Nomadic Furniture by Hennessey and Papanek is a fantastic book. I’ve had it so long I can’t remember where I got it. I also have volume 2, and I believe I got that from Alibris. The first book came out in 1973, so it’s got that crunchy style DIY flavor, right down to the hand-written text in ALL CAPS, even the page numbers are hand-written.

From the cover: “How to build and where to buy lightweight furniture that folds, inflates, knocks down, or is disposable and can be recycled. — With many easy to follow illustrations.” I think that sums it up pretty well. Obviously, the shopping sources are pretty stale. But many of the ideas are timeless, a few even have the potential to be stylish. Maybe the most timeless, and practical, information included is in the section “On Human Measurement.” The authors list some ergonomic starting points for chairs, tables and more. Click any of three thumbnails that follow for much larger images.

If you’re itching to make your own nomadic DIY furniture check out this cardboard chair. If you’re feeling really creative maybe you can try to make it out of sheet metal, or a flexible plastic. That probably wouldn’t be consistent with the recycling and nomadic ethos of this book, but it might be badass. Click it to big it.

Let me know in the comments if you like this stuff and I’ll post more projects from these two books.

Eleven year old (almost 12) renaissance man Mars Sigler has embraced a new medium: handmade monster toys. He is calling this product line “Monster Buddies.” The fellow pictured here is named “Marky” and he is the second original, sounds better than “number two,” in a series Master Sigler has dubbed “Locker Buddies.” Toys in the “Locker Buddy” line are small enough to fit into a school locker.

Mars learned his pattern making and sewing skills from his mother, but the creative concepts are all his. Always innovative, Mars opted with “Marky” to put the seams on display, essentially turning the toy inside out, even though the fabric isn’t. The light blue element below the simple line mouth is actually fabric drool.

In an interview today Mars revealed that he intends to produce more “Monster Buddies” and begin selling them in various outlets in the near future. Master Sigler said at this time he has no plans to sell the first two “Monster Buddy” creations.

I’m going blind! Try staring at this stuff for a few days in a row and you’ll know what I mean. We are working on a print that will be used to make 16″ square pillows. The front of the pillow will have one large letter, and the back will have a similar pattern with a tiny anvil in the middle. I’m pretty happy with the way the graphics have turned out. These were made in Illustrator with one part multiple strokes and ten parts each of pain, suffering and tedium. It was worth it!

The letters were manipulated quite a bit to get the stripes distributed nicely. Some of them have clunky corners in spots, but I dig that because too much perfection can be boring. Depending on the letter’s shape it can be difficult to tell where the origin is.

They are already at the printer and we should have the fabric soon. Then, the real work of putting them together begins…

Any questions about how these are being made? Just post a comment.

(See all the images in this Flickr set.)

“I want to tell everybody a true story.” — Gogol Bordello

Here is how we made this first run of Jackpot Pillows. If there’s anything else you want to know just leave your questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer. Or maybe someone else will.

I was brainstorming ideas for triplet pillows and the somewhat obvious slot machine motif came to mind. We were tired of trying to get screenprinting to work for us on some other projects and planned to test digitally printed textiles. The long hunt began for just the right style of art.

Artwork

I found these killer vintage-style slot machine icon illustrations by Roy Konitzer at iStockPhoto. He also has a site at GiantRobot.com. Then I paid for the license that would allow us to use this artwork for commercial purposes. You can read all the gory details about the various licensing fees at iStockPhoto.com, but the bottom line is we paid roughly $80 for enough “credits” to do this and we had a few left over. Of course there are plenty of other sources for art, some free, if you are not going to create it yourself. Vecteezy.com is one such site.

I’m not an illustrator, and I had a very specific vision for these pillows. So, I looked for what I needed and Roy’s illustrations were exactly what I had imagined.

Manipulating the Image Colors in Illustrator

That said, they were multi-colored as you would expect and I wanted something monochrome. Our plan was to make the pillows available in four different colors: red, blue, green, brown. I wanted the images to be monochrome to tone things down a bit and make it easier to coordinate the pillows with the rest of whatever space they would be in. I took the illustrations into Illustrator where I used Live Color to convert all the colors to shades and tints of blues, reds, etc. Not as easy as it sounds, but after much tweaking and experimentation I achieved the desired colors.

Digitally Printed Textiles

This is a very cool technology with few of the limitations of tradition printing, but it’s not cheap. You can even print photographic images on fabrics, or “grounds,” such as cotton twills, sateens, etc. Also interesting is that pattern repeats can be as large as you want, at least in theory. In traditional printing the repeat can’t be longer than the circumference of the printing drum.

I contacted numerous companies that print custom fabric and found that most of them are not that interested in our business, for whatever reason. Sourcing is always painful, but I finally came across a couple companies that were very responsive and helpful. We did test prints of the Jackpot Pillow prints and decided we got the best color and customer service from Digital Textiles Northwest. Their web site may not have a lot of info, but trust me, they will do whatever it takes to get you exactly what you want.

Expect to pay in the vicinity of $40 per yard of printed fabric. It really depends on the ground fabric you choose and of course the company doing the printing. Prices vary widely. Look around.

Pillow Forms: The Search Continues…

What a hassle this has been. First we found someone (nearby!) that offered a green pillow that used a “biopolymer” with the brand name Ingeo. The sample we got looked and felt great. We (Mary) started making the pillow covers based on its size. Then, to make a long story short this product suddenly became unavailable, and we couldn’t find another supplier that had it. Eventually, pragmatism reared its head and we decided to use a typical polyfill pillow insert, or form. We’re still looking into sourcing a really green insert and have a couple leads for Ingeo and Kapok inserts. Freddy&Ma use kapok pillow forms from White Lotus. The Freddy&Ma pillow I have is very well made but the insert is a little too flat for my tastes, even for a “decorative” pillow.

