As seen on Realsimple.com and in Parenting Magazine.
Now when play is done, even the kids can clean up in a flash. Yes, clean-up has never been so easy...it's IN THE BAG. Just grab the nylon cords and "SWOOP" up all those blocks, legos, plastic dinosauers, and other tiny play pieces from the day's activities into this storage bag and play surface all- in-one. Toss it in a corner, hide in a closet, or hang it on a hook till the toy story continues the next day. It's a brilliant way to minimize toy sprawl. Based on a design for a storage bag passed down from an inventive grandmother, this modern version is constructed of strong cotton canvas allowing it to open almost flat to multi-task as a great play mat. Measures 44 inches in diameter. Machine washable. Available in Hot Pink (not shown), Lime (not shown), Orange and Turquoise (not shown).
London-based designer Anneke Short has come up a series of minimalist posters that are out to challenge the preconceptions that people have of designers.
‘Confessions of a Designer’, is a collection of quotes that Short has “either found [herself] thinking or that [she has] heard [her] designer friends say, often on more than one occasion”.
Blatantly honest and comical, they portray the frustration and realities that designers often face.
Please take a moment to reflect on what Steve Jobs has brought to us...
Steve Jobs is quite possibly one of the smartest men to bless this Earth!
Not only has he introduced the world to incredible technology developments,
he had a pretty great view on life too!
Words Of Wisdom From Steve Jobs
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
"There's no substitute for references. Get them - period.
And get as many as you can, three at an absolute minimum."
ERIC JAGGER, Project Manager, Harbor Builders, Port Clyde, ME
"Taking up old carpet disturbs a lot of bad stuff - dust and germs fly everywhere. Find someone who'll use a HEPA vacuum before and after, and who'll wrap your old carpet in plastic before taking it out. Check out healthierlivinginstallation.com."
RENEE LECROY, Flooring Expert, Don's Carpet One Floor & Home, Birmingham, AL
"The chemicals in glass cleaners are too harsh for your electronic screens, and paper towels
will scratch them. Use warm water and a microfiber cloth. But not too much
water - it can seep into the screen's edges." DEREK MEISTER, Geek Squad, Best Buy, Cleveland, OH
"People buy too many varieties of plants. Edit! Ten different kinds planted in one bed will look
like a riot. Choose three favorites and mass each in a separate bed to keep the peace."
STEPHEN BLOCK, Owner, Inner Gardens, Los Angeles, CA
"Too many painters give an estimate that's basically to paint. Once they're in your house they say, 'Oh, you want me to fix that crack? That'll be extra.' Be clear from the beginning."
JEFF HESTER, Vice President, Hester Painting & Decorating, Skokie, IL
Stay tuned for the final 5 household tips... next week!
Having spent a month living in Oslo, Norway (Aker Brygge to be exact) in the Summer of 2009, I had to share this most recent article from the writers @ dwell...
“You won’t get to heaven without skiing,” observed Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn. If the Pritzker Prize–winning master, who died in 2009, made it to the great slope in the sky, he’s undoubtedly looking down with pleasure on the Holmenkollen ski jump. The Oslo icon has been upgraded 18 times since it was built in 1892. The latest iteration, by the design-forward Copenhagen-based firm Julien de Smedt Architects, is a glass-and-steel cantilevered structure that projects a slash of light into the night sky—–a sweeping gesture that mimics the kinetic thrill of the event. It’s a double triumph of aesthetics and sport, and, as the Norwegian tourist board’s website puts it, “one of the first designer ski jumps.”
That’s appropriate for a city that is starting to take contemporary architecture seriously. Other than the 14th-century Akershus fortress, the adjacent Kvadraturen, and other remnants of the Renaissance city built by Denmark’s King Christian IV in the 17th century, Oslo’s architecture is rooted in the 19th century. In March 2008, however, King Harald V presided over the opening of the exhibition hall at the National Museum—Architecture, Fehn’s renovation and expansion of an 1830 bank designed by the nation’s great 19th-century architect, Christian Grosch. A new opera house—–the first in Norway’s history, and step one in the redevelopment of Bjørvika, the city’s harbor district—–debuted in April of the same year. Just on its heels arrived Grims Grenka, Oslo’s first design hotel—–all of which suggests a capital committed to new design and culture.
