MUNGO

Dreamiest playhouse of all time...

2010-03-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

... and made out of leftover pieces (by the architect team Haugen/Zohar) from a nearby construction site, no less. I am absolutely staggered by this. I found this on the blog Studio G, and I just LOVE what she had to say about reuse:

"I find, when designing, that often the best ideas come when I have a very narrowed field of requirements rather than a wide open slate. That’s what I think happened here. By re-using materials and controlling cost in an extreme way, this innovative and beautiful design emerged. Do you find that to be true when you design?"

That really encapsulates what I have tried to say sometimes but always garbled it. It is why I think Austin Creative Reuse will be such an inspiring place. And why I think reuse, aside from being good for the planet and all that, also forces us to think creatively and think outside the box and look at things with fresh eyes. Which you are not inspired to do when the world is your oyster and you can buy anything you want at Hobby Lobby, Target or the internet for your project. There I go garbling again, but you know what I mean. Good stuff.

Love these Lampshades!!

2010-03-04T09:43:00.000-08:00

Can you guess the secret behind these groovy, plaid-looking lampshades?? They're made by crossweaving film stock, that's what! BRILLIANT! Find them at ismism designs.

It's TUBE-ular! (groan)

2010-02-20T19:38:00.000-08:00

What an awesome necklace... a tutorial at Cucumbersome for a leather necklace, which is inspired Becky Stern at Craftzine to try it with an old inner tube from her bicycle tire. So cool.

Parchment flowers

2010-02-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

I just discovered this goldmine of eye candy and info on itunes... Etsy podcasts. Except they're really videos... surely there must be another word for them than podcasts, but anyway: they're how-to videos and mini-documentaries about the artists found on Etsy. Really awesome stuff. This was a really neat little how-to on how to make a really simple but great looking parchment flower. You can watch it here but do hasten on over to itunes to watch the rest of 'em if this sort of things lights your fire as it does mine. I tell you I'm in heaven.

Woven basket o' maps

2010-02-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

I've been excited about making baskets lately. I'm trying to learn all these skills so I can apply them to all the random assortment of materials that we're going to be fiddling around with when Austin Creative Reuse is up and running. This is a great little tutorial found over at Craftzine.com.

Rulers rule

2010-02-02T19:03:00.000-08:00

Awesome art by Lizzie Thomas, found at Handmade Charlotte.

TP tube dioramas

2010-01-17T19:11:00.000-08:00

By Anastassia Elias. Found at Craftzine.com. I LOVE this!!

Piet Hein Eek

2010-01-09T18:35:00.000-08:00

I can't read this fella's website 'cause it's in dutch, but I sure love his furniture and stairs and stuff made out of reclaimed materials. Found at handmade charlotte.

May come in handy for your New Year's resolutions...

2009-12-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

Exorcise your collection of outdated, scratched cds.... exercise those tired old dogs or guns or whatever they're calling biceps these days.... do both at the same time by making a dumbbell out of old cds. It's easy as can be, check it out here at Daily Danny.

Toy Tin Drum

2009-12-28T18:02:00.000-08:00

Really awfully cute. Made from any sort of old large-ish can. Tutorial at Bloesem Kids: Bookhou Crafts.

Oh Martha, you're just SO recycle-y!

2009-12-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

A snowflake made from six pack tops! No way! Found here.

The holidays are all about... groovy uses for TP tubes

2009-12-22T21:37:00.000-08:00

Garland found at Cider and Faun, and

this cool snowflake ornament is at Her Cup Overfloweth. Both were found by me at the Crafty Crow.

Get figgy with it!

gift bag, schmift bag....

2009-12-16T18:39:00.001-08:00

Why buy one when you can whip one up in a jiffy? Find out how over at Junk Mail Gems.

Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin....

2009-12-14T22:05:00.001-08:00

... Clementine.... Can you guess the origin of this lovely retro yet seasonal little chapeau? Oh how I love Bitter Betty, so good.

So so SO many ideas...

2009-12-12T18:02:00.000-08:00

... for making good use of your fabric scraps, at Sew Mama Sew. These and many many more, check it out!

Can-tab chain mail

2009-12-10T07:15:00.001-08:00

Oh my... I'm a little turned off by the sports insignia and the idea that this guy probably drank all the beer in each can responsible for each tab himself, but who am I to be dismissive of this fine lad and his meticulous skills. Maybe he got all these tabs drinking Tab with his church group. I actually am coveting the chain mail a lot myself, simply because I think my kids would dig it. Suddenly imagining myself scavenging a whole lotta tabs.... if only for the head piece... Found at makezine.com.

Yet MORE fun with pallets!

2009-12-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

My gosh those things are useful. Why not whip yourself up a li'l ol' playhouse... the kids'll love it. Found at the (forever bountiful) Instructables.com.

Bella luce

2009-12-06T19:59:00.000-08:00

Saw this photo of a cool lighting idea at Il Sogno Osteria in San Antonio and thought I'd share.

Egg carton flowers

2009-12-02T19:14:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited about this oh-so-simple and extremely beautiful creation made from... you'll never guess it... plain old average egg cartons. Another great project for kids and adults alike. Thanks again to the awesome peops over at craftzine.com.

Kaleidoscopic, baby!

2009-12-02T18:59:00.001-08:00

This is really cool. I've oft wanted to do make kaleidoscopes with the kid makers and tinkerers that I work with sometimes, but I've never seen a project that seemed quite manageable enough to do with nine year olds. But this one definitely is, and it's all reuse, to boot! Find yourself an old cd case, a yogurt lid, and a few other odds and ends, and you're in business. Found at makezine.com.

Reuse for the holidays

2009-12-02T18:45:00.000-08:00

Oh MY yes, please please do and do NOT buy cheap, tacky, plastic crap from Hobby Lobby or Target or wherever to make your season merry. Not when you can make your own cheap, tacky, plastic crap! Well, it's cheap and it's plastic anyway.... More ideas for reuse wreaths at Alphamom. I especially like the white one made from plastic milk jugs... it looks so nice you'd almost think she bought it at Target for $19.99. Found at craftzine.com.

Oh, and check out this wonderful advent calendar (made from toilet paper tubes, no less) at maya*made.

Great article on dumpster diving

2009-11-28T18:29:00.000-08:00

Found at Craftzine.com. Check it out!

Scrap-wood table!

2009-11-28T18:24:00.000-08:00

I really really REALLY need to make this table. Found at www.instructables.com

Security pattern envelopes

2009-11-21T12:32:00.000-08:00

I saw this over at Maya Made and I thought of you! Very cool.

Flowers

2009-11-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

There was this cool photo of some sort of crazy chandelier at

Anthropologie in London on the blog
Give Me One Good Raisin.

I didn't have very colorful bottles to try it with but they look kind of nice with the light shining through them. There's a world of possibility with this idea... I like it.

Austin Creative Reuse... our first event!

2009-11-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

This was so exciting... putting our idea out to the good people of Austin, turning people on to this awesome vision and igniting this little spark of excitement that's going to keep this project blazing on towards completion!This meeting was to kind of to explain more to people what this reuse resource center is going to be like, how it's going to operate... and telling people more about how this model is very well established in places like Oakland, Chicago, New York City.... there's at least twenty of them in the U.S. Austin is so ripe and ready for a place like this.... it's pretty much a no-brainer. Our event was really well attended and people were excited! My assignment was to lay out a simple reuse project. I decided to do this marble labyrinth game.... I can't even tell you how excited I became seeing what people came up with. So excited that it's a little bit ridiculous. But there it was, what I have been dreaming of this whole time... people creating, having fun, and using all these scraps and odds and ends to boot... well, there just ain't one thing wrong about that. Austin Creative Reuse in action.

