Recycle or regret?

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Zipper8Lighting 

unconsumption:

More map reuse, via ps-imadethis, who decoupaged maps onto a tray, an old dinner plate, and the bottom of a leftover plastic food container.

How-to:

Cut your maps in circles, long strips, or simply cover the entire surface. Be sure to cut slits on the paper so it can easily bend around the curved edges, keeping lines flush against surface.  Once the paper is in place, then grab your paint brush and go to work! I suggest 2-3 coats for the [Mod Podge]. Put on evenly, and wait until each layer is dry until slapping on another coat.

unconsumption:

Don’t you love that this use for paintbrushes not only spruces up the outside of a vase (or an empty jar or can), but still enables you to use the paintbrushes?

It’s a clever way to store art or office supplies such as brushes, pencils, pens, and rubber bands.

(via DudeCraft)

unconsumption:

It’s wine o’clock (somewhere!) — which means it’s time to share a wine-related repurposing find …

Today, it’s a DIY project: Attach corks to the cover of an electric fan, to make a mobile or a lamp.

With the addition of a lamp cord set (mentioned previously here), such a creation could be used as a lighting fixture or “chandelier,” as maker Mox & Fodder says.

For tutorial, see Mox & Fodder’s post here.  

For earlier items in Unconsumption wine o’clock series of posts, check out the archive here.

unconsumption:

Hundreds of plastic bottles — partially filled with colored water — have a new life as the cover of a parking canopy.

Designer Garth Britzman, of Lincoln, Nebraska, suspended the bottles at slightly different heights so the bottoms form an undulating curve.

Wow.

(via Colossal)

unconsumption:

We love coming across examples of creative reuse of musical instruments, like this use of a cleaned-up old drum — picked up at an Australian “local tip” (landfill site) — as a side table.

(via Design*Sponge)

unconsumption:

Another idea for the garden-related repurposing file:

Old metal wheels — look for them at flea markets — wired together to make edging for a planting bed.

(via This Old House)

unconsumption:

Toronto is one of my favorite North American cities. Even though I haven’t lived in Toronto in more than 15 years, I’ve made several return visits, for business and pleasure, and enjoy keeping tabs on what’s happening there.

Over the past several years, I’ve noticed a handful of examples of creative reuse around town, particularly in restaurants and bars on the west side. 

One such restaurant, Parts and Labour, designed by Castor, features lamps made from fire extinguishers (pictured above) and burned-out fluorescent tubes (shown below); bar stool bases are former truck springs. (photos by Lorne Bridgman, via zagat)

North of Parts and Labour, at a more recently opened place called Kitch, the bar’s constructed from wood reclaimed from a 70-year-old bowling alley. Salvaged stereo speakers are also part of the decor. (photo via Toronto Life magazine)

My brief roundup also includes Bar Neon (pictured below), where original ceilings were exposed after sections of drywall were removed during renovation. There, drinks will be served from an old shipping container (still under construction, from what I gather), and bathroom floors are inlaid with pennies. (photos by Gizelle Lau, via Toronto Life magazine)

Are there other examples that I should know about (and visit)?

unconsumption:

I’m pretty excited that a retrospective of artist Tony Feher’s work is coming to Houston, to the Blaffer Art Museum, during 2012. New Yorkers can look forward to the exhibition, organized by the Blaffer, opening at the Bronx Museum in October 2013.

Like many artists we feature on Unconsumption, Feher sees beauty in everyday things. 

“I think there’s beauty and importance and character in absolutely everyone and everything. A single pebble on a beach is as extraordinary as a mountaintop. I look for the ‘trick’ in materials, that indescribable something that allows me to exploit an object for my own purposes: a reflection of light, a color, a play of density versus transparency, a little something that sets it off.”

The materials Feher uses — bottles, jars, plastic bags, packing materials, coins, beverage crates — reflect our throwaway culture. He emphasizes arrangement over embellishment, allowing the items to transcend their intended purposes.

When you peel the label off a plastic water bottle, you don’t have the trapping of uniform or class that distinguishes it from others. You are rendered to this anonymous generic bottle. Some bottles are too loaded for me, ones that have an identity with the label off. It’s more that I am taking advantage of a thing that was there, and how it feels and what it does with light and condensation. That is what catches my eye, like a sparkly chip of glass on the street.  

Quotes: top, via Des Moines Art Center, where the exhibition just opened; bottom, ArtSlant.

Photos: top and center (jars), via Box Vox; bottom, D’Amelio Gallery.

We seldom see quotidian materials look this beautiful, right?