The fjord overbrims with boats in warm weather, and cross-country trails and downhill slopes enliven the hills located to the north. Museums featuring impeccably preserved Viking ships and Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki raft and venues such as architect David Adjaye’s Nobel Peace Center present provocative cultural experiences. Oslo’s music scene is internationally famous—–it’s home to the Norwegian Wood rock festival—–and the Grünerløkka district offers the rarest of distillates: hipness without attitude.
And, as demonstrated by Aker Brygge, Oslo is undergoing a familiar port-city transformation. The 19th-century shipyard was updated in the 1980s and 1990s into a development combining residential, office, and retail venues—–plus countless restaurants and bars—–in a mix of maritime and contemporary architecture. Fjordside, Aker Brygge’s popularity heralds Oslo’s shift from a centuries-old emphasis on the port to a 21st-century economy abetted by North Sea oil revenues and an expanding population—–resulting, says Tarald Lundevall, “in what is the liveliest, most rapidly changing capital in Scandinavia.” Lundevall—–a former professor at the Oslo School of Architecture and advisor to the Minister of Cultural Affairs, presently a partner and architect with Snøhetta, the firm responsible for the nearly $700 million opera house—–ought to know: He’s lived in the capital for most of his 62 years.
Why is Oslo flourishing now? Three factors. First, compared to the rest of Europe, Norway was late to urbanize. We are still in a process where people from the fishing areas in the north and west are searching for possibilities in the city. The next factor is that with huge global migration directed at Europe and Scandinavia, our population has really changed. This has given us a richer, livelier set of cultures. And third, you have a shift in the waterfront. Here we have had a broad discussion about what’s called the Fjord City project, which was started by the Oslo Kommune, the local authority. It has convened an organization of planners and given them freedom to investigate how to resolve the functional mix among commercial buildings, dwellings, and green areas.
With an emphasis on the commercial, no? Correct. In Norway, there has been a tradition in which the government had wide responsibility to make decisions about land use, and it was expected that it should invest in commonly owned areas. This has been transformed in the last 50 years by the shift from the social democratic Norwegian Workers’ Party taking care of everything to power increasingly being in the hands of private investors. With Aker Brygge, nearly the only thing the Kommune did was to devise design guidelines. Private investors put up the money and actually did the thing. In such a situation, the pressure for increased height and fewer common areas is there all the time. You still have a professional bureau that comes up with solutions based on solid planning, but the bad thing is that it doesn’t discuss the consequences of this shift in power between the public and private sectors.
Are people pleased with Aker Brygge? Aker Brygge, in most respects, is a good project. But after World War II, when the social democratic planners had the power and set priorities, they built a huge project called Groruddalen, which today has some 123,000 inhabitants, where people were given the opportunity to live in cheap, good housing. The older project demonstrates how the local authorities took care to develop housing, schools, and parks for the young and poor, for the workers. Today, as we know, the priorities flow from “How do we attract the rich buyers, how do we earn money?”
Yet the arts remain quite lively—–the opposite of institutional. Oh, yes. We have an extremely wide, differently shaded music scene. When it comes to art, you can see a lot of things here that are rawer and younger than you see in the rest of Scandinavia. What people find interesting is that we are not well polished. Our society is more informal and therefore offers a richer opportunity for bright persons of all ages to come up with really rude things—–of which there are many.