Austin Creative Reuse, dudes!!

2009-10-30T22:46:00.000-07:00

The eagle has landed! Come find out more about this scintillating new project on Thursday November 5th at AAMP at 411 W. Monroe. 7pm. Artists, teachers, makers of things, crafty folks, curious onlookers, anyone and everyone is welcome. More info at http://www.austincreativereuse.org/.

More fun with pallets

2009-10-22T20:42:00.000-07:00

.... or you could also build a playhouse, a compost bin, or chicken coop.... get on with you now, go to it. These things are golden.

Squirrels be Damned

2009-10-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

They'll have a devil of a time getting their little paws on this bounty. This is so cool... easily made with a soda bottle and a wooden bowl (or heck, it doesn't even have to be wooden) found at a thrift store or whatevah.

From design*sponge, found through Craftzine.com.

Tiny Pallet Houses

2009-10-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

You know those ubiquitous wooden shipping pallets... made out of cheap wood... often seen discarded at the side of the road? Well this smart feller started this blog outlining how to build a whole house out of 'em. In the wake of Katrina he was feeling a wee bit annoyed about people not having places to live and stuff. Just a wee bit.

Hooray! I get so excited when people can build something so necessary and useful (and seemingly unattainable, even) out of a perfectly reasonable, plentiful resource, which it is our common practice at the moment to discard.

Wow... I just had a vision of how the world will shift... when we move away from further depleting our natural resources and open our eyes to these abundant materials right before us. We'll be like Pa Ingalls looking ravenously out at the fruited plains and thick forests of the West... exceptin' it's mungo that we'll be building our houses and chicken coops and cars out of... there's certainly enough to here to last us for a few hundred years....

Quite a Light

2009-10-01T19:20:00.001-07:00

Created by this guy. Found at Craftzine.com

Mandala... made from plastic bottle caps!!

2009-09-25T20:45:00.000-07:00

Yup, yup, that's PRETTY darn cool alright...

Found this browsing around the M.E.C.C.A. site (Material Exchange Center for Community Arts)(it's the Mungo of Eugene, OR, don't you know) and I'm LOVING it. Kinda makes me want to move back to my homeland...

I've seen the future, and it will be...

2009-09-19T20:42:00.000-07:00

...to quote Prince...

I am completely and utterly overjoyed by this discovery I made last night... earthships. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the direction we are going in! These houses are completely sustainable, they are built out of old tires and cans but look AMAZING, this really gives me hope that the future is not grim and Mad Max but instead just this whole other phase where we really raise our consciousness and live in tune with the earth.

I want to build one of these immediately, like right now, TODAY! Got any tires to give me?

Tin Can Mania

2009-09-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

My friend gave me this huge box of formula cans and they've just been sitting there kind of mouldering in my tinkering area... I decided today that it's high time I figure out what I was going to do with them, if I wasn't planning on chucking them in the recycling,which I must admit was tempting considering the rabid de-cluttering zest I was seized with today. Luckily I managed to stay those chucking impulses and search Google first, and as per usual my search yielded many fascinating reuse ideas.

One which you may well know is a tin can luminary. You fill your can with water, freeze it, and then go to town with a hammer and nail punching in the pattern of your choosing. You can do it simple or oh-so-fancy. This is quite fun and a very fun gift to make with, say, a 9 year old boy who might enjoy bashing the nails into the can.
Another result found was from, specifically, formula cans, and it was this amazing house in Patagonia, weatherproofed with the cans... cut through and flattened into sheets. You can read more about it here.

And this game a fellow made, it's really hilarious... I'll absolutely have to give this a try, because my little fellows would sure love it: it involves stretching a balloon over the mouth of a tin can, setting them all in a row, and rolling a little marble or large ball bearing down a little ramp so that it

goes bing, bang, boing, bouncing across the little rubber trampolines. You have to see the little movie of it, you can watch it here.

Last but not least, you can make an absolutely fabulous hobo stove in about 5 minutes with nothing more than a can, a can opener, a knife, and some scissors. Watch the how-to-make video here.

Oh tin can, you contain multitudes. Of reuse-itudes (So sorry, I simply couldn't resist).

Streamers for your bike handles

2009-09-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

... made out of a silvery chip bag, of which we have plenty. I'm trying to think of other uses: one of those solar blankets you use when you're lost in the wilderness? Or... you could make a whole skirt out of the streamers, for your Halloween costume as a outer space hula girl? Certainly use these rather than buy tinsel for your Christmas tree... Any other ideas?

My hero Dan Phillips in the New York Times!

2009-09-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

This man is one of my biggest inspirations... he builds homes with (with, not just for!) low income folks in Huntsville, TX out of the scraps and leavings from other construction companies (along with other choice bits like the picture frame samples lining the ceiling in this photo, as well as wine bottle corks, bottlecaps, bones, and license plates) and fashions them into beautiful, original, and inspiring homes... read the NYT article here.... re-live Mungo's visit with the man here...

My nifty new journal

2009-09-03T08:13:00.000-07:00

You know how sometimes you have a little (or big) mental block against something? And then you finally finally finally after many months (or years!) make yourself do it, and then it's so much easier (though occasionally much much harder) than you thought? Well, that was my relationship between me and my nifty new journal.

I've had this book, How to Make Books by Esther K. Smith for about a year now... It's a FABULOUS, inspiring book... it finally inspired me to use this torn off old cover from a beloved (early) Richard Scarry book... All I had to do was clamp the cover and pages to a table, drill three holes, and then easy peasy, stitch it up in this very basic way.... it really only took half an hour, probably. And considering all the bucks I have spent on blank books over the years... and the fact that now I can make them oh-so completely custom-made and to-my-liking.... I'm actually almost wishing this one weren't quite so fat and full of pages, so I could make myself another, sooner. I guess I could get right on it with the Christmas gift making.... yes, that would be organized of me, wouldn't it....

Mungo visits Eastside Showroom....

2009-08-30T08:55:00.001-07:00

... and finds loads of gorgeous refurbished mungo in full effect! We were totally dazzled by the beer tap... see it at right of the first photo... which I foolishly thought at first was a real periscope from an old submarine, until my husband clued me in... it's an old milk jug turned upside down. Halved wine casks store the wine, and there's countless other fascinating little details... I believe much of which is the very definition of steampunk... all the furniture and design was done by the owner, Micky Danae Spencer (more of her work can be found at www.danaedesign.org) and she was even sitting at the counter when we visited and was totally friendly and welcoming.
This place totally knocked my socks off, and TO BOOT, all the food was sourced totally locally! We didn't eat there, just had a beer, but we will be back. I can't tell you how tickled I am that this place exists on our very own East 6th Street... what a lucky girl am I. For more about Eastside Showroom visit www.eastsideshowroom.com

Oh. My. Lord.

2009-08-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well you know me and how excitable I am but this really is something to shout about. I can't even believe it... and in Luling, TX, to boot, a mere hour away from me! You can betch yer bottom dollar I'm gonna go out there in the next few weeks and confer with this fine fella. Thanks SO much reader Angel for turning me on to this!
I'll just let Brad Kittel explain this in his own words... and now without further ado... Tiny Texas Houses:

My goal is to show people what can be done with a concept I call Salvage Building, thus what you see is 99% Pure Salvage. That means that everything from the doors, floors, windows, lumber, porch posts, glass, door hardware, and even the siding has been saved and re-used to create houses that we hope will last for a century or more. I believe that there are presently enough building materials sitting on the ground to build much of the next generation

of housing. All it takes to make it so is pure human energy, spirit, and the desire to build something that will last for several lifetimes.

