Living Creatively

Junk mail - old-fashioned tree-killing junk mail - makes most of us cringe. Not only does it fill our letterboxes with tedious catalogues from variety discount stores, it attracts not so lovely creatures from all corners of the garden to chew through the letters and leave their droppings and/or cobwebs everywhere.

Most of us bin junk mail as soon as we get it. A small minority read through it, studying it for weekly specials and bargains. But only one creative soul collects it to make incredible works of art.

New York born artist Sandy Schimmel, of Schimmel Art, found her niche in producing modern mosaics out of recycled advertising ephemera, junk mail and greeting cards. She also uses recycled canvas as her base. What a lady!

Schimmel's inspiration came from a visit to Venice, where a stained glass portrait of a woman captivated her. The portrait was too expensive for Schimmel to buy and too heavy to carry anyway, so she decided to make herself one when she got home. She had trouble at first, trying to find the right sizes and colours in glass to achieve the look she wanted. Then, after sampling different mediums, she struck gold in junk mail. It was plentiful, cheap and colourful, and the results achieved where amazing. As the images here prove.

But Schimmel's mosaic portraits aren't merely stunning works of art - and accidental environmentalism. She also does ad hoc pieces and custom-made portraits. Her art can also be seen printed on the front of t-shirts, mugs, aprons, coasters, tote bags, journals and greeting cards - proving, to advertisers' delight, that junk mail really is useful.

The craft world is buzzing with news of Spoonflower, the world's first internet company that prints fabric designed by you, from swatch-size up to five yards (4.6 metres) .

"Yippee!, Woo hoo!, Awesome!", "Crazily excited", "Presto-magico!", are just some of the comments craft bloggers have made recently about Spoonflower. The digital production technology it uses in its custom-printed fabric service is being hailed as the democratisation of design. Said one blogger, "It's the most revolutionary service to come along in the craft world since Etsy."

DIY has, literally, never been easier. This is how it works: you log on to spoonflower.com, upload your image, place an order [let's say a yard, which will cost you $US18], then about three weeks later you're back at your machine sewing a quilt using patches of your very own design. For creative crafty types, does it get much more exciting than that?

Now, wait a minute. Before you excitedly click over to Spoonflower's website with your original designs and credit card details, you should know that orders are by invitation only - for now. In a few short months, however, when the fledgling company gets up and running, it will be open to one and all. In the meantime, you can register your interest on the website and familiarise yourself with design specifications, shipping and costs.

Spoonflower is the brainchild of Stephen Fraser, a self-confessed internet marketing geek from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and his wife Kim, a keen sewer. Kim can be seen in a short video on the company's blog showing some of the "fabulous fabrics" they have printed. She happily notes that her living room is now like a fabric shop.

"We're allowing regular crafters to create and print their own designs on fabric that they can use to make anything, at a price they can afford," says Stephen in an interview with Living Creatively. "We're putting that process into their own hands. Until now, we have thought of textile design as the province of professionals. Everyone is capable of producing something beautiful.

"The craft world happens to be exploding right now. Tired of seeing the same products and the same designs everywhere, more and more people are drawn to the idea of doing it themselves, of creating things that are unique and carry within them a little bit of the passion of the individuals who made them. Spoonflower exists to give crafters a powerful tool for expressing their creative visions using fabric."

Continuing, Stephen says "We're trying to figure out what demand is, but so far people are incredibly enthusiastic."

The first batch of orders has been shipped - one interstate and three overseas, including one order to Australia. Printed on 100 per cent cotton [Kona cotton from Robert Kaufman], Kim says the results have been warm, organic-looking fabrics.

For Stephen, Spoonflower is a natural extension of his last job with lulu.com, which helped people publish their own books. Combined with Kim's wish to print her own fabric, it wasn't long before the idea for Spoonflower [a flower native to North Carolina] bubbled up. Fortunately, the idea has come at a time when craft is enjoying a new, worldwide vogue; in turn, of course, Spoonflower will fuel the handmade revolution.

"Kim was getting more and more into sewing and buying fabric off eBay and various websites and I was watching her go through this. She started talking about wanting to print her own designs on fabric and it eventually sank in," says Stephen, whose business partner in Spoonflower is Gart Davis and his wife Anne, also a fabric-lover.

Aside from giving many, many more people the tools to realise their creative vision, Stephen adds that digital production has a much lower environmental impact than traditional textile production, which is highly wasteful and polluting.

Spoonflower might be operating from the Fraser family's kitchen table at the moment, but the potential for the business is enormous. A recent estimate in the US press put the number of quilters in that country at almost 28 million. You do the math. Even if Spoonflower stuck with printing just cotton, demand would undoubtedly be high; cotton can be used to make clothes, pillows, linen, blankets, framed textile art, bags, curtains, fabric labels and so on. But Spoonflower has plans to expand to other types of fabric - wovens and knits - for other applications.

This could be the start of something big.

Some of you may have seen these before, in the late fifties when they were first released. Created by Danish industrial designer Kristian Vedel in 1959, these wooden birds were meant to visually represent three generations: children, parents and grandparents. But only the small bird went into production.

The bird's popularity, however, was phenomenal and those of you with Scandinavian heritage may even own [or know someone who owns] one of the original birds. Inspired by that popularity, Danish architects MADE recently reintroduced the popular design icon and put the whole family into production. Each bird is handmade by a small wood turner in Denmark, using high quality, locally sourced oak.

The unique design allows you to tilt their heads in a myriad of angles that change each bird's expression - from happiness to sadness, curiosity to alertness. And they can be mixed and matched by switching heads with bodies, opening up oodles of different 'emotions'. There are endless hours of fun to be had playing around with these wooden birds; it just depends on your creativity. Just don't bring them into the office - they can be very distracting.

