January 24, 2009
Suh-weet. What started last fall as a dad putting an offhand doodle on his kids' lunch bags [above] has become true art. Lunch Bag Artist Dad has already broken major new ground in the medium of lunch bag, and...
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8:45 PM
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January 16, 2009
Long-time readers of Daddy Types might remember my grand plan to make a sweet, minimalist toddler bed for the kid out of thick slabs of plywood. The design was an adaptation of a Donald Judd daybed [which is visible...
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3:40 PM
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January 15, 2009
And by dude, I mean Dutch artist Tina Pireira Filipe. And by stroller, I mean the chassis of a big old pram. And by coffee table, I mean glass-topped coffee table of death for any kid that gets near...
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1:12 PM
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January 12, 2009
Just when you think you've seen all the awesome, old school nurseries the LIFE Magazine photo archive has to offer, Andy finds another one. How did he do it? I have no idea. There's no caption, no date, no...
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8:51 AM
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Comments (2)
January 9, 2009
The Central Utah Relocation Center near Delta was later renamed Topaz Camp, after Topaz Mountain, which loomed over it to the west. When it opened on Sept. 11, 1942, several rows of tarpaper barracks had been finished and outfitted...
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12:53 PM
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January 1, 2009
So far, I haven't been able to get the LIFE Magazine photo archive on Google to return more than 200 images at a time. So who knows how many photos Ralph Morse actually took of the awesome nursery Juliet...
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8:36 AM
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Comments (3)
December 23, 2008
Anyone who has ever seen the 1978 variety showsploitation travesty that was the Star Wars Holiday Special cannot pretend to have been betrayed by the treacly offenses of baby Annakin and Jar Jar Binks. We knew Lucas had it...
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4:27 PM
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Comments (1)
December 17, 2008
I lost the pictures, but when we went to the Pioneer Day parade in Ivins, Utah last summer, there was, in the parking lot next to the inflatable slide that got so hot in the desert sun, kids would come...
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9:21 AM
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Comments (2)
December 16, 2008
Trying to save newborns and preemies in developing countries from preventable deaths by donating crappy old incubators apparently doesn't work. Even if they work, no one ever sends the manual. But really, the things break down pretty quickly, and there's...
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10:13 AM
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Comments (1)
December 11, 2008
Wow. I wanna go to the crocheting party in etsy seller Crafty Is Cool's tummy, too. Sure, she's created plans and kits for making your own amigurumi versions of Yo Gabba Gabba! characters. Which is great. But if you...
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11:13 PM
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Comments (0)
DT reader Moni flagged this in the September 1951 issue of Popular Mechanics. It's a do-it-yourself "traveling playpen" made from a couple of pieces of hinged plywood, custom fitted to the dimensions of your car's rear seat. The article...
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4:20 PM
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Comments (7)
As you may know, Google has begun scanning magazine archives, something which was apparently completely impossible until this year. Among the first batch are the venerable DIY bibles, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. If it doesn't give you an...
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1:16 PM
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Comments (1)
December 2, 2008
Main man Mark made Makey the Make Magazine mascot. Magnifico! Makey: infant shirt, just $5; kids shirt, just $6! [makershed.com via the make mailing list]...
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11:04 PM
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Comments (0)
November 25, 2008
Readers of the previous Ikea post may have the mistaken impression that I disapprove of the "shipping palette aesthetic." Pas de tout. I mean, just check out this insane kids room built by a dad somewhere in France sometime in...
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Posted by greg at
10:14 AM
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Comments (1)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Ikea play kitchen in the Elizabeth City, NJ store, originally uploaded by daddytypes. When I...
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Posted by greg at
8:53 AM
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Comments (1)
November 22, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } circus, originally uploaded by Rob Cruickshank. If it weren't in Canada, and thus even colder...
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8:45 PM
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Comments (0)
November 21, 2008
Here's a short thematic post from the archives of Life featuring some of the cribs of our parents' generation which serves as a roundabout tribute to the CPSC: I'm guessing that after Leonard Mccombe's 1957 photo of "Babysitter Judy...
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7:36 AM
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Comments (4)
November 18, 2008
You know the old saying: there are no atheists in Muji Xmas Gift Departments. Once again, the minimalist, eco-friendly, no-frills retailer has come up with a giant mountain of stuff I want to buy. First up in the Mujimix: great...