I also believe we don't need as much space as we have become accustomed to in this country. Therefore I have created Tiny Texas Houses to demonstrate just how

great it can be to downsize our

carbon footprint, simplify our lives, and live in a house with a soul that will be energy efficient as well as beautiful. Please join me for a tour of what we can create from what so many have chosen to throw into landfills. After a generation of having it all and wasting so much, perhaps it is time to consider keeping it small and preserving what we have before we waste more of our limited resources. Please check back as I unveil my ideas for a simpler world built from the past with the best trees we ever grew, the best hardware we ever made, and the best ideals we once had when we lived life in a different way.

No Impact Man

2009-08-27T06:05:00.001-07:00

Big Box Reuse

2009-08-24T20:39:00.001-07:00

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, December 2008: From Kentucky to California, the construction of tens of thousands of big box stores over the past few decades has transformed the American landscape. What happens when one of these stores goes bust or moves to a super-sized retail center a few miles down the road? Right now communities across the country are confronted with the challenge of repurposing these enormous physical structures, their acres of parking lot, and the accompanying network of roadways. Intrepid artist and writer Julia Christensen traveled all over the United States to discover the surprising story of how some of them have creatively met that challenge. Big Box Reuse--an appropriately big, square book--describes in words, photographs, and building plans the reincarnation of 10 former retail behemoths into facilities ranging from an indoor raceway and a Spam museum to a health center, library, and charter school. In each case study, Christensen documents and reflects deeply on the big box transformation with respect to each locale's particular socio-economic, political, and cultural history. Big Box Reuse presents "outside the box" thinking on American culture and commerce, community activism, and savvy and sensible redesign of our built environment. --Lauren Nemroff

Hutopolis

2009-08-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

What happens when you combine a crowd of bored and potentially unruly teenagers with a bunch of timber slabs and scraps from the local saw mill over two weeks in July? Hutopolis, that's what.

Gosh, that just makes me want to flat-out bawl. Just a bunch of stuff that was going to be thrown out anyway, and can you imagine how fun and absorbing and enriching that was for them? Hot damn. Makes me want to build my own little -opolis right this very minute.

Clothes Swap!

2009-08-23T19:07:00.000-07:00

And speaking of fabulous re-use occasions, I was lucky enough to get to go to the fabulous annual Back-to-School Clothes Swap that Kathie and Bernadette of Future Craft Collective launched last year. What a beautiful, beautiful, very beautiful thing... not only is it so very useful and common-sensical and FUN to swap clothes rather than buy a whole new wardrobe, but they've even instituted a whole new element that makes it ten times cooler by having on-site silk screeners and seamstresses there to tailor and customize the clothes of the past into YOUR clothes of the FUTURE!! Isn't that so AWESOME?!? And all totally and completely for FREE?!? I tell you , in our brave new world, this will be happening everywhere, all across the world, to the great joy and inestimable financial savings of all.

And speaking of Future Craft Collective, have I told you lately that I love them? They are so incredibly brilliant. All summer long they had a weekly tutorial over at Craftzine.com, and the ideas were so so good. I hate to diss, but for a year or so now I have been waiting with baited breath for Amanda Blake Soule's book Handmade Home: Simple Ways to Repurpose Old Materials into New Family Treasures. Absolutely LOVED her first book, The Creative Family. This second one, I was surprised to find a little 'meh'. Especially after all these brilliant, innovative, fun and outside-the-box projects each week from FCC. They will have a book someday I'm sure and it's going to knock everyone's socks off. My breath is now baited!

Messenger bag

2009-08-22T16:27:00.001-07:00

This is so cool... it's a no-sew messenger bag made by ironing together plastic bags! It seems really simple to make... I'm excited to try the fusing plastic process.

Found at www.instructables.com

Woot!

2009-08-21T20:08:00.000-07:00

I was just checking in at the wonderful reuse blog Give Me One Good Raisin and heard tell of a completely Mungo-esque business in London called Fabrications. Be still my beating heart! This woman takes the castoffs bits from local businesses and transforms them with a plethora of textile skills ranging from tatting to knitting to sewing and more. Check out her space... isn't it divine? She teaches loads of classes on all of the above, and above all else what brings tears of joy to my eyes are the wonderful and fun ideas and events...
the Rethink Rubbish kits for sale, the "Not Another Rubbish Christmas" gift wrapping service during the holidays, and the Wool-n-Dance,
..."The “Wool-N-Dance” is a dance floor with a difference - it's slippery and wet!
Dance to the rhythm of live music and fuse 100% British wool fibres into a giant carpet underfoot in all weather conditions.
Get moving, exercising and doing serious work but most importantly enjoying it!"
So fabulous... this is really the spirit that I want Mungo to have. Not grimly staving off environmental armageddon by making do and doing without, but enjoying what we have and using it all with creativity, ingenuity, community, joy, brilliance, festivity, revelry!

Paperwork

2009-08-21T19:56:00.000-07:00

This is so cool. After accidentally leaving a book out in the rain, Hannah Lobely stumbled upon this new approach to working with paper. She takes old catalogs, phone books, and other unwanted books and creates them into a block of wood-like material, and then shapes them using woodworking tools. Beautiful....

Found at handmade charlotte.

Fantasy Mungo locations

2009-08-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

OOooooOOOOooooooOOOOOooooo.... I don't know if it really serves any purpose to start salivating over locations at this juncture but I just photographed some buildings over here on the east side that I've always lusted after... Both of them are actually occupied. But aren't they so BEAUTIFUL lookin'? And so ideal for our purposes. They're both huge and inviting with great style and even a loading/unloading area, and land/open space attached, too.

Strangely enough I just realized that I have seen them both used as locations on Friday Night Lights, too.
That second building has the most beautiful lemon yellow/ aqua patina of weathered and worn away paint. My husband and I have always commented on how much we love that building. It's Mungo-riffic!

Forage!

2009-08-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

Jon Bok

2009-08-02T12:37:00.000-07:00

I just found these images of Jon Bok's amazing pieces in this book, Lost and Found: Decorating with Unexpected Objects, but of course he's got a website too. These dressers are done over with can lids and license plates and detergent boxes and bottle caps. The one in the second picture, with a face, those drawer pulls are made with chrome-trimmed Cadillac tail lights!

2009-08-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

All this amazing stuff and more found on Sheebeezies.com... thanks for the heads up, Bernadette !

The gentle art of tea bag folding

2009-08-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

... I tell you, there is a use for everything in this world, it's amazing! There are sites and sites devoted solely to the art of folding the little wrappers from whence you pluck your tea bag every morning. OK, I think most of the pictures on the site are made with origami paper, but it really is called tea bag folding and it's a fab use for those little foil squares, which you chuck 365 of into the trash each day if you have a cup of tea each morning, 730 actually considering there are two squares to each bag... 16, 060 actually if you have two cups of tea a day... OK the numbers are really getting astronomical here, have I convinced you yet? You could make some truly awesome art, just click here to begin.

And then there's Netflix origami, too....

For the aggro among us...

2009-08-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

... what better way to channel that rage and rawr energy than the Cardboard Tube Fighting League in SF. Start one in your own hometown... we all need an outlet and it looks like a lot of fun.

LOVE this...

2009-08-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

... and can't wait to make one of my very own. An ultra simple skirt made out of two T-shirts. From the looks of it even someone with my Neandrathal-like skills at the sewing machine would be able to whip one up in one evening. Instructions are here, and thanks once again to the omniscient Rachel Hobson!

Shoesies

2009-08-01T20:04:00.000-07:00

These shoes made from felted wool sweaters, are the dangerous kind of adorable that might tempt you to have one, two, what the heck three more babies just so they could all be shod in these, the cutest shoes on earth. I think I will have to buy a pair for the tiny human who lives in my house, but which? How on earth could I choose? They're all quite seriously to die for. From Wooly Baby.