As far as sizes and the order of production, my advice is to not produce the cases until you have an inventory of inserts or at least a very reliable, consistent source. If you can find the Ingeo pillow forms they will probably be close to $4 each in some reasonable quantity. We have no direct purchasing experience with kapok goods. From the companies I have talked to I would expect more Ingeo goods to be available from more sources soon.

Woven Labels

Another sourcing challenge when you are getting started. We looked at a lot of companies and went with Cruz Label. They were pretty responsive and helpful, and the final product was accurate and high quality. They send a proof or test to be approved before they manufacture the real deal. So, it takes a while, but you’ll get what you want. They’re on the west coast; we’re on the east coast. Ideally we will eventually be able to find someone closer to us.

A basic label is not that expensive, maybe $.25 each, but you’ll probably have to buy at least 500.

Production and Assembly

We assembled these Jackpot Pillows so that with every jackpot set the three other sides will all be different. Our intent is that people can choose the color, and jackpot triple they want, and we will provide non-matching flipsides for more variety. Mary decided that since the inserts are also washable that we should eschew using zippers. Instead, she hand stitches each pillow closed after inserting the pillow form.

Next time you jump on the couch will you land on a jackpot? That’s up to the last player of the couch slot machine.

My grandfather, Charles “Chick” Orndoff Sigler III, made this treasure chest as a Christmas gift for me when I was probably 10 or so. He also made one for my brother Grayson, and wisely painted our first initials inside the lid of each chest. It was filled silver coins, maybe even silver dollars when he gave them to us. But the real treasure to me is the handmade box my grandfather took time to make. This was no kit. He made everything and even painted the awesome Jolly Roger inside the lid. I should confirm that with the elders, maybe my uncle Robin helped with the painting.

Thirty-some years later it’s still with me. Now, I keep it on my bedside table and use it to hold pocket change. If I didn’t have pocket change I would find some because it looks so cool sitting in the treasure chest. For a brief period it was in the attic at our first house. A home invading squirrel got in, managed to find my treasured treasure chest and gnawed on a couple corners. He was evicted with a vengeance. Looking at the damage still hurts.

Just trying to help a brother out. Any 10 to 13 year olds out there ready to rock? Contact Mars.

This is our favorite card so far, and not just because it’s a bunch of pictures of us. It took two days, three separate shooting sessions, and more wardrobe changes than a Cher concert.

We were having our usual dinner table brainstorm back in November when Mars came up with “candy cane.” And that was like a lightning bolt of silliness to my head. I have been wanting to do a card using our bodies as props, and I immediately realized that with our martial arts gear and street clothes we had everything we needed to be human red and white stripes. Almost everything that is. I didn’t have any red pants. It took some hunting but I was able to find some $10 Sporty Spice wind pants at the local discount store.

Our basement has a high ceiling. It also has a killer skateboard ramp. We put our low-buck “green screen,” about 10 yards of cheapo green fabric, in the middle of the ramp flat bottom. I put the camera on a tripod, but then lodged it in the plumbing running across the ceiling. This set up worked pretty well. If I had taken the time to tack down the fabric to get rid of the wrinkles it would have saved some time in the editing. Also using better lighting would have made this easier. I just used halogen construction lights placed on each deck of the ramp.

With everything in place we started posing. Mary, Paris and Mars would lie on the fabric first. Then, I would climb up a step ladder, start the timer, jump down and throw the ladder to side because it caused shadows, and try to get into position in time. The hardest part to get right was the radius. We used blue tape as guide, but it took some trial and error. Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell if it would work and be in scale until I was editing the pictures together. “Everybody put your stripe clothes back on.”

Previous cards: 2006, 2005, 2004

Image on back of card

Camera rig

“I know it’s cold down here. Bend to your left!”

We just finished our holiday card for this year and a print run is underway. This year’s card, which remains top secret, is more butt-kicking than usual. Many butts will be kicked. Many butts. Butts will be flown! If you have ever gotten one from us before you’re probably still on the list, whether you like it or not. We’re getting extras printed. So, even if you don’t know us and you want to get one of these face-melting greeting cards you probably can, just let me know. I’ll send them out until we run out.

As usual, I’ll post more about the making of this card once they have been mailed. Some previous cards are here, here and here.

When a mere costume is not enough, call performance artist Robert Brokamp. In this exhibit we see the artist inhabiting what appears to be a handmade toilet stall, in some sort of twisted homage to another type of performance artist, disgraced senator Larry Craig. Note the exquisite attention to detail, with a newspaper on the floor, prosthetic pervert arm reaching under stall, and descriptive signage.

This short-lived installation is now closed, but you can read more about it at the Washington Post. (scroll to bottom)

The second picture is from an earlier Halloween performance where Mr. Brokamp portrayed a member of the Blue Man Group. And to think, I use to work right beside such greatness.

This ramp is for sale! $1900

If you’re in the Asheville area, and want to save a ton of time and work, come check it out. It is incredibly well made, and designed to “knock down” for relocation. Moving it will not be a problem. See all the details below.

Contact me if you’re interested

Here is how I built a mini ramp for skateboarding in my basement. It’s less of a “how-to” than a “how-I-did-it.” I built a number of ramps growing up. Also, I was a steelworker in a shipyard through my twenties so I have my own methods of working from that experience that may be helpful to some folks. Read the rest of this post »