I am drawn to comfortable, soft accessories from reclaimed materials.
Slippers made from recycled, felted 100% lambswool sweater and recycled leather by Wooly Baby as well as this upcycled slouch bag made from the sleeves of a mens wool dress coat by Betsy & Bess...

August 16, 2010 by Designsquish

Wild blackberries and red salmon berries gathered in Upstate New York, Harriman State Park. I never had salmon berries before.  They are so delicious! Almost as good as or better than raspberries.

July 19, 2010 by Designsquish

Cafe America is an upcycled galvanized steel chain-link chair with stainless steel rod and fasteners by Grain. The chair flat-packs for efficient shipping and storage.  Handmade in the Pacific Northwest, USA.

July 07, 2010 by Designsquish

July 06, 2010 by Designsquish

Old workshop seat.

Coffee table from recycled cable drum.

Chair from old sewing factory.

Pillows from vintage produce sacks.

Images from ArtKraft Furniture and Design.

June 28, 2010 by Designsquish

Chair redesign by Jetske Groot.  Jetske finds old chairs, carefully disassembles them and recycles them into new chairs that reflect their past history. Jetske calls her series “Multiple Family”

June 01, 2010 by Designsquish

Book LED floor lamp. The lamp’s shade opens and closes like the cover of a book. As the shade opens wider, the light shines more brightly, and as it closes, it gradually dims and turns off. Made from recycled aluminum.

Simple, non-toxic, eco-friendly biodegradable coffin!

Eco-friendly chairs made from strawboard. (Strawboard, a formaldehyde-free material made of compressed straw- an alternative to wood particleboard or fiberboard)

Invisible Street Lights designed by Jongoh Lee are in the shape of tree leaves and can be wrapped around tree branches.  During the day, these leaf structures mingle in the tree’s natural leaves, harnessing and storing sunlight. At night, they provide a poetic alternative to streetlights. 

National Design Triennial is on right now at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, New York City.

May 28, 2010 by Designsquish

Scrap wood chair. (Perfect DIY idea)

Skateboard wheels rotating table. (Great idea for reusing skateboard wheels)

Button toy. (Great idea for reusing buttons)

Future Perfect is a good new design store in
Williamsburg and East Village, New York.

May 26, 2010 by Designsquish

Irina paints on old wood boards, closet and wardrobe doors, metal pieces or simply on rocks she finds.  Irina’s paintings remind of Russian Orthodox icons, Avant-garde 1910-1920 and Russian folk art.  She paints portraits of Russian writers, happy couples, books, subjects and objects from villages and dacha life.  Irina says: The objects I paint on are just means of expression but their past affects my paintings. I find them in the garbage ...or they find me.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, portrait. 2004. Oil on reclaimed wood. From “Russian Writers” series.

Requiem. Series of portraits. 2000-2001. Oil on wood

Nikolai Semyonovish Leskov, portrait. 2004 from “Russian Writers” series.

Sugar. 2002. Oil on found metal.

Beloved vegetable garden. 1995. Oil on wood.

May 10, 2010 by Designsquish

Reused shipping crate shelves / drawers by Linda Jose.  Furniture designed to reuse shipping crates.

May 08, 2010 by Designsquish

Sculpture by Michel de Broin made from discarded batteries.

April 19, 2010 by Designsquish

Reused shipping crate wood for shelves, glasses and cups from grandma’s garage, flea market or thrift store and a few handmade ceramic bowls.
Done!

Image found on beautiful blog by Anna Rikje, photographer and musician from Germany currently living in New York City -  I Truly Like That.

March 30, 2010 by Designsquish

Sets of mismatched dining chairs. Life becomes much easier with mismatch!  Photos from Emma Blog, unpolished Life and Apartment Therapy.

March 10, 2010 by Designsquish

I was excited to find these great “Recycled Banner Golden Mean Messenger Bags”  DIY instructions a la Freitag bike messenger bags.  (Can be made under $5 !!!!!!!!!!!!!). Comfortable, light, tough billboard sign material (waterproof). To view instructions please visit: EEIO Golden Mean messenger bag instructions
In stores, nice bike messenger bags can be $200. Making your own not only saves money but also is good for environment.  I just saw a truck driver discard a big piece of truck tarpaulin and now it is lying on the street waiting to be made into bags.