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Posted by greg at
7:30 AM
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Comments (2)
November 13, 2008
The upscale online boutique Stupid.com is selling this fetus-shaped cookie cutter for $10, and that's all I'll have to say about that. update: Except to add that Jason Higgins, the creator of Fetal Bites, The Original Fetus-shaped Cookie Cutter,...
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5:56 PM
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Comments (5)
November 12, 2008
Apparently dissatisfied with the performance of the current offerings on the Neglect-o-matic market, Evan Staul decided to take matters into his own hands. And so with little more than a cordless drill, a cheap-ass umbrella stroller, and an extra...
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12:57 PM
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Comments (1)
November 11, 2008
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a shopping trip Involving Euro Modernists and architects--so hip. The greatest: Charlotte Perriand, Designed Corb's furniture. Bruno Taut also sailed that way For an East Asian tour,...
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1:28 PM
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Comments (2)
November 2, 2008
There's milk crates, and then there's Milk Crates. The brands branded [is that where that term comes from?] on the sides of some of the crates used to make this old potty chair date to the turn of the...
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Posted by greg at
10:11 PM
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Comments (0)
October 31, 2008
Wow. Kevin Craine made old school video game costumes for himself and his two sons. But so far, he's only posted the build and demo for his 3-yo son's insane Mega Man costume online. The giant boots, the sweet,...
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11:44 PM
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Comments (3)
Until she went to the dinosaur museum in St. George, Utah on our visit to the grandparents, the kid was going to be that easiest of all Halloween staples--a ghost. Then suddenly, a few days after we got back,...
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Posted by greg at
11:32 AM
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Comments (6)
October 26, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } exterior 1, originally uploaded by j&mgorman. Josh's' son Camden is almost two and getting into...
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4:24 PM
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Comments (0)
October 25, 2008
Jim found a 1983 coloring book, On The Road With Mr. T in a thrift store. "The captions were incredibly boring," he says, "so I rewrote some of them." And how. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine...
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8:47 AM
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Comments (2)
October 17, 2008
Alright, so I'm a little obsessed with what is admittedly my favorite old school Sesame Street animation ever: the four-armed swami counting to 20. But what can I do? To this day, I don't say "Once, doce, trece, catorce"...
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1:10 AM
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Comments (6)
September 28, 2008
So the kid and I went to Crafty Bastards after church today. We were overdressed and underinked. Still, we got to meet Spooky Daddy in person, which was awesome. He was working the puppetmaster thing pretty spectacularly, and it...
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9:18 PM
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Comments (0)
September 27, 2008
Just got my copy of the 2001 edition of Peter Drijver and Johannes Niemeijer's How to construct Rietveld Furniture; it's pretty sweet. There are designs and plans for 38 pieces, including four kid-specific designs: two high chairs and two toys,...
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3:04 PM
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Comments (0)
September 19, 2008
First, let me apologize to all the people who love nothing more than curling up in their Rietveld chairs; they apparently only look unsittable. As little Hugo above demonstrates, they are the height of seated comfort. After mulling it...
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1:13 PM
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Comments (2)
September 17, 2008
The world--if I may speak for the world for a moment--may have Gerrit Rietveld all backwards. The world sees Rietveld as a leading furniture designer and architect of the geometric purity-obsessed De Stijl movement who just happened to make...
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Posted by greg at
10:58 AM
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Comments (5)
September 15, 2008
In 1934, the Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld sought to combine the utopian geometric elementalism of de Stijl with an economics and authenticity of material by--look, everyone was broke, so he made furniture out of wood from...
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5:47 PM
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Comments (2)
September 12, 2008
Apparently, the annoyances of blogs in the 2000's--hyperbole, lack of context, not linking back, acting like you're the first to discover everything--is merely a speeded up re-enactment of magazine stories in the 1940's. Take, for example, this March 1947...
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Posted by greg at
7:11 AM
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Comments (1)
September 6, 2008
Neil Fraser had an MRI, then he laminated his various cross-sectional scans onto a stack of 1" wooden blocks. Now he can do nifty tricks like cut away 3D models of the inside of his head. Wooden Brain [neil.fraser.name...