Make Mine Mungo

2009-07-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

I've been simply mad for Mungo lately, and why wouldn't I be? It's lovely stuff, besides which, for one, I've received some lovely encouragement from overseas: Give Me One Good Raisin, a fabulous reuse blog stationed in England, came across li'l ol' Mungo and lavished us with praise, and that was so fun and exciting and flattering.

And, for two, you'll never believe it but (drum roll please) Mungo is poised to become a reality sometime soon, sometime really really soon, in the next year or so, probably. I've been hesitant to crow about it for fear I'd put the cart before the horse as they say, but it appears to really be barrelling along, picking up momentum and no earthly reason why it should stop. I'm teaming up with Lisa Stevens of GaGa and some other great folks and it really looks like we're really on our way, HOORAY!

And in the mean time, art from old blocks and some T-shirt yarn...

and click here for my original vision for Mungo, if you don't know....
Of course now it is a shared vision and I am so happy for it to be thus... but it was this little vision that started this blog going and got this ball rolling and gosh gee you just have to say that you can really, really manifest some cool, cool stuff if it is your desire to do so... I am utterly amazed, myself.

Reuse ideas for the egg carton

2009-07-28T20:13:00.001-07:00

All these ideas and more were found at www.tutztutz.com.

Six pack hammock

2009-07-25T10:29:00.000-07:00

I tried to scan the instructions for this out of the (fabulous, inspiring) Play Book by Steven Caney, but the print comes out just too indiscernably tiny so I'm going to do you the enormous favor of typing it all out. That's right, I'm that committed. Because summer's already halfway over and you're going to have to get a move on if you want to gather up the 75 six pack carriers necessary for this relaxing little contraption. So here goes... might as well pop a brewskie while you read... you're going to need to drink a lot of 'em:

Before you decide to build the SIX PACK HAMMOCK, be sure you have a place to hang it. There are no absolute rules about distances between hanging points or height off the ground. If you are going to make your own hammock, it can be constructed to fit the space you have. The most popular place to hang a hammock is between two trees. You can also use a single tree in combination with a strong anchoring place like a house or a large post sunk into the ground. If you look hard enough, you will almost always find a sturdy hanging point. To hang the hammock, use large screw eyes at the attaching points and mount them about five or six feet above the ground. Screw eyes can be put directly into a tree without harming it. The actual height of the hammock is easily adjusted, but you still might want to have a helper and yourself hold the hammock in position to be sure your hanging points are properly placed.

MATERIALS

at least 75 plastic six-pack carriers

clothesline

2 wood sticks

2 metal rings

2 "S"-hooks

TOOLS

scissors

saw

drill and 5/16-inch bit

CONSTRUCTION

First detrmine the size of the hammock you are going to make. If you have selected a place to hang the hammock, measure the distance between the two hanging points. The "body" or people part of the hammock should be about half that dimension. The harness that supports the hammock at either end will take up the rest of the length.

A good two- or three-kid size hammock (as shown in the photograph) can be made from ninety six-pack carriers--- nine across and tehn long. You can collect the six pack carriers over a period of time or you might go scavenging around in a campground or a ball park. If you are really in a hurry, a local soda or beer "bottler" who uses six-pack carriers might help you.

The body of the hammock and the harness are both made at the same time by weaving clothesline through the holes in the plastic carriers. The hammock is woven one lengthwise row at a time. Lay out a single row of carriers to the length of the hammock body you want. Place the carriers lengthwise so that their end "circles" interweave and partially overlap.

Cut a length of clothesline cord a few feet longer than the entire length of the hammock (body and harness). Weave the clothesline the length of the row through the holes in the carrier where they overlap. Weave the cord over, through, under, up, over, through, under, up, Fig. 2. Adjust the clothesline so that here are equal lengths of cord at either end.

Continue to add rows of carriers in the same way until the hammock is the width you want. After the last row, weave another length of clothesline through the circles along each of the two outside edge rows.

Lay the hammock flat and square on the floor. To make the "spreaders" --- the devices used to keept hr ropes separate from one another--- find two flat sticks andc ut each of them a few inches longer than the width of the hammock. Place one of the sticks at each end of the hammock body and mark the positions of the ropes on the stick. Drill a hole at each mark down the center of the sticks. The holes should be large enough for the rope to go through easily.

Carefully make a singel loop knot on each cord where it leaves the body of the hammoc. Do this on both sides of the hammock. Place a spreader at each end of the hammock and thread the ropes in order through the holes in the spreaders.

Push the spreaders up against the knots. Using two more lengths of clothesline cord, weave the end circles of the carriers to the spreader sticks. Tie the cord at each end of the stick, Fig. 3.

Gather the cords at one end of the hammock and bring them together at the end. Tie each cord individually to a large ring, being sure to adjust each cord so that the hammock will lie flat on the floor with no cords kinking. Snip off any excess cord ends.

You can hang the hammock directly to the support eye hooks using "S" hooks, or using two more "S"-hooks and two short lenghts of chain, you can make the hammock height adjustable.

The SIX PACK HAMMOCK requires no maintenance and can be used outdoors year round. IT is strong and safe for adults as well as kids.

Reuse in the garden

2009-07-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

I just received this craft o' the day from good ol' Martha and I thought it would be a fine repurposing project.... goodness knows there's loads of old pots lying around. And a water feature in your garden.... how feng shui is that? The instructions for this flower pot fountain can be found here. You could double up on the repurposing and fill this with graywater from your bath (which I'm sure would be plenty clear, unless you've been digging ditches all day).

I thought I'd tack on a few more garden ideas so this post won't seem too paltry. There's a handful of great ideas for what to do with your old leaky garden hose here. And at This Old House I found this lovely photo of a transformed ladder... of course there's no end to the stuff you could stick in your garden for vines to crawl up or for to stack planters upon... and don't even get me started about old bathtubs.... sure, you could fill it with flowers as a marvelous planter but why not hook it up to the water supply, create a nook with hanging plants or tall bamboo for privacy, and bathe outside in the summer, or use it as a kiddie pool... to me an outdoor bath is the very height of luxury, I hope we'll have one someday. I was inspired by this garden by Flora Grubb (who just happens to be my cousin-in-law).... the tub was obviously custom made so it's not reuse, but just go ahead and get inspired by this image, why don't you.... That vertical succulent garden alone is enough to make anyone's eyes start spinning in their head.

Oh my...

2009-07-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

... this is simply astonishing. Shoes, hats, jewelry, and clothing made from wire found inside pre-1980's television sets, by Alison Bailey Smith.

Save $199, 995 when you make your own

2009-07-22T19:33:00.001-07:00

I'm mainly clueless when it comes to things like handbags or accessories of almost any sort, really, so I hadn't heard about the fabulous, most expensive handbag ever, the Hermes Birkin bag, which costs a cool two HUNDRED thousand buckerooskies. An enterprising young crafter made a snarky, stylish and proactive comment on this sad state of affairs by creating her own version of the bag, made mainly out of odds and ends she had laying around the house. The surface is comprised mainly of strips of pages from an Ethan Allen catalog. More on how to make one of your very own here.

groovy wall treatment

2009-07-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Hmm, that's a bit hard to see, but it's magazine pages shredded into strips and then papered onto the wall. I think it's pretty awesome looking, and it kind of explodes the myth that you have to get certified Grade 'A' wallpaper. My mom has one wall in her house that is papered with maps, and an upstairs bathroom done with Far Side cartoons and other entertaining reading for those private moments... she used laundry starch and it's been up there for at least twenty years and looks great... in this instance, found in the book Home Cheap Home: a room-by-room guide to great decorating, they recommend affixing the strips to your wall with a craft glue like Delta Sobo. Allow them to dry overnight, and then brush on an even coat of transparent sealant such as Miniwax Polycrylic. This is in the bathroom, too, so probably in another room of your house, you mightn't not have to bother with the (probably noxious) sealant.

