Unsustainable

'Greetje van Helmond creates visually delicate and materially fragile jewelery by growing sugar crystals onto cords suspended in a specially developed solution. The pieces deal with issues of durability and resource consumption, deliberately using a basic material to create precious, but extremely fragile, objects.

Van Helmond describes her project, exhibited at RCA's 2007 summer show:

"In present day life we can say that we consume a lot. Durable materials are often used for the production of goods that are typically replaced or thrown away quickly.

Contrary to this I use everyday, basic materials to create products that appear valuable and sustainable. Because of the materials I use, the products won’t last long, but long enough to stay “new”."

via food for design

Old Worlds and New Clocks

After an extended roadtrip enjoying the charms of Munich, Prague, & Heidelberg which included superb breakfasts, dozens of hours lost due to incomprehensible German & Czech roadsigns, and to my Kiwi/Cali thinned blood unbelievably cold -10C temps - it was with cozy relief that I logged on from home to boingboing's latest delightful post for "Old World craftsmanship meets state-of-the-art technology" DIY wooden clock kits.

Wooden-Gear-Clocks.com provides tinkerers and craft-y folks alike with kits to make their own family heirloom clocks in 2 different styles. The kits come in various stages of completion with plans & material sets for birch clock faces, gears, pendulum shaft and dowels from just $34! So even if you make a mess of the thing - as I inevitably will - you can start over for less than the price of a tank of gas.

Hopefully when I finally get started building that cute & sociable blubberbot, I'll get it right the first time, as the US$ isn't doing so well against the Euro these days.


via boingboing