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4:33 PM
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Comments (0)
September 4, 2008
After 150 years of British lorrymaking, Foden ceased production in 2006. Which, coincidentally? is when a truck driving dad in Herefordshire named Paul started making a kid-sized replica of his own Foden rig. Now it's done, and it looks...
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10:08 AM
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Comments (0)
August 30, 2008
Why should delivery room nurses and their paperwork have all the fun? Congratulations to Andy, Erin and Elsa, and welcome, Astrid!...
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11:12 AM
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Comments (0)
August 27, 2008
Instructions: Take one set of roller skate wheels, an old handlebar, a 2x4, some boards. Add a bent sheet of tin to give it that proper Ralph Kramden Drives This Bus snout, then paint it with whatever's left over...
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5:08 PM
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Comments (0)
August 25, 2008
NY Times illustrator and subway fanatic spawner Christoph Niemann is at it again. Last month, it was his awesome story-in-paint, "The Boys And The Subway," which detailed his young sons' fascination with the New York City subway system. Now...
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Posted by greg at
11:18 PM
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Comments (0)
August 22, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Super short wheelbase Plymouth Voyager Minivan, originally uploaded by dave_7. Whether it's complaining about the...
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11:48 AM
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Comments (0)
Hemmings Motor News, the bible of the classic car world, just launched a new title: Hemmings Fifties-Era Midget Race Car Into 21st Century Hot Rod Stroller News. There's only one issue so far, but I'm hereby signing up for...
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Posted by greg at
10:32 AM
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Comments (0)
August 19, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Katamari Prince(ss) of All Cosmos!, originally uploaded by Veronica M. Crochetblogger/meganerd/new mom Veronica and her...
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5:00 PM
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Comments (2)
August 14, 2008
The NY Times has a nice-but-crazy story about artist Brad Hwang and his family who live aboard the Odin, a 98-foot barge in Berlin. Hwang built out most of the spaces himself, starting with the playroom for the two...
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12:16 AM
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Comments (2)
August 13, 2008
See? Not everyone riffing on Sanjay Patel's awesome little Little India Hindu deities is knocking them off. Plush artist Leeanna Butcher went to art school with Patel, and he recently asked her to create this plush incarnation of Kali,...
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5:21 PM
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Comments (2)
August 12, 2008
Once the euphoria of stacking two kids into one strollerspace wears off, many Phil & Teds users start thinking about improvements: like figuring out a sun canopy for the rear seat so their other kid doesn't fry. Some track...
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Posted by greg at
9:12 AM
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Comments (8)
August 9, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Darth Vader Stained Glass Window, originally uploaded by axoplasm. Finally, a decades-later Star Wars sequel...
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Posted by greg at
12:47 PM
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Comments (0)
August 7, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Waiting for The Last Hex, originally uploaded by daddytypes. Alright, I've finally got my photos...
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Posted by greg at
9:52 AM
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Comments (10)
August 1, 2008
Since the 31st anniversary of Star Wars doesn't have quite the convention draw as the 30th, we've had to wait until Comic-Con to see fanbois' kids dressed up in little stormtrooper and Darth Vader costumes. Star Wars Blog has...
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Posted by greg at
5:19 PM
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Comments (0)
July 24, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } jeans quilt for sale in the Ivins town Pioneer Day celebration, originally uploaded by daddytypes....
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Posted by greg at
5:16 PM
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Comments (2)
July 20, 2008
When you've been sewing for 50 years like Gramma Ruth, you don't "knock off" anything, least of all the so-far unlicensed, unmonetized characters of some media conglomerate-come-lately like Nickelodeon. No, when you make your own homebrew plush versions of...
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Posted by greg at
8:39 PM
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Comments (1)
July 13, 2008
When you're a dad-to-be with a nursery to outfit, the most important thing is to go with a name you can trust. That's why Ortho, a division of the Chevron Chemical Corporation, and the maker of Round-Up, America's favorite herbicide,...
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Posted by greg at
3:55 PM
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Comments (1)
July 8, 2008
So about this chair: I always keep my eyes out for a good base that I could use to make a kid-size Campana Brothers-style stuffed animal chair. I'd imagined using either Takashi Murakami plush dolls or Ugly Dolls, but...