Oh what to do with those many vintage suitcases

2009-07-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that thrift stores abound with the funkiest vintage suitcases... their place in life usurped by so many other lighter and more practical luggage solutions, it's really tragic that the world has not much use for them... that is, until now...

these and other fabulous ideas are found at Jennifer Perkins' blog, Naughty Secretary Club.

Chasing Cheerios also has a cool idea for a child suitcase rehab here.

Play kitchens and dollhouses..

2009-07-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

...Made mainly of Mungo? Where do I sign up?

I've been kind of obsessed lately with these subjects lately, and the book Green Dollhouse has only fueled my fire... (you can also look at their website)...check out this one, Monopoly Manor, which features a shower curtain made out of a Wonder Bread wrapper, scrabble board for floor tiles, and a bathtub cleverly made from a bottle of bathtub cleaner... the possibilities are really endless when it comes to creative dollhouse construction and I'm cooking up a class, for adults this time, that I'll keep you posted about, so stay tuned...

I've also been checking out all these swoon-worthy play kitchens that are cleverly created from items otherwise bound for the dustbin.... OK, OK, that's not necessarily true... this natural wood one above was found at ikeahacker (the other was found here and they're so amazing and they are for sale, and since you probably don't

have access to many gigantic olive oil tins if you're swooning now you may want to shell out some bucks for one) but perusing these homemade play kitchens caused me to realize how totally do-able an utterly adorable homemade/mungo play kitchen would be. You just need some sort of cupboard-y type thing for the base, cut a hole in the top and put a metal bowl in the hole (and I've already done this so I know how now) and you know.... add a backsplash, a shelf, some knobs, paint on burners for a pretend-stove of some sort... whatever you care to dream up.

So, one trip to Blue Hanger and one roadside pick up of an abandoned cupboard later, and I have this-here pile of Mungo just waiting to be transformed... the sad thing is that we don't even need a play kitchen, we already have a play kitchen, but I'm just too obsessed and simply. must. follow this. or my brain might explode. OR something like that, I'm not really sure, but better not risk it.

Cast-offs from the petro industry...

2009-06-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

...transformed into a re-use wonderland for the kiddies? Brilliant!! This is the Geopark in Norway...

Found in Dwell magazine.

2009-06-22T20:19:00.000-07:00

Not that you couldn't make a whole lot of things out of plastic bottles...

2009-06-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

... but a cute little herb garden for your windowsill is a pretty swell idea.

From Craftzine.com

Woodslice walkway

2009-06-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

Is it just me or does anyone else think that wood slices are soooo foxy? I think this looks so amazing. I found it over at Re-nest and they mention that you'd have to use rot resistant wood of course and a solid level base of sand to make it non wobbly, should you choose to make a pathway such as this. But I think you could use it to do some amazing interior stuff too... I'm sure Dan Phillips would use this stuff (and probably has) for a indoor floor or wall, just set in concrete and sealed with somethin'-or-other, and I could imagine making a FINE piece of art with a half-dozen or more slices, don't you think?

I see a lot of piles of wood set out at the curb for the trash man to take, and I'm pretty sure that when it's not specifically 'brushy collection' that's where that wood goes... the trash, the landfill. That ain't right. If you save your wood for brushy collection days, however, it will live another life as mulch and then back to the earth it goes, there's a circle of life for you, beautiful. But if you see someone else has been foolish and chucked a bunch of perfectly good wood, you can be like my Dad and snag it for firewood, or you can make something else cool with it, natch.

A hammock made of plastic six-pack rings?

2009-05-31T19:21:00.000-07:00

Hell yeah! I was already planning on making one of these (or I started saving 6 pack tops, anyway)... I wonder if it's an ill-fated venture. Would it actually be comfortable, and would it be attractive or just look like a pile of junk? This one, created by Adam Johnston, sure is aesthetically pleasing, at least...

If you have any 6 pack tops, send 'em my way! I want to mungo-ize them.

And yet I still feel some people take things a tad too far...

2009-05-27T22:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it's not really that it's not a fine idea... but certain combos are just wrong, and simply unnecessary. Toilet paper + worn out in public = wrong. Food + tissues or wipies = downright nauseating. But if you find these items charming (Charmin? ) you can find these and more at RadicalRecycks Etsy page.

Plastic bag basket

2009-05-27T22:16:00.000-07:00

Cool tutorial found over the lucky lady bird craft blog.

Keen's cool reuse shoe!

2009-05-10T12:30:00.001-07:00

Isn't this awesome?? A Keen shoe not only made from recycled Rice paper from Asian factories, but also recycled PU and cork foot beds. I think it's pretty groovy lookin'... More about it here.

As if Maker Faire wasn't cool ENOUGH....

2009-05-06T09:04:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: Maker Faire

May 05, 2009 08:00 ET

Remaking America: Building a Sustainable Future

Nation's Leading Innovators Gather at Maker Faire 2009

Highlighted Links

Maker Faire

SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwire - May 5, 2009) - Maker Faire (www.makerfaire.com), the world's largest do-it-yourself (DIY) festival, is taking place on May 30th & 31st at the San Mateo County Expo Center. This annual gathering of Makers will showcase the country's best innovations in arts, crafts, engineering, food, music, science and technology. This year's theme, "ReMake America: Building a Sustainable Future," is based on President Obama's call to action to participate in a new era of DIY. During his inaugural address, the president spoke about the bedrock of America, citing that it has been "the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things" that has led to our prosperities and freedoms. With that lesson in mind, he is calling on everyone to resume the work that will remake America once again. In an effort to encourage people to participate, here are ten ideas from Maker Faire -- along with ingenious examples from ten Makers -- to show Americans how they too can join the Maker movement by creating their own DIY projects.

TOP 10 IDEAS FOR REMAKING AMERICA:

-- BE RESOURCEFUL: Necessity is the mother of all invention and now, more than ever, is the time to make or fix things instead of buying them:

- Learn how to fix your broken iPod or Apple product yourself by troubleshooting the problem, getting the parts you need and following step-by-step instructions -- iFixit enables you to easily repair devices on your own.

-- CONSERVE ENERGY: Action starts at home by unplugging idle electronics, replacing products with energy efficient ones and subsidizing with natural resources:

- One Maker takes DIY to a whole new level by proving self-sufficiency is possible. Luke Iseman cultivates just about everything he needs to live sustainably -- including using recycled greywater for irrigation, practicing permaculture for food production and inventing a garden controlling system that only waters plants when they need it.

-- ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION: From electric vehicles to innovative bicycles, there are many methods that don't involve gas-powered vehicles:

- Take a ride on the Solar Touring Bike, which allows two riders to travel up to 200 miles per day entirely powered by the sun.

-- REVIVE OUR AGRICULTURAL ROOTS: From urban farming to bee keeping, find more ways to live sustainably through agriculture:

- At the HOMEGROWN Village you can dig in the dirt to connect to the soil -- the source of all good food.

-- PARTICIPATE IN COMMUNITY: Cultivate trades and crafts by engaging with others and sharing knowledge:

- Stop by to see the sophisticated DIY robotics warships of the Western Warship Combat Club (WWCC). These 6-foot-long robotic warships duel to the death in a large, specially built pond with guns that fire CO2-powered steel balls.

