Mile-High Mod Club

I was rather surprised to see a post about turning old airplanes and airplane parts into homes and furniture on Bob Villa's site, but I'll take a good things out of stuff story anywhere I can get it! I particularly love the Rudder Coffee Table. Very cool. I'm also seriously considering getting one of the Laptop Bags made from recycled seat covers.

What's better than making things out of stuff?

Making MUSICAL things out of stuff! Ever since I first saw the Brass Kings perform, I've wanted to make my own washtub bass. Now I have a new infatuation with a homemade instrument: The Coffee Can Ukulele. I discovered this little gem on Fab.com. I cannot wait to order one! Once I do, maybe I can sit in with the Brass Kings someday.

ReadyMade: DIY RIP

For those of you who know me well, you know that the day I discovered ReadyMade magazine was the day I turned into one of the people in the audience during a taping of Oprah's Favorite Things. An entire magazine written for people like me? Are you kidding? I couldn't believe my eyes. As I flipped through the issue, my mind began to reel at the thought of entire culture that enjoyed making things out of stuff as much as I did. Up until this point, I hadn't ever met anyone with a hobby such as mine. Most of my friends, being the good, midwestern boys that they are, were into hunting, fishing and sports. They enjoyed turning a coat hanger into a lampshade about as much as I enjoyed cheering on a homerun touchdown on a hockey court. A magazine like ReadyMade meant that there were enough people out there that thought the way I did to justify hiring writers, editors, designers, etc. to put a bi-monthly publication together. These were MY people!

Through the years I tackled a number of projects printed in the pages of ReadyMade. Always adding my own little twist, as I'm sure most ReadyMakers do. I also entered and won two MacGyver Challenges, a competition in which readers are given an object (such as old ties or pots and pans) and challenged to make something new out of them. A win meant a free year subscription and seeing your name and project featured in the magazine... guaranteed to be seen by an incredible design community.

This one time... at design camp... (yes, really, design camp) I got to not only meet, but sit and chat with a ReadyMade editor. She wasn't a celebrity by any means, but she could just as well have been Julia Roberts to me. She was part of something that had essentially changed my life. That sounds a bit dramatic, but ReadyMade made me look at something I had been doing without much thought my entire life as a special contribution to society. Making things out of stuff didn't have to be just a hobby, it could be a whole way of life.

Below is something that I find very interesting. It is part of the ReadyMade Mini-Manifesto and it says something really wonderful...

Furthermore I swear as a ReadyMade contributor to refrain from creating a "finished work," as a heigntened awareness of process is the whole point.

For me, it is never the finished product that is the reward. It is the experimenting, creative problem solving and uncharted path that is the reward. There is something so exciting about knowing that you might be the first person to consider making a chandelier out of cake pans or a lamp out of washing machine parts. Who cares what it looks like at the end. At least you got out of the box and gave it a shot. Now you can take what learned from this project and apply it to the next and the next and the next. Creativity doesn't just appear. It comes from the sum of life's experiences, both successes and failures.

Now that I have shown you all how much ReadyMade meant to me, you will understand why it upsets me so to learn that it will be no more. ReadyMade has succumbed to the continued pressure of print media trying to survive in a digital world. Although they did make a valiant effort! With their blogs and tweets, it almost seemed as if they would be able to survive without a printed version of the magazine, but apparently that is not the case.

Thank you ReadyMade for all you taught us and shared with us. I am very sad to see you go, but losing you has inspired me to do more with fishmods. You are leaving a very large hole in the DIY community and it will be up to the rest of us to fill it in with everyday objects. Hopefully, I will see you around again someday.

A Lake of Inspiration

Nicole Meyer has taken on the task of Branding Minnesota's 10,000 Lakes. "One Minnesota Lake. One Logo. Everyday." This is vey cool stuff.

Growing up and spending nearly every summer weekend at my grandparents' cabin on Big Cormorant Lake, and being a designer myself, gives me a special appreciation for this project. But from a fishmods perspective, the MN lakes area has always been an incredible source of inspiration for me. My grandpa has always been a tinkerer and DIY guy. He would never pay someone to do something he could possibly do himself. Often times, when one is at The Lake*, unexpected projects come up and one does not always have all the proper material or equipment to adress said project as one would like to. This is when strong knack of improvisation is not only helpful, but necessary. I learned by watching my grandpa that when supplies are short, look for the potential in what you have around you. When you do that, a whole new world opens up. If you have a need, you are no longer confined to what can only be bought on shelves. If you can't find it, make it yourself. It was that kind of inventive attitude that got mankind to where we are today. Unfortunately, people are forgetting that we have that ability. That is why I started fishmods. To remind people that creativity and invention are inside all of us. And once a person taps that potential, nothing can stop them.

