I haven’t had much of what a person would consider down-time in recent weeks. We’re up at 5 and work pretty steady until nightfall and I’m lucky to make it to 10 p.m. without crashing. We’ve had a lot of rain the last several days (snow on Saturday believe it or not) and one day it rained hard enough that I got a few minutes in between baking bread to search the web for interesting articles and projects.
I am all about repurposing objects in useful or interesting ways. I’m drawn to higher quality end products though. I’m not big on the whole ‘look at this milk crate as a chair’ sort of deal. Not to knock people who are happy with that, it’s just not my style. There are so many really creative processes that can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, why settle for mundane?
I was delighted then, to come across these wonderful products of repurposing. There is a whole page of interesting items created from cardboard on Inspiration Green. Some are practical, some are decorative, but I think you’d have to agree they are truly incredible in their approach to reusing cardboard. My personal favourites are the works of Domingo Tortora and of Sanserif Creatius (particularly the Moroccan style table). The cardboard office by designers Joost van Bleiswijk and Alrik Koudenburg is incredible too.
I also came across the work of Gülnur Özdağlar and her two daughters, producing under the name of name of tertium non data (Latin for “the third is not given”). They recycle plastic bottles into incredible works of art. My favourites among their extensive collection is the aquatics line. There is a tutorial online for those interested in producing their own artwork at instructables.com, though I expect it takes a long while to reach the level of skill to produce works of art such as those from tertium non data.
How perfectly wonderful. I have already asked Shane to start collecting cardboard for me. I’ll stockpile it in the shop and when winter rolls around and I have some time, I’ll have to try my hand at cardboard furniture. Maybe tiles too, for a backsplash in the kitchen though I’m still leaning towards hand painting my own clay tiles. And if there’s time still after that, I might just see what I can do with some of the plastic bottles in our collection.
Hmmm, I would want to be very sure that I wasn’t breathing in a whole lot of dioxins, furans, and other toxic nanoparticles from the process of melting plastics. What research has been done to prove these crafty ideas are safe?
I’d assume if a person was concerned they could wear the appropriate PPE.
Holy Pooper!
that is now what I was expecting to see at all. That really is art!
There is a facebook group that is called Recycling?? I think, I can not see the link now but that is because Facebook.. sucketh!
Exactly, right? Beautiful work, I can’t wait until I have enough time to try some of the ideas myself. How’ve you been man? Keeping busy?
now = Not.. silly spell check..
http://www.facebook.com/ReUseConnection
ReUseConnection
There are really some great things here as well, that other site is very impressive. Thank you for posting that.
As it happens I am a cardboard furniture maker! Here’s my website – http://www.mueblesarte-sano.net. I’m working on a children’s line now, and have like a million more designs in the wings. It’s hard work but it is a lot of fun.
That green site is so cool – the bottle walls are amazing!!
[...] also been collecting a good amount of paper and cardboard for sheet mulching, papercrete, and some projects I would like to eventually get to when the building is [...]