-- ENCOURAGE LEARNING: Passing knowledge to future generations ensures that innovation will thrive -- engage students by providing hands-on learning experiences:

- Tom Zimmerman is an inventor, educator and researcher who volunteers at an elementary school, teaching computer animation and robotics, and at a high school, helping students with their science fair projects. His belief that learning can be enhanced when students have something to hold or touch resulted in a barcode system that had students arrange a deck of cards in a sequence to write computer programs.

-- MONITOR USAGE: Be aware of how much energy and natural resources you use on a daily basis to help promote conservation efforts:

- Tweet-a-watt wirelessly manages energy usage by automatically updating daily power consumption to a user's Twitter account.

-- LEND A HAND: Volunteer your time to promote DIY projects in schools and after-school programs:

- Tinkering School is dedicated to developing hands-on building experiences for children of all ages. It offers an exploratory curriculum to help kids learn how to build things by providing a collaborative environment.

-- TAKE RISKS: The entrepreneurial spirit of America is based on the premise of nothing ventured, nothing gained:

-Learn how to do-it-yourself with starter kits that help create your own Jellyfish Art or Cardboard Surfboards.

-- CELEBRATE FAILURES: Failure is an essential key to learning, by sharing mistakes you can help prevent others from making their own -- thus promoting efficient production:

- Mr. Jalopy, a leader in the Maker movement, embodies this fearless spirit -- his trials and tribulations are closely chronicled and watched by others.

For more ideas and additional insight into these DIY principals, please visit the Featured Maker page at http://makerfaire.com/bayarea/2009/makers/.

ABOUT MAKER FAIRE

Maker Faire is being held on May 30 & 31, 2009 at the San Mateo County Expo Center. Started in San Mateo, California in 2006, it has since expanded to Austin and is the premier event for grassroots American innovation. Held annually in each of these locations, the event may expand elsewhere in the future. Maker Faire is supported by Make Magazine, craftzine.com and O'Reilly Media, the premier information source for leading-edge computer technologies. The company's books, conferences and web sites bring to light the knowledge of technology innovators.

More fabulous places to live...

2009-05-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

...that might otherwise might be sitting in a scrap heap. Can you imagine? When you see how it can be used, it seems insane that it is de rigeur to just toss this stuff out.

These houses remind me of the book The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater: "My house is me and I am it. My house is where I like to be and it looks like all my dreams."

2009-05-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

From lowly origins great things spring...

2009-04-30T20:17:00.001-07:00

So style-riffic! And made from cardboard toilet paper tubes, no less!

Found at A Little Hut and Photo JoJo.

More uses for them bottles of plastic

2009-04-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

This house was built in Honduras out of 8 thousand plastic bottles filled with mud and bound together with cement. My gosh I am feeling such an itch to make a structure of some sort like this, at least a teeny tiny one, it almost feels like a no-brainer, but I do have a fear of botching it and creating a horrendous eye sore of some sort in my backyard. But I probably will take a stab at it one of these days.

This next one was built by a math professor in Serbia out of 13,500 plastic bottles and just a little cement! I think we may have stumbled upon the new brick. AND they're all over the place. AND they're free! Forget Home Depot. Go clean up the creek, and build a house out of what you find. It's the wave of the future.

A Solar Powered Toy Car (Handmade) - video powered by Metacafe

All this I found on Ecoble.

Eco-crafts at The Long Thread

2009-04-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

In honor of Earth Day, The Long Thread had a whole bunch of tutorials about crafting green and re-using materials to get crafty and all that, and they're REALLY fantastic and inspiring. Find them here and here.

I feel kind of like a heel, just collecting these little tidbits off of other blogs. I need to get back to doing some inventing and building my own self. In the meantime, I'll collect here at Mungo only the absolute best for your reusing pleasure. Nothing like this. Blech.

Reusing is great and everything, and plastic bags are ubiquitous, but come on now people. That's revolting.

For your mailing envelope pleasure

2009-04-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

I thought this was rather brilliant. I am loathe to buy mailing envelopes but I'm also not very good at saving ones I've received and squirreling them away... better just to make them on an as-needed basis. And with the ubiquitous brown paper bag, no less.

Found at Crafting a Greener World.

As if living in Hawaii wasn't awesome enough....

2009-04-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

...they went and built a funky house out of all scraps and findings.

This woman inherited some land from her father in Hawaii, but didn't have much money to invest on building a house.... $500!!!!!! That is so inspiring. Let nothing stop you from building the house of your dreams, people, that's even way less than the houses of Dan Phillips.

I know it's a little small to see clearly, but one main wall is made from wine bottles set in concrete, the steps are made from old windsurf boards, and the crowning eclectic touch is that their bed is in the flatbed of an old pickup truck.

Brilliant. If you inherit land in Hawaii, let nothing stop you from moving there pronto.

This from the pages of Dwell magazine, house built by Chelsea and Bill Kohl.

airplane reuse

2009-04-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

Don't chuck that old aircraft! There's plenty of life in the little lady yet.

what to do with those darn sody pop bottles?

2009-04-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

Why build a house of course!

They built this in Brazil, more about it here.

And of course there's plenty to object to that these exist at all in such vast quantities... check out this trailer of a doc about the odious bottled water industry.

Moses and the boats

2009-04-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

My cousin-in-law (not sure if that's a thing... the cousin of my husband?) is asking for donations to get him to Slovenia to continue a project started in upstate New York, building amazing art boats out of reclaimed materials. They were featured in the New York Times, so I'll treat you with some dazzling pictures and then maybe you'll consider frontin' Mosey some money. The letter and info to be found below.

By the by, Moses was with my husband Matt at the party where we met. Actually I started talking to Moses first... he's a cool guy... last seen by me at Maker Faire manning the Life-Size Mousetrap.

Hello,

It's Moses Grubb writing from San Francisco. I hope all is well with you. Here's some news.

Last year I made some major improvements in my life. I've

quit drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes. I have entered into a

relationship with a woman I love deeply and become a stepfather to an incredible kid named Lucky. With love and family I quit drinking without AA. I am very happy and these changes have led to some exciting things.

Here are some pictures of me, Spy, and Lucky.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/actyvo/3331820267/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/themonster/2881944187/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/themonster/2882686736/in/photostream/

Last year I worked in New York on an art project

called "Swimming Cities of the Switchback Sea" which the New York
times called "part floating artwork, part performance, part mobile
utopia." 50 friends consisting of artists, carpenters,
musicians, filmmakers, and seafarers built several boats out of scrap
and recycled junk. We then voyaged 180 miles on the Hudson River

performing a show with the boats as the stage ending in New York City
where we displayed them as part of a greater gallery show of the

artist SWOON at Deitch Projects. You can read more about the project
in this New York Times article and slideshow:

NY Times Article: http://tinyurl.com/5swnka
NY Times Slideshow: http://tinyurl.com/cmuos5

It was an amazing experience that really helped me grow in my craft
and as an artist. We also had a lot of fun and made the people smile.

With the skills I learned growing up in Austin,

I continue my career as a carpenter / builder in
San Francisco and Oakland. Here I started working with artists on

interactive sculpture and performance. Following the successes of last year, I was honored to be invited to participate in the "Swimming Cities of

Serenissima." Reassembling two boats from the Hudson and constructing

a new one on Slovenia's tiny coast near Croatia, we will navigate the

Adriatic Sea into Italy building art and developing a performance
along the way. We will arrive in Venice parading the canals and

sharing our art during la Biennale di Venezia, an annual,
international avant-garde and contemporary arts events. It's a dream.

I was ready to start this new adventure when, just days before leaving I got a surprise

additional bill at home of $3200. At the same time, I was forced to settle a shocking debt from

parking tickets. I postponed my trip. I took some odd jobs. We had a benefit in

which our friends showed amazing support, but we

still fell short. I need to raise $4000 in order to
participate in this project. I am asking everyone I know and even reaching out to
strangers in the hopes that we can put the money together. I know
times are tough, but anything you might be able to donate to our
efforts in this project would be an amazing gift.

