Just some beautiful and inspiring things I stumbled across this week...

Saffron Craig



Domestic Construction



Emily Sutton



Valerie Hammond

Elizabeth Gilbert's talk is inspiring ...

Here are some slides from our group work from my urban lab course. Our intent was a community redesign of the Varsity and Dalhousie Communities in Calgary. Click on the images to make large.

This cabinet pictured below is called Monster... I love it! Ellen Seegers designed this unique piece together with Jolanda Slegers.


Bloesem Kids is probably the best blog for children's design, everything on here is absolutely fantastically adorable!

This bamboo bird mobile by petit collage is so cute...


Graphic designer and illustrator Tutti Shafir makes beautiful and cute prints...

Jack Brandsma 's SpareSpace temporary office units

SpareSpace transforms empty shop- and office buildings into mobile offices. SpareSpace offers beginning entrepreneurs in creative industries affordable and representative offices in an inspiring environment. As soon as the empty space is put up to let or for sale, the entrepreneurs will move to a new building.

I love this picture of designer Tord Boontje's studio

Mike Press' blog Hand Made Theory is reflections and ideas about contemporary craft, physical making, and their relationship with culture, technology and design.

Susie Ghahremani's website boygirlparty.com has a plethora of her fun designs on paper products.

UPPERCASE are makers, curators and publishers of visual culture. I really love their notebooks that are handmade with an eclectic mix of vintage papers and repurposed books to inspire your collection of thoughts. One is pictured below.



A Resin Revival has cute necklaces... One is pictured below...

Regular digital pictures can be turned into polaroid pictures using Poladroid.



Some short videos on Sustainability and Plastics

Bob McKay -Sabic Innovative Plastics

HP's design philosophy

Plastic industries reach out to designers

Reusable hydration

Education in Plastics-part one

Education in Plastics-part two

I found this cute video ... inspired?

baby blue bird
Originally uploaded by saucysiouxsie

Here's a new bracelet I finished...more to come...

I don't know what to make of this little poem I wrote years ago, it has such an oppressive tone, which could either be an adult telling a child to stop daydreaming or our own voice telling us to stop make-believing, as it may be seen as a childish act...nothing could be more untrue... The tone at the end also hints at uninspired or unoriginal ideas being rewarded...This little ditty is so negative, but I seem to remember it whenever I am discouraged in my creative endeavours!!

Tsk

You must stop child,

Children only dream dreams by matchsticks,

and not by pocketbooks.

To hear the clink-clink in your pocket,

Is better than grumbles from your tummy.

Asking for more…

Asking for more…

Dreams are worth poor.

Lie it down,

It’s only as good as it ever can be,

But only if it's not your own.

Happy Holidays!! Here are my favourite things from 2008...all in pictures!!

My brother's deliciously prepared food...


My garden...


My Mother's teacups...

Eating and painting delicious cupcakes...


French costume parties...

Here is my final project for Studio-Designing for Water's Future.
My group's work is pictured below...Mist Opportunity.

WABI-SABI is the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay, and death. It's simple, slow, and uncluttered-and it reveres authenticity above all. Wabi-Sabi is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not Pergo; rice paper, not glass. It celebrates cracks and crevices and all the other marks that time, weather, and loving use leave behind. It reminds us that we are all but transient beings on this planet-that our bodies as well as the material world around us are in the process of returning to the dust from which we came.

Here are some key points of Wabi-Sabi...
An intuitive world-view
Relative
Looks for personal, idiosyncratic solutions
One-of-a-kind/variable
There is no progress
Present-oriented
Believes in the uncontrollability of nature
Romanticizes nature
People adapting to nature
Organic organization of form (soft, vague shapes and edges)
The bowl as a metaphor (free shape, open at top)
Natural materials
Ostensibly crude
Accommodates to degradation and attrition
Is comfortable with ambiguity and contradiction
To every thing there is a season

Seasons Greeting!!! Here I am decorating our tree ...

Here is a layered illustration I made of origami kites ... it is drawn on velum, so that each layer shows through to the next ...

The winter wonderland I walked out into after class today ...

Here are the first few slides of our final studio project-
Designing for Water's Future.
These are the first few slides that I have completed, more to come.