Upcycled Burlap Container Gardens, Part 1

Repurposed papasan chair container garden.  I stumbled upon a perfectly stable bamboo papasan chair while walking my puppy the day after seeing suggestions for its reuse as a container garden on Pinterest. Hoping for a more organized garden, I flipped the basket though my image search (albeit with aesthetic concave examples) suggests no one else has publicized such an innovation. I staple-gunned burlap and plastic mesh over the former chair seat opening and stabilized this since dirt is heavy with a Z of scrap wood nailed into the bamboo rim. I anticipate that the rings of bamboo will act to both trellis and compartmentalize the different plants inside. So far I experimented with corn, beans, and onions. (Notice the compost bin in the background of this photo? I installed the Earth Machine after a workshop session with a state resource recovery manager and a visit to my city's department of public works which subsidized my purchase, paying 50% of an already discounted product. Only $20 and a lot of discussion with my family to prevent food waste!

Burlap lined wire bicycle baskets for beans, squash, cukes, and nasturtium. Because the soil quality in New England can be poor, my compost know how was acquired very recently, and the neighborhood squirrel and rabbit populations have exploded, I wanted some of my veggies to be protected. Containers-- here from curbside reclaimed wire bike baskets with burlap from a local farm's corn and potato sacks (only $2 for 7 huge sacks!) sewn in with garden twine- let me take the higher ground in more ways than one in my struggles with pests and soil. The impromptu stake stick mini-fences to scare off bolder vegetarians take away from the rustic aggie charm in their primitivism, but I'd rather have several lines of defense. Salvaged wooden decor, rubbed down with coconut oil so the wood will resist the rain, serve as trellises. 

Cetacean Ocean T-shirt Quilt/Picnic Blanket.

Cetacean Ocean T-shirt Quilt/Picnic Blanket. I learned about slavery message blankets and crazy quilts during my college freshman interdisciplinary arts seminar on the African diaspora and its impact. While using scraps and remnants has not always been out of necessity, and was even in vogue among wealthy Victorians, the sentiment of reuse and folksy nostalgia remains popular today. Unlike many scrap t-shirt quilts, I restricted the color palette and theme of this one, capitalizing on my love of the ocean and elementary school fascination with our highly encephalized marine relatives, dolphins.  

Rock Pocket for Windy Picnics. I detailed my quilt with machine-quilted waves to complement the theme and the uneven pieces (caused, no doubt, by my novice and impatient quilting and sewing skill) as well as utilitarian pockets at each corner. Tucking rocks or kicked-off sneakers into the pockets prevents the wind from upsetting a blustery picnic. I also insulated it with a thrifted ugly black fleece blanket which otherwise would have hit the dumpster, I suspect. This project is thus tuned to its environment as a picnic cloth, thermal energy-saving as a blanket, and versatile as either of these or a folk art piece. 

Honeycomb Jars Succulent Hanger

Honeycomb Jars Succulent Hanger. Succulent gardens stir my urge to venture to the Great American Southwest and adopt their close relatives, cacti. Pinterest boards could no longer sate my hunger for designed my own green microcosm so I took some clippings, saved my mom's peach jars, and found inspiration in the structurally sound hexagons of honeycombs. Save those sculptural glass jars! Weldbond glue (though I hope to try a boiled vinegar and baking soda glass to glass adhesive next time) and a wire hanger frame hold the jars together. I used activated horticultural charcoal, soilless potting mix, and extra perlite to plant my new specimens. While I hunt for more more cheap or free little plants, I store my old geology/gems collection in one lidded compartment.  A ribbon scrap for hanging and my weird contraption was set to hang in a window.

Gnomo Habilis: Projects in Progress

     Gnomo habilis: the handy gnome. There's some confusion on the web about what this phrase means- among my beloved Spanish speakers, in fact- but ultimately it plays on the first, anthropologists think, of humans' early ancestors to make some tools. Homo habilis mastered a form of flint-knapping, making Olduwan spear hand axes although they didn't use them to hunt. They preferred scavenging.

As a DIY maker, crafter, and all around hands-on creator who loves to scavenge and salvage, I feel a kinship with those early handy proto-humans. But I also love repurposing trash, junk, and trash waste, and exploring methods for sustainable living. Like Upton Sinclair, author of fictional save the forest propaganda novel The Gnomemobile, my outer environmentalist is in touch with my inner gnome. Gnomes have accompanied me from my high school locker to the tops of volcanoes, so I thought I'm pay them homage too. Thus the weird name for this blog.

 I hope to share my repurposing and green living projects. There may be weird anthropology puns and references aplenty to health, and odd though it may seem, it is relevant. I want badly to become a real applied medical anthropologist. As I explore how to do this, my belief that environmental health, public health, physical health, mental health, sociocultural health, spiritual health, and creative occupations connect in vital and surprising ways, will evolve through my various DIY experiments.

Oh, and this is temporary until I can rein in my scatter-brained ideas, come up with a cohesive yet search engine friendly name ("Gnomo Project" oddly yields "Human Genome Project"), and move to WordPress. Work in progress.

Travel Chocolate and Sweet Snack Wrapper Memory Board

Los Chocolates y Las Meriendas Dulces: chocolates and sweet snacks. Inspired by my Ecela Peru classmate Derek, who decided to sample all tienda candies, and my former lab adviser Alison, who decoupaged an entire wall of her kitchen with the wrappers of her and her husband's favorite exotic chocolates, I sampled and saved as many cheap sweet things in Cusco, Peru and Antigua, Guatemala as possible. I visited El Choco Museo (see center flyer) in both cities as well. I finally arranged, labeled, and tacked them to this board. Still smells tasty! 

Wooden Stool to Olde School Tray

Wooden Stool-turned-Olde School Tray. Because I cannot choose one or two, or ever only five, hobbies at one time, and I live with like-minded indecisive creatives, there's a lot of stuff on tables that ends up on floors, beds, chairs...The tray is a powerful compartmentalizer, especially for competing scrapbooking, papercraft, sewing, or jewelry projects. I salvaged a wood- not particle board, real, solid, dark wood with a weathered patina- stool with broken legs from the curb on Dedham, MA trash day. I pried off the legs, peeled away tacky sailboat-print contact paper covering the top, and restored the wood with sanding and a few coats of coconut oil (smells so much better and is safer than polyurethane). Salvation Army Thrift Store stainless steel cupboard handles (in a grab-bag 6 pack for only $1.99) inspired a self-taught lesson in hole-drilling and screw-driving. Washers added a minimal detail to the handles' bases. Finally, a jarring wrestle with a ruler and electric engraver balanced out the off-center handles with an imitation pencil ledge.

This stool top will be a useful tray for beads and other tiny supplies that are apt to roll. It curves down ever slow slightly toward the center. The cross pieces of wood underneath also raise the stool-turned-tray an inch or so off the ground so papers can slide under or the tray can function as a display shelf. A nice place to put a sign-in guestbook at a party, perhaps. 

Fabric Scrap Sewn Tray

Fabric Scrap Sewn Tray. Fabric, especially from natural fibers, is a wonderful material since it last years unlike its paper counterparts and has remarkable versatility. Sewing machine know-how, material size, and imagination sometimes limit fabric projects so useless scrunchies and tiny pillows take over the craft table. Luckily, non-clothing projects like this handy fabric tray, lined inside with glue-stiffened felt and stitched from vintage thrift store/yard sale found scraps, have popped up online. I made a long one first but the sides flopped so I split it into two paperback-size trays.