Design^Sprout | Your Guide to Green Design

DIY - Make those chairs new again!

     Brought to us by the now defunct (boo hoo) Blueprint magazine, is a great idea for rescuing your old, hand-me-down chairs and turning them in to mini, personalized masterpieces!  Who would have guessed a few thrift-store sweaters could be reborn into such chic dining chairs!

1. Cut a sweater apart, working up the side seams and across the shoulders. Trim off the neck hole and sleeves, leaving two squares of fabric slightly larger than the seat of the chair.
2. Unscrew the seat cushions from the chairs. (The screws are usually on the cushion's underside.)
3. Cover the cushions with the sweater fabric, and secure the cloth edges to the underside using a staple gun or small tacks.
4. Trim any excess and reattach the cushion to the chair. Cost: $0 (we like that!!!).

Check out Blueprint's website for 25 Eco Chic tips for your home. Not a bad way to spend an hour!

Vintage Re-born

                  

California Design Team Downtown are two super-stylish, vintage hounds responsible for finding and re-creating some of the most fun and whimsical pieces I've seen this year.  Fearless fabric choices and elegant lines combined with their choice of employing all local California artisans make these (slightly out-of-my-price-range) pieces I salivate over. Aww, some day...

                      

Trashy Inspiration

My lovely friend Nicole send me a link to artist Ryan Frank's web site and what a design^sprout find! His Inkuku chair is made entirely from old (hazard to the planet!) plastic shopping bags. The inspiration: a South African chicken ornament! I love when traditional local craft inspires the minds of our modern artists to be more green and utilize resources that would otherwise end up in a landfill. And if you can't afford the genius of Ryan Frank (I can't!) the chicken is pretty reasonable.

He also produces these cabinets which I think are pretty ingenious - leaving recycled white boards on the street of London for days, he then takes them, for better or worse, and creatively turns them into these funky cabinets.
 

   

Half the bike it used to be

These uber-cool pieces from bike furniture are so creative! I can see one of the chairs fitting wonderfully in a little boy's room and talk about a planet-saver. All pieces are made from old bike parts that would have otherwise been banished to a landfill. You don't get more green than this!

A Tord Affair

Artist and designer Tord Boontje has long been a darling of the design world and a personal favorite of mine. His light, snowflake-esque floral designs have always appealed to my girly side and I love the way he juxtaposes nature with our modern world. Filled to the brim with inspiring images, the new retropective book by Martina Margetts is a great look into the work of a true original.