March 03, 2010 by Designsquish

Flower baskets made from old apple and wine crates.

February 02, 2010 by Designsquish

Reusing plastic and wooden shipping crates as shelves and drawers.

Above: Apple crates from Bailey’s Home and Garden

Reusing plastic crates as chairs and coffee tables.

Reusing shipping crates as baskets for bikes.

Above: Bike photographs from Bakfiets en Meer blog - City Cycling News and Opinions from Amsterdam.

Above: Shipping crate as bike basket.  Image from Toronto bike blog - Globe Revolution - Inspiring Everyone to a Cycling Lifestyle

January 19, 2010 by Designsquish

Above:  Chairs by StudioMama

January 14, 2010 by Designsquish

Above: Images of bird illustrations wallpaper found on Katy Elliott Blog

DIY: newspaper, old book pages, drawings and illustrations as wallpaper.  ( Caution:  newspaper yellows with time.)

January 06, 2010 by Designsquish

Pillows made from recycled suit-jackets by Hilary Cosgrove.

January 04, 2010 by Designsquish

Recycled map envelopes by DIREKTRECYCLING.
(Good DIY idea too.)

by Designsquish

December 16, 2009 by Designsquish

Chair made from recycled , reused fabric pieces /  discarded scraps. By Fernando and Humberto Campana from Brazil.

October 19, 2009 by Designsquish

Reusing old buttons as fridge magnets. By Skin and Tonic Too.



Rings made with old vintage buttons. Found in Red Chair Antiques shop.

October 12, 2009 by Designsquish

An Earthship is a type of home made of natural and recycled materials.  Earthships designed by Earthship Biotecture  and are built from 45% recycled materials - tires, bottles, cans.  Earth-filled tires utilize thermal mass construction to naturally regulate indoor temperature. Earthships also usually incorporate their own special natural ventilation system.



Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources - energy from the sun, rain. For example, windows on the sunny side admit light and heat, and the buildings are often horseshoe-shaped to maximize natural light and solar-gain during winter months. Likewise, the thick, dense outer walls provide effective insulation against summer heat.
Internal, non-load-bearing walls are often made of a honeycomb of recycled cans joined by concrete and are referred to as tin can walls. These walls are usually thickly plastered with stucco.

The Earthship costs next to nothing to operate annually and is independent of all municipal utilities.  Earthship Biotecture has a building prototype that harvests its own electricity and water; contains and treats its own sewage;  and heats and cools itself without fuel and produces a significant amount of food.

August 02, 2009 by Designsquish

Bags from re-purposed, recycled coffee sacks!  Lined with a soft unbleached cotton. by Mayamade. 

May 31, 2009 by Designsquish

I love lighting made from old teacups and milk bottles! (as you already could have guessed from my previous blog postings)  I found this teacup chandelier by Domestic Construction and this milk bottle chandelier by Bonne Plat on the Conversation Pieces Blog - blog about finding neat, sweet and unusual items in junk and charity shops, online, and everywhere else in between.

May 17, 2009 by Designsquish

Book shelves made from old books - http://www.littlefishfurniture.com/.

May 05, 2009 by Designsquish

The wall of a beautiful housewares store Vessel in Boston is made with…...shipping pallets. Nice way to reuse old shipping pallets.

April 24, 2009 by Designsquish

1. Chandeliers by Madeleine Boulsteix are made from old tea cups, jewelry, beads, marbles and kitchen utencils.

2. Droog Design Chandelier made from milk bottles.

by Designsquish

Recently I started making my own bags from recycled leather and reused materials. Image above is the first bag I made out of small ripped leather purse and old leather skirt.  I added leather material from old skirt to the bottom of the purse.  The image below is a bag I made from ripped fake leather bag I actually found in the garbage. I fixed the bag I found in the garbage and sewed on white silk flowers that came from old jacket.

February 10, 2009 by Designsquish