Cars that drive themselves may be a while off yet, but cosmetics brand Stila has made it that much easier to apply your make-up while driving [note: Living Creatively does not condone this sort of behaviour - it's too risky; for other drivers and for your eyes]. Their Talking Smokey Eye Palette has taken the American beauty industry by storm and it's likely to do the same in Australia, where it recently made its debut through Mecca Stores.

The Talking Smokey Eye Palette is an eye shadow palette that teaches you how to use it! Just push a button and a recorded voice literally talks you through step by step instructions on achieving the 'hard to perfect' smoky eye - in as little as a minute; it's like having your own personal in-home make-up artist! The voice takes you through the technique, which colour to use, where to apply it and the correct brushes you'll need to create the professional look. You'll be saying au revoir raccoon eyes and hello to smoky high sex appeal eyes á la Barbarella before you know it.

Reading is a metaphorical retreat. And the CAVE bookshelf is the ideal companion - a reading retreat. It's remarkable nobody's thought of it until now, because who hasn't wanted to hide away to read a book or magazine in peace.

Slotted within the bookcase is a deceptively comfortable seat, close enough to the floor that sitting in it feels a little like hiding, or being tucked away in a quiet cave far from the outside world. CAVE is large enough to house a library of books and can also be used as a divider between rooms, with books able to be stored on both sides.

There are two sizes available, Children's and Adult, and designer Sakura Adachi has even built a CAVE for shy pets! CAVE_pet's is a one-sided bookshelf with a built in retreat for pets that like to hide out in corners or confined spaces. It's the ultimate gift for the dog lover who has everything else.

These drawers, designed by Na-Hee Park, look like they're full to the point of overflowing with clothes and jewellery but inspect them closely and you discover they're not functional drawers at all - they're simply designed to look like drawers.

Why would anyone want fake drawers, you ask? For their look, of course. Even from short distances, the faux pearl necklaces and ties stuck to the façade look like they're falling out of the over-stuffed 'drawers'. It's a clever design idea, emphasis on the design, which adds some personality to a sterile room. And it's perfect for thwarting would-be thieves!

Most of us head to the gym - if we go at all! - with our towel, water bottle and gym bag in tow, hopelessly trying to build up any motivation to pound the treadmill or lift some weights. And don't even mention Spin class!

Tired of the lacklustre, uninspiring gym equipment, we might try a new BodyPump session or, god forbid, Bootcamp to add some interest or challenge [ahem, pain] to our work-out, but soon get bored of that too… If only we lived in Tokyo. Japan's glitzy capital is not only home to some of the hippest and most luxurious fashion brands, it's now also home to a fashionably high-end designer gym with one of the most creative work-out concepts around. Thanks to design house Nendo, the ILLOIHA gym has a climbing wall like no other. Literally.

Japan's glitzy capital is not only home to some of the hippest and most luxurious fashion brands, it's now also home to a fashionably high-end designer gym with one of the most creative work-out concepts around. Thanks to design house Nendo, the ILLOIHA gym has a climbing wall like no other. Literally.

The fitness club's brand concept of "becoming beautiful through movement" inspired the design team at Nendo, who "chose the theme of rock-climbing on Omotesando, and developed a design that uses the mismatch between a rugged outdoor sport and Tokyo's fashion district to its advantage." Mismatch being key. There's nothing outdoorsy about this 'rock' wall, which has no sign of fibreglass 'stone' or mock rock. Instead, it's beautifully decorated with baroque mirrors, picture frames, bird cages, dear heads, shelving and delicate vases, like some kind of Escher-esque Hamptons summer house.

Climbing the Nendo wall is a stylish fitness adventure that most of us dream of, especially those of us whose treadmill faces the back alley of a deserted narrow lane in the middle of high rise buildings and apartments. Most who've climbed this wall say the feeling is euphoric, creating a sense of adventure, like climbing the walls of a grand exhibition space or being in a movie. Aaah… if only all exercise was this fun, we'd be at the gym more often.

Sewing classes, it seems, have replaced go-go dancing as the hip new trend. With the increasing fashion emphasis on individuality and the concurrent desire to create and own unique items, or to recycle vintage fabrics, women - and some men - around the globe are signing up for sewing classes.

In Canada, a new DIY centre, The Workroom, has opened in Toronto to meet the demand of creative individuals who want to get crafty, meet friends and make something unique.

The Workroom is Toronto's first 'sew and craft by the hour' space. It's equipped with sewing machines, sergers and large working tables, and for $7 an hour visitors can sew at their own pace, creating individual pieces to be proud of. It's a great idea for people who don't have the tools to sew at home - which is great for most newcomers. Karyn, the lady behind the idea, also sources beautiful fabric from Japan to make her customers' projects even more special.

Less confident sewers can also enrol in one of The Workroom's numerous up-to-the-minute classes, from Sewing Machine Essentials For Teens to Easy Alterations or Laptop Case classes. There are also more advanced classes that teach students how to make a pencil skirt, quilt, patchwork pillows, shopping totes or zippered pouches. The Workroom also runs free monthly Stitch'n'Bitch open forums.

With the popularity of sewing on the increase, you'll no doubt see more of these DIY centres popping up in a city near you. Melbourne readers can find out more about a similar concept, the Thread Den, in Creative Uncovered.

The Flower Council of Holland's recent concept to commission five famous designer names - Studio Job, Arik Levy, Karim Rashid, Arne Quinze and Fredrikson Stallard - to design five new Fiat 500s with freshly cut flowers resulted in these beautifully decorated cars that no doubt smelt divine. Raising awareness for the myriad of unusual uses for fresh flowers is something only the Dutch would consider important, and we think the designers accomplished their mission; we're not too sure if we'll see these stunning cars cruising up the Hume anytime soon however, as they're nowhere near as practical as they are beautiful.