Who knew a few logos for some lakes could drum up such emotion! Nicole, I LOVE what you are doing with the lakes logos and I can't wait to see how Big Cormorant turns out.



* For those of you not from the MN lakes area, "The Lake" is how people from this area refer to the lake that they frequent. A common conversation among two Minnesotans could go something like this:

MN1: "Hey Pete! What are you and the Missus up to this weekend, then?"

MN2: "Oh, not a whole lot. We'll probably head down to The Lake Friday night."

MN1: "Yeah, I hear it's s'posed to be nice on Saturday. We'll probably head to The Lake too."

Chances are these two people have cabins on two different lakes, but it is perfectly acceptable to refer to your own lake as if it were the the only one in all of Minnesota.

Unhinged: Part I

I hate bi-fold closet doors with the white hot passion of a thousand suns. Okay, perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but anytime I have moved into a new space, the first thing I do is eliminate all of those hollow, finger-pinching menaces and replace them with curtains. I find that bi-fold doors are usually left open in which case they are only taking up valuable closet space. In the past, the removed doors would be folded and neatly stacked in the garage for reinstallation upon moving out. I wouldn't want to force my doorless beliefs on the next occupant. Maybe two, pressed-sawdust planks loosely cobbled together with dime-store hinges and a prayer are exactly what their storage cove needs. That's their prerogative and none of my beeswax. Recently, though, I came up with a few new uses for those wretched faux wood-grain, Ikea shelf wannabes.

A friend of mine was as sick of her closet doors as I was of mine. I told her to take them off but she didn't know what to do with them once removed. After surveying the situation, I realized she was also in dire need of a headboard. Killing two decorative birds with one stone, we removed the doors and put them behind her bed as a dramatic wooden headboard. As you can see, she was delighted with the outcome. The top of the doors could use a little dressing up, but this was a very quick, easy, and best of all, FREE fix.

Decorating With Junk: 18 Moths Later

Okay, so I don't even know if "better late than never" even covers this post. It has been a year and half (give or take) since I first talked about the 2009 American Advertising Federation of North Dakota ADDY competition. The theme that year was Eco ADDYs. Due to my unique love of repurposing stuff, I was asked to head up the decorating committee. Thanks to the help of some very dedicated modders we were able to pull together a pretty killer look. The items we used were:

Soda cans
Wire clothes hangers
Electrical wire
Computer keyboard keys
Used CDs
Wine bottles
VHS tape
Comic books
Stock photo catalogues
Dead branches
Wood cookies
Paper clips

At the end of the night, we encouraged people to take home the centerpieces if they liked them. When it came time to clean up, all the centerpieces were gone! It was at that point I really wish I had put price tags on all of them. Even a buck a pop would have taken care of my bar tab for the evening. Ah, well. Live and learn.



The centerpieces were soda-can flowers with wire hanger stems. Additional greenery was added with curled electrical wires. The wine bottle vases were filled with unspooled VHS tape.



Around the base of each vase was a square of comic book grass and CD "clips" that held programs and show information. The whole works sat on a wood cookie which is a one inch thick cross section of a fallen tree. Computer keyboard keys were scattered around it all.



Fallen branches provided by the Fargo Parks crew were used to create trees.



The leaves were made from the pages of old stock photo books and paper clips.



I also created an Eco Award out of a circuit board, wire hanger, and keyboard keys. The award was given to the project that most exemplified the theme of the evening.

Happy Independence Day After!

For as long as I can remember, my family and I would would spend the 4th of July at my grandparents lake cabin. Watching all the fireworks being shot off around the lake was fun and all, but the real fun came for me the next day finding discarded firework tubes and rockets that would serve as the basis for laser cannons and spaceships in my Star Wars armada. One of my absolute favorite finds were the parachutes that allowed glowing balls of light to slowly drop from the sky. I'm not sure what my fascination was (or still is) with parachutes, but I'm pretty sure every one of my action figures was tied to a handkerchief and dropped from a tall tree at some point in my childhood. Here's a quick video on how to make your own.

By the way, the above image is a poster that is for sale at allposters.com. I might have to buy it.