You can donate over the Internet by doing the following

1. Go to Paypal: http://www.paypal.com
2. Create an account if you don't already have one (this won't take long)
3. Send donations to mosesandspy@gmail.com

Thanks for reading this and for all your support over the years.

With love,
Moses

For the color-impaired among you...

2009-04-08T19:25:00.000-07:00

... that's how I always feel. It's always so hard for me to pick out colors for walls... I've made some really horrendous goof-ups in my time. Anyway, this isn't really Mungo but here you go: Upload an image to generate a color palette based on the image's primary colors.

What to do with inkless PENS?

2009-04-04T08:13:00.001-07:00

This is a really cool repurposing idea for an old Bic pen found here. I'm bummed however that it's something you need to buy, not instructions on how to do it yourself. I'm definitely wasteful in the pen department... I'm too scatterbrained to keep tabs on a nice refillable fountain pen, and I have a rabid predilection for nice inky rollerball pens. I love to write and I can't stand to write with anything but them. Does anyone have a solution for me... either a reuse suggestion for my abandoned empties OR a way to refill the cheapies OR a new writing instrument altogether?? I'm waiting here with baited breath.

Guess the origin of these planters!

2009-03-31T19:16:00.000-07:00

Isn't this ingenious? I was salivating over my neighbor's beautiful new planters a few months ago, thinking they'd been appropriated from Big Red Sun or something for a big pile of dough, and then my neighbor (she's an architect) came out to chat and filled me in... she made them herself from the drawers of old filing cabinets. She got the filing cabinets from Texas State Surplus, which is a great resource if you need some beat up old office furniture OR scissors, pocket knives, leathermen, or toy guns... they sell all the stuff people end up having to throw out when they're going through the metal detector at the airport. Bonanza!

Vintage suitcase remodel!

2009-03-31T19:08:00.001-07:00

This is just absolutely brilliant... the thrift stores are chockablock with these cute little vintage suitcases. Bitter Betty shows you how to freshen them up here.

Vision board part 1

2009-03-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Argh! You can't see this very well, but it's a collage I made of images that give me that kind of Mungo feeling. Fruity I know, but I said it before and I'll say it again, you gotta start somewhere. I'll probably be making more of these.

There's two beds at the bottom center... I just really want there to be a bed there!

Our visit with Dan Phillips

2009-03-18T08:04:00.001-07:00

I'm just as lucky as lucky can be... I emailed Dan Phillips of Phoenix Commotion to see if we could come for a visit, he said come on down, and everything fell in to place to jump in the car that very day and drive on down to Huntsville, TX for a tour.

We learned SO much and experienced a huge paradigm shift just laying eyes on what he has created. It seems very deeply ingrained in us that a)houses are expensive, b) only the chosen few can build houses, and he blows that all to shreds. He says that houses can be affordable and $120,000 is not affordable. $20,000 to $60,000 is. He built a house with a single mom and her monthly payment, taxes included, absolutely everything included, was $199 a month.

Not only is he hell bent on changing this problem for the shelter-poor and disenfranchised of Walker County ("the poorest county in Texas", he said) by building one house at a time, he's empowering all these people who may also be skills-poor by building the house with them. They build the house with him from the ground up. They do absolutely everything. They get their electrician's license, their plumber's license. It may take a year to build their house, but at the end of that year they'll have a house that's cheaper than paying rent on an apartment, and the skills to get a good job. That is just so brilliant.

What I loved about Dan was that he is just really a do-er. He's not really that interested in bemoaning how messed up the system is. I mean, he'll talk a little bit about that, but mainly he just wants to get to work. And he's not just doing this work because he thinks he should... building is completely his passion. He says he works 7 days a week, because it's what he wants to be doing. He loves it.

He said in the first few months of starting this business, after putting the word out that he needed cast off supplies, whatever was left over from other building sites, he was overwhelmed with donations, so much so that it took him five years to recover and get it organized. He said they could easily build a house each week with all the materials that they get, if they could move that fast. And the materials are all sorts of things.... the average sort of course and then he lucks into beautiful stained glass windows that were destined for the landfill, turn of the century wrought iron gratings, license plates (which he used to tile a roof)... and then of course there's all sorts of stuff that he gets a notion to use like the bottle caps and wine corks, and we also saw hickory nuts and egg shells (!!) (he uses them decoratively), and bones, lots of bones. We met him working on his bone house, which due to some mysterious circumstances had burned to the ground earlier that month. But he said, "If there's one thing I'm good at, it's rising from the ashes". He says the only difference between bones and ivory is that ivory is illegal. Also, he said that you go to any farm around there and ask them to point you to the boneyard and they'll show you a big pile of bones. This seemed so creepy to me to begin with but when you pick up a bone and realize how incredibly strong, hard, and versatile it is... it makes sense. It all makes sense.

So how can we cause a Phoenix Commotion sensation across the nation? This is just so fabulous. I would love for people to be doing it EVERYWHERE.

In my little corner of the universe, I had the idea of building a playhouse as a class with some kids, out of reclaimed materials, of course. And then we could donate the house to a school or low income family who would enjoy it. Don't you think that would be a cool experience for a kid in their formative years? I really want to do this, I'm a bit flummoxed as to how to start, but I just wrote Dan about the idea so hopefully he'll give me a little insight. He can do this with the big people, and I can do it with the small. Got to start somewhere.

So many chandeliers...

2009-03-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

... so little ceiling space! However will I choose...?

I really want to make that bike parts one... I'll have to talk to my friend at Yellow Bike.

Though that banana box one just about takes the cake... here's instructions to make one of your very own.

Phoenix Commotion

2009-03-14T12:58:00.000-07:00

This one really tickles the ol' heart strings. Dan Phillips and his wife have created this project that helps low income folks and in particular single mothers to build and own their own homes using cast-off materials. They have a commitment to using unskilled workers because not only are they creating something amazing, one of a kind, and majorly eco, this person is emerging from this experience with a host of new skills and the kind of pride of ownership that money can't buy. It's such a beautiful thing... I'm going to try to go visit him soon. He uses things like picture frame samples, bottlecaps, wine corks, and bones in his houses, but always uses repetition so they're beautiful rather than cacaphonous to the eye.

My enormous outdoor clock

2009-03-11T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited about this!! I have had this metal disk in my life for about two years now. I found it by the side of the road, and thought I would paint something cool on it for a big piece of outside art. But I didn't like my last two attempts. It finally all came together for me last week. I have long wanted an outdoor clock so I can keep track of the time during my classes. They are majorly steep, like $75 on up. I realized suddenly that I could dissect a cheap ol' thrift store clock and take out the clockworks, drill a hole in the center of this baby and voila, clock, oh I mean, wrap the clockworks securely in a plastic bag, voila, WATERPROOF outdoor clock. I can't tell you for surely certain that it is all hunky dory and will withstand a tsunami or what have you, but it is actually ticking away and telling time for the time being so I am truly psyched. Enormous outdoor clock price? Less than three dollars. PSYCHED!

Put a (real) cork in it

2009-03-09T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is a cork recycling box spotted in SF by Danny Seo. This collection box was placed here by Recork America, an organization that works to spread the word about the importance of using real corks in wine bottles. Corks are a natural biodegradable renewable resource (they come from the bark of cork trees, which cork oak trees naturally shed anyway) that are in danger of being totally replaced by synthetic corks. These natural corks can also be reused in flooring tiles, building insulation, craft materials and sports equipment. AWE. SOME.

