to follow tutorial.
http://www.ecouterre.com/recycle-an-old-t-shirt-into-a-produce-grocery-bag-diy-tutorial/
Images from www.ecouterre.com
The folks over at miniwiz.com have come up with the very cool Re Wine which is, as they say “the essence of reduce, reuse, recycle.” It’s made from a revolutionary material which is made from combining rice farming by-products and post-consumer thermoplastics.
That’s great, I hear you say, but what is it? It’s multipurpose! You can use it when giving wine as a gift, you can use it to carry your wine when you head out to dinner, but you can also utilise the used wine bottle to create a one-of-a-kind energy efficient desk lamp! AND Re-Wine’s innovative design allows the case to interlock with each other to create a wine rack!
http://www.miniwiz.com/en/products/food-a-beverage/re-wine
Images from inhabitat.com and livbit.com.
A new app from French 3D printing company Sculpteo now lets consumers upload a photo of themselves or a friend for incorporation into a designer vase, mug or other object.
Simply snap a photo of someone in profile with an iPhone or Android device and the app will recognise the profile. It then uses data derived from the image so that the user can create a custom object based on it from existing designs.
Download the app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad with iOS 5.0 or later, go through the selection of customisable objects, which includes the personal Pixel Cup, Profile Vase, Ego-Datamug and customised iPhone case. Users can also adjust all aspects of the object’s design, including size, dimensions, colour and material. Designs can be saved and shared on Facebook or Twitter too. How will you print your face?!
http://www.sculpteo.com/en/app/
Check out this great idea over at Aherk.com that is being beta tested at the moment. (Beta testing comes after alpha testing and is basically a form of external user testing, so don’t forget to give them feedback!)
For those of you who need help from your friends to stay focussed on your goals, this could be just the thing! Check it out. (Text and images below from Aherk.com)
Aherk! helps you achieve your goals by putting some pressure on you.
Aherk! is a goal-oriented self-blackmailing service in three easy steps:
Step 1: Define a goal.
Tell us what you want to achieve and set a deadline.
Step 2: Put your ass on the line.
Upload a compromising picture that will be posted to Facebook in case you fail to achieve your goal.
Step 3: Your friends decide.
After your deadline expires, your Facebook friends will tell us if you achieved your goal or not.
Tee hee, simple!
Yes! Believe it or not people ARE starting to think outside the box or in this case inside it!
After a few single stores across the world used shipping containers, the idea then morphed and moved to London with the opening of Boxpark Shoreditch, London’s first pop-up shopping mall made completely from shipping containers.
Boxpark Shoreditch - Image Ravi Sidhu
It then appeared as a brilliant idea to help a city move forward after the Christchurch earthquake as part of the City Mall Re:START project, with 27 stores in brightly coloured boxes.
Cashel Mall - Image NZ Raw
Cashel Mall - Image NZ Raw
Not only are these type of malls cheaper to put together, they can also utilise thin and strangely shaped pieces of land. In the case of Christchurch, it meant that businesses and the city could move towards getting “back to normal” without waiting for lengthy construction. They also get increased traffic from tourists curious to see how it’s all done.
Architectural firm LOT-EK in the US is now also putting plans together for a 9 story shipping container mall on the corner of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, New York!
Artists impression of the proposed LOT-EK Shipping Container Mall NYC
We’ve all seen it happen, the kids get a present and they’re more interested in the box it came in!
The smart thinkers over at boxplayforkids.com have come up with an ingenious way to utilise household recycling like cereal boxes and egg cartons, by turning them into everything from a choo-choo-train to a turtle!
All of the stickers are eco-friendly, 100% recycled so it’s not only fun for the kids, it’s good for the planet too.