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Posted by greg at
9:44 AM
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Comments (3)
July 7, 2008
By now, I'm sure you've seen the crazed, 4-axle GM van conversion on eBay, the one with the sauna and shower in the trailer, "so that your wife can take a shower while you are driving"? [jalopnik is preserving...
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Posted by greg at
11:05 PM
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Comments (0)
note: this post began as a link roundup, but the topics were so far-flung, I broke them all out into separate posts. The glass-half-empty crowd at Consumerist is treating the shrinking Pampers count as a sneaky, 5% price increase [from...
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Posted by greg at
3:20 PM
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Comments (1)
July 3, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } GVWR Payload Testing, originally uploaded by Telstar Logistics. Uh-uh. I guess when your dad's the...
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Posted by greg at
6:08 PM
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Comments (4)
June 26, 2008
Dayton, Ohio bidders will have the advantage on this awesome, old Community Playthings ride-on tractor. Though it's just under 11 inches high, all that maple lumber and those chunky Firestone tires will cost a bundle to ship. Maybe when...
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Posted by greg at
10:10 AM
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Comments (3)
June 17, 2008
Sheesh, NonToxicReviews makes me feel so unproductive. I don't know what you did last weekend, but Mr. Stinkhead created PDF's and howto's for two awesome DIY kid's books in the course of just three days--and the one day he...
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Posted by greg at
10:25 AM
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Comments (2)
June 16, 2008
Staging the Renegade Craft Fair in the Pool at McCarren Park Pool is a great way to crystallize the cultural divide that is Williamsburg: you walk through thousands of Hispanic families camped out under every tree in the park,...
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Posted by greg at
8:22 AM
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Comments (0)
June 11, 2008
Here's where I'd normally suggest that buying this sweet, vintage table and stool set for just $80, and installing it in your kid's room. But they're only 1 1/2 inches high, so you'd probably store them in your kid's...
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Posted by greg at
9:39 AM
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Comments (3)
June 10, 2008
So you want to talk about wooden walking bikes? Kevin Kelly's got a small but amazing collection of photos of Like-A-Bike-like wooden bikes from all over the world. [If you're a bike entrepreneur looking for a way to out-maneuver...
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Posted by greg at
11:09 PM
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Comments (1)
June 7, 2008
As this awesome wall-mounted shelving/desk structure demonstrates, Wouter's "palletsized research" is really paying off. I just hope he reclaims some sandpaper while he's at it. Pallet-based construction and design by Wouter, featured on The Raw Foundation [rawprojects.org, via andy]...
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Posted by greg at
9:00 AM
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Comments (3)
May 15, 2008
It's made with wool, not formaldehyde and that weird, snappy blood vessel rubber, so this dissected frog is totally safe for the the kid's room. And when she becomes a little animal rights activist, she'll have an unassailable argument...
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Posted by greg at
8:09 AM
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Comments (0)
May 12, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } playhouse - full view, originally uploaded by shanecyr. A trip to Lowe's and a weekend...
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Posted by greg at
7:14 AM
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Comments (1)
May 7, 2008
So I'm still kicking around the idea of building a dining table using a design by Enzo Mari [see some longwinded discussion of it here.] It's supposed to be made out of plain, unfinished pine lumber, which you can...
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Posted by greg at
5:22 PM
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Comments (9)
May 6, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Ikeahack: Car Seat + Ikea Bag + Cart = Stroller, originally uploaded by daddytypes. Here's...
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Posted by greg at
9:21 PM
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Comments (7)
May 5, 2008
Kayster is a crafting genius. I mean, every time I sit down to crochet a Tetris baby blanket, I get a row done, and it just disappears. Very annoying. Topic: Tetris blanket [craftster.org via wonderland]...
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Posted by greg at
7:22 AM
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Comments (1)
April 28, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Childcraft Nesting Chair Blocks, circa 1974, originally uploaded by daddytypes. I just got a fat...
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Posted by greg at
12:02 AM
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Comments (0)
April 22, 2008
"'Bye for now,' says the man of the house as he retreats into think tank. Though it dominates a room, it can be quickly disassembled. At [right] Isaacs contemplates interior collage." Ken Isaacs, is there anything modular and plywood...