If you'd like to read more about it or locate a place to recycle your corks, you can visit Recork America's website. Or you can give them to me. I decided that I am going to start collecting 6 different items. I have to start Mungo somewhere, but I want to start small and start smart. I don't want to start saving a whole bunch of stuff and end up drowning under a tower of clutter. So I'll just start collecting these six things, and if you'd like to pass along any of your bounty to me, you'd be doing me a solid. So far, I am just going to be collecting wine corks, bottle caps, and bread bag tags. I'll let you know when I decide on the next three or four things. Muchas gracias!

Now go forth and Mungo!

Underwater adventure seeker

2009-03-09T08:25:00.000-07:00

I made this piece of art for my living room yesterday. I guess I should have taken a before picture, though it's debatable as to whether this looks actually any better than the motel art underneath. I painted the frame black and used images from some old books I scored on the same thrift store trip. I feel kinda guilty cutting up books but they were pretty grimy and probably supremely outdated.... you didn't want to read them, did you? If you wanted to read College Botany and Treasure Under the Sea you are more than welcome to them. They are only missing a few pages, so far.

About a year ago I got fascinated by feng shui and if nothing else I think what I've divined from my reading on the subject is that the art (or other embellishments) in your own home don't have to be 'good' (whatever that means) it just has to give you good energy. That to me was a huge lesson. I thought you had to have stuff that looked good to other people to show how stylish you were and what good taste you have. But you're the one looking at your walls of course a million times more than anyone else. So that has emboldened me to make my own art. Instead of worrying that it looks dumb I can just get the little zing of , "Ooh, I made that!" and that's gotta be good for mental/emotional/spiritual well being. AND of course it's just validated to me the importance of art. If you're looking at stuff at your home that gives you good feelings and then you carry those feelings out into the world, and it affects how you relate with all those other people out there... wham bam boom, world peace. I'm just sayin'.

Keep those babies coming!

2009-03-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Baby Mop from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Found on Do The Green Thing.

ME WANT

2009-03-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

"Who needs electricity when you have a Dutch Tub? This portable, wood-burning hot tub may not be the greenest, but it’s a great example of future possibilities for non-electric recreation."

From Ecoble.

Future site of Mungo??

2009-03-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

Yes, it may not look like much, but it's my Shangri-La, plush with possibilities. This structure here has hosted such ill-fated ventures as Papa Pancho's, Johnny Chopper's, and many more. And what I would tell those once-hopeful entrepeneurs is this: On a street stuffed with sub-par Mexican restaurants, don't open another sub-par Mexican restaurant. Sorry, but Cesar Chavez (First Street) has Las Cazuelas, Chapala Jalisco, and Juan in a Million, and the lady who sells tamales out of a cooler outside the old Mr. MC's, and I think that's enough. But does the east side have a Mungo? And do at least 150 if not more artists call the east side home, such a staggering amount of artists that we have the East Austin Studio Tour each year so that hordes of eager onlookers and art aficianados can roam the wilds (not really that wild anymore) of the east side in search of art and experiences to tickle their pleasure bone? Why yes, yes, indeed this is true.
So anyway, yes. The face of the east side is changing and I think it can be either hideous condos and other invasive species or it can be cool stuff like Rio Rita, The Good Knight, Buenos Aires, Bird's Barbershop, Cafe Mundi, East Side Pedal Pushers, Domy Books, Karibu, Blue Genie, and ...Mungo.
So, this might not look like much, but it's got a vast parking lot which can be torn up at least partially to make way for my pleasure garden and playground, and for building some sort of structure for the aisles and aisles of collected reclaimed treasures we'll be offering, and then dreamiest of dreamy, way back in the back , this fenced-in yard with picnic tables and a stage. SO perfect!
So, in the main, very orange building which is already set up to be a restaurant, I would have my coffeeshop. I took pictures of two other buildings adjacent to Mungo that would be perfect for our classroom and workspace. Across the street is Los Inocentes, which I noticed was also for sale, which would be great for that purpose though most likely a little pricey. Then right next door to my Mungo fantasy is a little white ramshackle house which is not for sale at the moment but which would be ideal. I love the idea of having this pretty vast amount of space, our own little village with lots of different parts to it.

This may seem a little insane, me stalking these business establishments I have no way of buying, but a girl's gotta dream, don't you know. Someday I'll tell you about the other building I've been stalking for over a year now, where I want to open The Grubbery. Where all we serve is the perfect breakfast. But that is enough for now.
MUNGO!!!

Rope bridge

2009-03-06T21:05:00.001-08:00

Ever since I saw the rope bridge at the Nature's Way preschool at the Austin Nature and Science Center, I have earnestly lusted after one for our backyard. Now I know what to do with the bag o' bags that's been in the trunk of our car for two years patiently waiting to be taken to the recycling center... I knew my procrastination would come in handy some day.

This idea from the brilliant brain of Gever Tulley and his Tinkering School.

Eco Swiss Family Robinson

2009-03-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

This is so cool... you have to watch it:

Making candles

2009-03-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

At the risk of stating the obvious, may I advise you to hang on to your old candle stubs, especially if you've sprung for some spiffy aromatherapy deal from Whole Foods. In a matter of minutes you can have yourself a whole new candle...

you know that's how Laura and Mary and Ma'd be doing it... except they'd have first milked the bees for the wax with their bare hands. Or something like that.

Anyway, I'd advise buying a cheap pot or two at a thrift store. Designate it specifically for wax related projects... I've also made lip balm in mine... maybe you could use the wax to do a batik project... world of possibilities. You need a double boiler, so fill a much bigger pot with water and set it a-boilin'. Put your wax in it and it shall melt. Find yourself a container of some sort.... this is another good reuse opportunity. I found some thick walled square glasses and a little glass vase at a thrift store.... obviously you could use any container you had laying around that you no longer had a use for... a teacup or even a paper coffee cup and tear it off after the wax has hardened.

Attach the wick to the bottom somehow. I used one of those little plastic tags that close the mouth of the bread bags. I've been looking for an idea for how to reuse those... though I suspect a dab of hot glue would have held the wick in place just as effectively.
Add some essential oil if you wanna and you have saved yourself $17 dollars for a new schmancy candle! Ma would be proud.

What is Mungo??

2009-03-05T21:18:00.000-08:00

Mungo is a magical place that exists only in my head... thus far. It was inspired by the Oakland Depot for Creative Reuse. But Mungo also has this marvelous coffee shop... with big sturdy tables and inspiring books scattered about so you can throw back a double espresso and start right in on your art, your project, your robot, whatever you want to build, go for it. Gather up the bits of miscellany we have collected and mold them into something better than anyone ever expected. There's also going to be a great space for art and tinkering classes for kids and adults.... all surrounded by a magical garden designed by Laurie with lots of little nooks and hideaways, and this amazing playground made of all reclaimed objects... and a stage back there too so we can have music and speeches and stories and dance parties, all sorts of joyous hullabaloo's.

A more wordless vision of Mungo that I have is some sort of tribe, 500 years in the future, discovers a huge pile of our refuse, a remnant of what is left of our civilization. Deeply overgrown and in the heart of what is now a jungle. The tribe uses these scraps and toss-outs in new and ingenious ways we never would've dreamed of.

I have no earthly clue how to go about making this business a reality. But this plum of an idea is in my head and seems nearly ripe for the picking, so in the hopes that I'll get a clue soon, I start this blog. To inch towards my goal in some small way. Here I'll collect ideas for reuse....... let me know if you've got any you'd like to share. Let me know if you've got a cool mil you'd like to give me... let me know if you have starting-a-business info you'd like to share... heck whatever you've got, hand it on over, I'm easy.

I think Austin would be quite keen for a place like this. And so it shall be.

ALL HAIL MUNGO!!