Building is booming now, but is there a modernist tradition in Oslo? From the 1920s until World War II, Norway had some very good functionalist architects who were inspired by Germany and France at that time and who built mainly villas and smaller buildings. One is the Ekebergrestauranten by Lars Backer, which was built in 1929. It has been restored rather nicely, and it’s a very good restaurant and a fantastic place to view Oslo. If you are interested in architecture from that period, I would give priority to visiting the villas, such as Arne Korsmo’s Villa Stenersen. In contemporary architecture today you have two schools. You have the pupils of Sverre Fehn, who taught many of the best young architects in Norway—–Jan Olav Jensen, Carl-Viggo Hølmebakk, the firm Jarmund/Vignæs, and five or so others—–who have done beautiful, experimental villas and bigger projects outside of Oslo. The other segment—–firms that have been influenced by Rem Koolhaas—–is working with urbanistic questions as its core preoccupation. Space Group and a firm called MMW both work in a tradition where the setting and program reflect broader discussions about a building’s task in the urban fabric. And as they tend to be politically more knowledgeable and go into all aspects of transforming cities, I’m optimistic that they can introduce a broader discussion into the process, which so far has been a closed thing between capitalists and bureaucrats.
I highly recommend a visit to Oslo, Norway - as well as the countryside of Norway!
Following the success of what the HEX Tennis Chair meant to the primary consumer of the felted balls, the next logical audience was of the four legged kind. The Dog Bed is the latest edition to the HEX Tennis furniture collection. The Dog Bed frame is sustainably constructed entirely of recycled tennis balls from the New York Metropolitan area that are woven together in a tight hexagonal pattern. The bed features a removable 2-sided cushion, red on one side and black on the other. Measuring at 26” in diameter the bed is sized for small dog breeds (Boston Terrier, Dachshund, Pug) up to approximately 25lbs.
*A bed to accommodate larger breeds will be introduced at the end of summer, join our mailing list to be emailed when its released. **Ships in 2-4 weeks $285
Great choice on selecting a Boston for the ad pic - I'm a little partial, as you know! - Design Diva
If you own an iPhone or any other type of "smart phone", back it up!!!
I was visiting Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for the last few days, attending a friend's wedding, and had my iPhone stolen the morning we were leaving. As you can imagine, I feel lost and a little violated... Don't let this happen to you!!!
Luckily, I do have my iPhone backed up on my Mac, but cannot access any contacts until the new iPhone4 gets here in mid-July. In the meantime, I will be using a salvaged phone with no contacts stored, from 2006 (a Motorola Razor of all things)... Don't be jealous!
Just thought I would share and welcome you to my pity party!!!
Well, this is handy. Wood blocks that only offer one slot per knife might leave you stabbing around hoping to find the one that fits, and they don't offer much versatility for accommodating new blades. Ute (short for utilitarian) Australian Design eliminated the individual slits on their carbonized bamboo base, giving a happy home to your parers, cleavers, and everything in between.
Spanish modernism has found a new global platform, at the Tribeca Grand Hotel’s new 1200 sq ft, lounge bar, The Salon. The Salon has just opened to the public.
A selection of works by leading Spanish designers and manufacturers are showcased at SALON, including BD Barcelona Design furnishings, Lladró sculptural vases and lighting, Nani Marquina rugs and more. New York City-based Winka Dubbeldam and her office Archi-Tectonics created an environment inspired by the works of Spain’s most lauded Surrealist artists, including Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and Caballero.
The Salon is a new permanent installation conceived by Surface Magazine and supported by the Trade Commission of Spain and RED association.
Is the key to success cast in porcelain? Keep one of these message keys on your desk, wear it on a necklace, or give it to a friend as a token of appreciation. Message Keys (from $25 for a 3" to 4" key)
As the world’s best designers took over Milan for this year’s Salone (and Fuorisalone), Environment debuts its understated—and innovative—e’pack collection of seating, planters, occasionals and lighting.
e’pack fits under Environment’s philosophy of using reclaimed and low-impact materials to create contemporary pieces and then takes it a step further: The collection is also compact and foldable.
Two companies who are actively involved in helping the planet and being green.
Hello!Lucky's letterpress stationery is made of 100% recycled paper, the clothing is 100% organic cotton, and everything is delivered in earth-friendly packaging. hellolucky.com
Ecojot's paper products feature 100% post-consumer recycled paper, vegetable based inks and glues, and corn-based packaging. ecojot.com
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