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Posted by greg at
9:26 AM
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Comments (2)
April 21, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Keith Haring, originally uploaded by mario.mc. So obviously, I found this photo of Keith Haring...
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Posted by greg at
3:14 PM
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Comments (0)
April 14, 2008
I know what you were thinking--or at least I know you know what I was thinking--when you saw that new Ikea PS series Laptop Workstation on minor details last week: sweet, but could you make a wall-mounted changing table...
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Posted by greg at
4:44 PM
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Comments (3)
April 6, 2008
Clive Thompson, who just wrote an article for Wired about the resurgence of DIY culture, points to an excellent essay by Matthew B. Crawford, "Shop Class As Soulcraft," which ran in 2006 in The New Atlantis, A Journal on Technology...
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Posted by greg at
10:14 PM
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Comments (3)
March 27, 2008
Robin Day's Rocking Bird Childpsly Chair, 1999, for twentytwentyone, via For an extremely awesome-sounding collection of affordable, sustainable, kid-related design that's not even ten years old, Childsply is pretty-near invisible on the web. Childsply was the name of a...
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Posted by greg at
12:55 PM
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Comments (5)
March 26, 2008
Judging by her firm's online porfolio, Merge Architects principal Elizabeth Whittaker has never designed a plywood loft built-in she didn't like. And that apparently goes for her own kid's nursery, too. The April issue of Boston Magazine features awesome...
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Posted by greg at
1:38 PM
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Comments (0)
March 21, 2008
Let's all celebrate with mom-to-be Melissa, whose hand-painted, death-slat-equipped, fallout-optimized, mini-crib won 3rd Prize in Design*Sponge's recent DIY Project Contest. I'm sure she'll use the $300 prize money to buy some infill slats. I think we've all learned an...
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Posted by greg at
4:29 PM
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Comments (8)
March 19, 2008
I'd flagged this eBay listing for posting, and then I totally missed it in the whirlwind of family that descended on us over the weekend: five rolls of Thunderball wallpaper, circa 1965, were sold on Saturday as part of...
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Posted by greg at
12:05 PM
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Comments (1)
March 18, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } halloweenesque octopus, originally uploaded by peacay. FYI, "sugoi" means "great!" and is used sort of...
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Posted by greg at
7:54 AM
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Comments (0)
March 14, 2008
Dutch designer Ineke Hans' Black Beauties collection, begun in 2000, was one of the first significant attempts to make cool, contemporary furniture for kids. The chairs, tables, and rocking toys are made out of heavy-duty, black, recycled plastic--which weighs...
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Posted by greg at
8:36 AM
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Comments (1)
March 12, 2008
Killer crib, dude! Vote now, and help turn Design*Sponge's DIY contest into a potentially lifesaving learning opportunity for everyone about the safety hazards posed by crib slats that are more than the government-mandated 2 3/8 inches apart [head gets...
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Posted by greg at
12:32 PM
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Comments (9)
March 10, 2008
"On the hood, you will see the brown extends down the front. It follows the outline of the 'CROSLEY' badge that goes there. I'm as happy as a new daddy!!!!" That's Barry "Bearman" Dennis talking about the new paint job...
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Posted by greg at
10:47 PM
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Comments (0)
March 8, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Mobison 3-1, originally uploaded by 091. Playmo91 is a mad Playmobil customizer in Taiwan who...
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Posted by greg at
5:31 PM
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Comments (0)
March 7, 2008
"Aus 1 mach 4" is right! When it comes to children's furniture, the German penchant for convertibility uber alles is well known. [uh, citation needed] So let's just point out the obvious about the Phidibus 4-in-1 bassinet/rocking bench/bench/desk made...
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Posted by greg at
4:23 PM
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Comments (1)
March 6, 2008
If their rabidly crafty fans keep up this pace, Yo Gabba Gabba! may never need to bother putting out actual merchandise at all; instead they can be like PBS painting guru Bob Ross, making mad bank by selling raw materials--paints,...
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Posted by greg at
6:06 PM
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Comments (7)
See, it's awesome because really, Vader is Luke's... uh, right then. Major maker geek Steve Lodefink is guestblogging on Mister Jalopy and Mark Frauenfelder's new blog, Dinosaurs and Robots. In other words, Flashlightsabers, Water Rocket Parties and Coconut Shell...
