Fiona Banner installation at the Tate

Yesterday during my morning skim of favorite blog feeds, this photograph stopped me dead in my scrolling, and I am not being dramatic, I had to catch my breath.

When I was little I would have these crazy dreams of being in an enormous, impossibly deep indoor swimming pool, and I would discover that there was a giant whale, a huge dark silent beast, gliding below the surface. That was the feeling I remembered.

Harrier and Jaguar 2010 by Fiona Banner (photo by the Tate); found via but does it float.

Hilarious: Catalog Living

I was just turned onto this hysterical blog called Catalog Living.

"A look into the exciting lives of the people who live in your catalogs." Brilliant!

Here's a sample post from the other day.


Elaine was not amused by Gary’s passive-aggressive response to her request to “garnish the cocktails.”

Visit the blog on tumblr, and prepare to waste some time. I hope they do a book!

Thanks, Jamie!

Sustainable bamboo iPhone case by Grove

If I were going to get an iPhone 4, I would be ordering one of these:

You can get them plain bamboo, or engraved with a cool design. I might choose a plain one, just 'cause I'm that kinda girl, but I would be quite tempted by the beautiful imagery in their artist series: 

Of course, their package design rocks, and is sustainable as well: 

But that's not all... you can even upload a file of your own design, and they will custom-engrave it! Like this customer that they featured on their flickr stream:

I am so going to posterize a picture of my cat right now ;-)

Thanks, Leo!

If I could marry a color, I would be Mrs. Grey

And I would have this print on my wall and this light in my kitchen and this dress on and this kitty and this bag and this pillow and this little lamb.

(From LovelyPiecesDesign, THEMELONPATCH, miablaz, Nakisha, iviemade, tippythai, and lucysnowephotography, respectively, all on Etsy.com.)

Summertime Yummytime: Healthy banana ice(sans)cream

Happy first official day of summer! (The time each year when astronomy finally catches up with how hella-hot it's been for weeks...) It's time for a treat:

So this stuff really boggled my brain. Fat-free, no-sugar-added, non-dairy, fluffy, creamy "ice cream" made with just a single ingredient:

And just two steps: freeze, and blend. If you've never tried it, I know what you're thinking: "I've made banana bread, I've fed a baby; I've tasted the mushed up bananas, no thank you." But you will be amazed that there's no cream in this stuff, really.

So I've already told you how to make it, but I will elaborate:

Slice the bananas about 1/2"-1" thick. I use about 1-2 bananas per person. Arrange them in a single layer on a cookie sheet or cutting board.

Put them in the freezer until they get firm. (It's best if they aren't rock hard. Just two to three hours should do it.) Then, just throw the slices in the food processor, and process them until fluffy and creamy-white.

At first they will just look like mashed frozen banana, or even have a coarse grainy texture if the bananas were very firm, but stick it out. After a bit they will magically whip in to a completely different substance.

Then serve it up, and smugly enjoy the fact you've just cheated a fruit into your diet for the day.

(Thanks, Mel, for the recipe!)

Steve's Shiner Bock Beer Koozie

If there's two things you need to know about my dad, they're that his name is Steve, and he loves his Shiner.

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

Photo frame magnet board

It's the month of weddings, and my brother and best friend got married eleven years ago tomorrow! Happy Anniversary, Eben and Melissa.

Here is something I made for my husband the first year we were married, using one of our favorite wedding photos:

It's a magnet board with a glass cut-out for a photo. I made it using my Dremel tool, from a piece of sheet steel, some thin plywood, glass, and some hardware. 

I had the glass cut to 4"x4". Using the Dremel I cut a hole in the metal slightly smaller, and a hole in the wood slightly larger. I also added a brushed finish to the steel sheet with the Dremel. I glued everything together, and cut another piece of wood as a plug behind the photo. After finishing all the edges and putting a nice seal on the wood, I cleaned up the glass, put in the picture, and staple-gunned the plug in.

One thing I wish I had done differently is put more than one hanger on it. As it is, I have to put sticky tack on the back to keep it straight on the wall – or else perfectly balance all my notes and magnets on each side! Learn something new every project...

Typography Tuesdays: Prada Alphabet Tees

One of my favorite things about being back on the blogwagon is that I get to post another Typography Tuesday! And this week I have these lovely alphabet shirts from none other than Prada to feature.

Prada paired up with design team M/M in Paris to create the "Pradalphabet," and now they have released a set of six t-shirts – the letters P-R-A-D-A and M (for Milan...I guess there's two different A's) – the idea being that it creates an "ephemeral logotype" for the clothier.

The shirts come with a cool little book about the alphabet. And, they will do a custom tee with a different letter on a Prada shirt, made-to-order for quite the fee I'm sure.

Fun with miniatures

I just ran across these photos I took the day we got our new camera. Of course I just started shooting pictures of everything in the house, and Mike has these "collector's sports figurines" (I call them dolls) on his desk.

With all the fun people have been having lately using tilt-shift effects to "miniaturize" things, it's kind of funny to look at the opposite...

"Brain" journal set

I made this a few months ago as a Valentine's Day gift for my husband, who is a writer. At the time it seemed like he had a bunch of kernels for story ideas floating around in his head, but was having trouble sitting down to flesh anything out. I know how creativity and productivity tend to ebb and flow, and sometimes independently of one another, so I just wanted him to have a net to catch all of his thoughts so he could go back to them later when he had the time and inclination.

I decided that instead of giving him a journal, I would make him a set of several mini-journals, for a few reasons: Jotting something down in a small notebook seems less intimidating than sitting down to fill a big blank volume. Carrying one or two of these around in your pocket is much easier than lugging a book, so you're more likely to have one on you when a thought strikes you. And, he could organize his thoughts by having separate books for different stories/ideas/subjects, and still have one place to keep them all.

Incidentally, the previous year, Mike had had some migraines and our doctor took the precaution of having an MRI done. (He's fine – they were stress-related, of course.) So, he is the proud owner of an image of his actual brain! I sneaked some shots of it for the case – it seemed natural for a box that houses his thoughts.

When I gave it to him, he exclaimed, "It's an encyclopedia of my brain!" :-) Of course, I love a good portmanteau, so I now refer to it as his "braincyclopedia."

Hi!(atus)

So it has been a long time since I posted here. (I think it the delay has gone on even longer since I've been avoiding writing the obligatory "I haven't posted in a long time" post. I hate reading those, I hate writing them, yet here we are...)

I suppose the explanation could be that I have been dealing with a cross-country move. We relocated to Dallas, where we were before we moved to Los Angeles two years ago. (In fact, it's where I lived the entire twenty-seven years before that.) Truthfully, I have only been dealing with the logistics of the move for the past couple of weeks; the time before that since our move was decided, I was avoiding writing the "I'm moving to Dallas" post. (While I am beyond happy to be with my friends and family here again, and I do have a fondness for Texas, my feelings about the move have been mixed. In short, I love California, and my friends and family there, too; and – well, it's been about 100º since we got here. Oh, and we had an AWESOME apartment in Santa Monica – tear!)

So, now I'm just going to get both posts I've been avoiding over with, and get back to what we all know and love, namely design made by hand.

And so I don't leave you with a total "housekeeping" post, here's some nifties I've enjoyed recently from Instructables:

Rope Bridge Bookshelf

Turn Signal Biking Jacket

Tetris Ice Cubes

Table(less) Cloth

Coffee-Stained Coffee Table