Steal Like an Artist / 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
In other pavement news:
What do you do with five tons of old toilets? Make pavement.
In Bellingham, Washington, porcelain from 400 ground-up toilets was incorporated into sidewalk pavement, dubbed “poticrete.” Instead of ending up in a landfill, the crushed toilet pieces were used in place of approximately one dump-truck load of gravel, a.k.a. concrete aggregate.
The road construction project, which earned Greenroads certification — akin to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for buildings — also used some 80 tons of recycled concrete, helping to boost the road asphalt’s recycled content to 30%. The project also features the city of Bellingham’s first LED street lights.
See also: earlier Unconsumption post here on salvaged toilets made into ceramic tile.
The food truck craze has officially hit Manila, Philippines by way of the Guactruck, a modern mobile eatery full of sustainable initiatives. The truck itself is a used delivery truck that has been outfitted locally with LED and energy-saving lighting.
Too bad this Filipino-Mexican food truck can’t swing its way elsewhere in the world for a peek at the truck and a chance to taste the delicious-looking food.
The design for the packaging is a creative solution to the wastefulness that most containers are today with it’s single cardboard, origami-inspired design. It’s made of biodegradable paperboard that is easy to recycle. Customers are encouraged to bring their used packaging back and will receive a free meal once they’ve returned 10. The packaging will then be sent for recycling. All of the cutlery used is made from cornstarch and biodegrades within 90 days.
(via helloyoucreatives)
The Blue Bird is a cotton strapless sundress made to order up to size 14. The dress features a corset back strapping to adjust to any body shape. The corset strapping combined with the fun whimsical accent fabrics creates a sexy, flirty and fun spring dress. Dress is a soft grey with your choice of four accent fabrics.
Currently I do not have an online shop set up for taking orders. I’m still working to organize and put that together. In the meantime, if your interested in ordering a dress message me here on Tumblr or on Facebook at http://facebook/InannaInk.com.
Dress price $40
It’s been a crazy week with lots of good things going on.
The past week I’ve been pretty busy. I picked up a part time job as a banquet server for The Sanctuary on Penn, a wedding and event services business, met with Marye Robinson-Lawrence, owner of Urban Kitsch, about carrying my bags in her store and started work on some dresses for spring.
I am super happy to announce that Marye has agreed to carry my bags in her store Urban Kitsch in Fountain Square. She carries a variety of handmade recycled modern crafts, reclaimed, refinished and hand painted furniture, which Marye creates and tasty chocolate and liqueur infused suckers. You can check her out on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Urban-KitschSpark
In addition to finding a store to carry my bags I also started working for The Sanctuary on Penn. The Sanctuary is Scott and Berriebarbra Wheelers dream. They have set out to create a full service wedding and event venue which focuses on providing high quality service and reduce some of the stress of wedding planing on couples, all while keeping costs affordable and reasonable. The entire staff is highly dedicated to making sure each couple has the wedding they dreamed. I have to say I don’t think I have ever worked with a group of people who are as dedicated, detailed and determined as the staff at The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary it self is a gorgeous 175 year old church with beautiful stained glass floor to ceiling windows, original hardwoods through out and renovated for an old world artistically crafted look and feel. You really have to see this place, its amazing. You can visit the website at www.indysanctuary.com.
I have also begun working on some spring dresses. The dress in the following picture is not yet complete, I’m silk-screening it this weekend. I’m really happy with the way it turned out so I thought I’d go ahead and post a couple of pictures.
Lightbox…Round One!
I finally got the light box built! I made it out of PVC piping, poster board and a white sheet. The three pronged elbow connecters took some hunting to find, but it’s now together. I’ll post the instructions and the You Tube videos I used to build it another day. For now I just want to show off the first round of pictures I took. I still need to practice and work on my photography skills, even with that said these photos turned out MUCH better than my previous pictures.
A bicycle made of recycled plastic
via TAXI
Finding a Balance
It’s been a little more than a week since moving my studio into my apartment and the process has proven to be a bit more than just creating storage space. It’s a new balancing act. What I love about living and working in the same space is it’s much easier to keep up with and organize my different roles, mother, “wife”, house manager, artist and business owner; its all right there in the same space.
I’ll admit I’ve taken on the traditional female role of house keeper. I write all the checks to pay the bills, manage all of our money, do all the dishes and clean all the laundry. Not because I’m a woman and it’s my “job”; but because I know it’ll get done and be done well if I do it. Having a clean clutter free place isn’t so high up on my partner David’s or my son Phoenix’s list of priorities. Instead of fighting with and trying to get them to keep the house in the order I think it should be I can just do it myself and both David and Phoenix can focus on the things they’re better at or more inclined to do. For instance Phoenix doesn’t pick anything up unless you tell him to, he’s 7, but he is good at keeping his room clean and his Lego’s, somewhat organized. Nothing hurts more than stepping on a Lego just after getting out of bed in the morning. David is a chief and cooks dinner on his nights off, updates our computers and fixes them when something goes haywire and he works about 50 hours a week as a sushi chief in Sensu, the hottest restaurant/nightclub in Naptown. It’s a high intensity job and requires a lot of energy to keep up the pace. I don’t expect him to do the dishes when he gets home. He’s pretty wiped by than.
I love that I can spend the entire day doing laundry and listening to cheesy over dramatic TV shows, such as Vampire Diaries; than sit at my work table at the end of the day, after my kid is in bed and everything is done in the house. It’s comforting. I really like ending my day with creativity rather than the other way around. I’m not much of a morning person and I prefer to do creative things at night. The days are much better suited for mundane routine tasks in my opinion. Before when I drove 30 minutes to work in a studio, the hours in which I could work or do certain things were limited. Now I can work on my bags at 3am if I want, and I do, I prefer late nights; I think and focus better at night. Working when it suits me best makes for more productive and creative work.
So far the move has worked out well. Now it’s about finding and maintaining a balance between work and life. It’s always been about that, but now I think it may be more manageable. I am really excited about the change.
Studio is now moved!
Studio is now moved into my apartment. I was recently in a car accident which totaled my car, now I’m taking the bus. I don’t mind taking the bus really, but I can’t get to my studio in under an hour. 2 hours a day is way to long of a commute, so i moved part of my operation into my apartment.
If I’m lucky my apartment might be 600 square feet, I’ve had to do a lot of rearranging and increase my storage space. I dismantled a bookcase and covered the shelving with magazine pages, pages from my sketch book and book pages. The shelves in these photos were covered in book pages than aged. I decorated the underside so when I look up I’ll see something interesting. The shelves read: Live and Love, love 8 my heart, Dreams R necessary to live and Live hard, Hustle hard. The last one is the signature a friend of my boyfriends uses to end his texts. We find it kinda funny and it fit well so I used it for a shelf. It makes me smile.
Now I’m ready to get back to work and begin setting up and creating my Etsy shop. The accident may have thrown a wrench into my plans but it hasn’t derailed me.