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Posted by greg at
3:54 PM
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Comments (1)
February 29, 2008
Someone emailed me recently asking if there were any cool fold-down changing tables. The Man On The Television says you should just make one yourself. [Frankly, after seeing the results, I'm not convinced. "Wasted Spaces"?? You could dock an aircraft...
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Posted by greg at
8:34 AM
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Comments (7)
February 26, 2008
Here are some follow-ups to recent posts on DT: From the NYT report that after spending several years and millions of dollars, Korean scientists have developed space kimchi:Ordinary kimchi is teeming with microbes, like lactic acid bacteria, which help fermentation....
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Posted by greg at
9:02 AM
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Comments (1)
To those PlayStation 3 people who have been waiting like a year for LittleBigPlanet to be released, you'll be relieved to know the delay is not due to a sudden breakout of knitting circles in the Media Molecule offices;...
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Posted by greg at
8:36 AM
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Comments (0)
February 24, 2008
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes someone losing his home office to the new baby. This time, it's a dad-to-be and hardcore DIY'er named Jason, who is filling flickr with updates on the transformation of a narrow...
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Posted by greg at
3:17 PM
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Comments (1)
February 21, 2008
Finally, Mr. Stinkhead has figured out what to do with his massive Playmobil collection while his son is still in the Serious Choke Hazard Stage. he set up little dioramas, took some pictures, and made a little book called,...
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Posted by greg at
10:02 AM
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Comments (0)
February 20, 2008
I think we can all agree that, in retrospect, a Jabba the Hutt beanbag chair would have sold far more Pepsi than a life-size mannequin of Jar Jar Binks, even though Jabba wasn't even in Episode One [d'oh, I've...
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Posted by greg at
8:45 AM
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Comments (3)
February 18, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Vanilla Cycles 001, originally uploaded by brianwickman. The North American Handmade Bicycle Show was held...
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Posted by greg at
8:54 AM
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Comments (3)
February 17, 2008
It figures that just as we get back into the swing of the baby bottle phase, and we break out a new pack of the Playtex Ventaire bottles--in mix-and-match pastel colors--a new study comes oot of Canada showing that all...
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Posted by greg at
10:03 AM
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Comments (8)
February 14, 2008
Though I've blocked the pain from my mind, longtime readers of DT may be familiar with the trials of the original Mini-boo, the toy-sized Bugaboo I tried to make one Christmas from one of those Riesenthel picnic baskets at...
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Posted by greg at
1:54 PM
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Comments (10)
February 12, 2008
I'm no expert, but I think if you have the Brother NC-7340 printer/scanner/fax/crocheter set up on your network, you just load whatever color of yarn you need--in this case, red-- and cut & paste this crocheting code from Craftster,...
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Posted by greg at
6:54 AM
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Comments (1)
February 9, 2008
Wow. The Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3 was the stealth supercar predecessor to the better known muscle car from the late seventies, the 450SE 6.9. From a single prototype in 1967, about 6,500 cars were sold over the four year...
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Posted by greg at
3:25 PM
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Comments (3)
February 7, 2008
It's my kid in a box, baby! From the 1946 advice book, Mother and Baby Care In Pictures, comes this cardboard box done up as a crib:An improvised bed made from a corrugated carton by an ingenious father. Not...
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Posted by greg at
7:06 AM
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Comments (3)
February 5, 2008
You know what's been lost in the whole minivan era? A suitable appreciation of the maxivan. Back in the day, when the customized Dodge van was a-rockin', you knew not to come knockin'. Ahh, good times. Now it turns...
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Posted by greg at
12:36 PM
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Comments (11)
January 30, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Crafting 365 Day 010, originally uploaded by jackrabbit.etsy.com. Holy smokes, It's like I'm eight years...
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Posted by greg at
1:28 AM
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Comments (3)
January 28, 2008
Kut the krazy krap; you've got to be kidding: Buckminster Fuller, the father of the geodesic dome, was also the creator [kreator?] of the Kiddie Koop crib? The Kiddie Koop made by the Trimble Nurseryland Furniture Co. of Rochester, NY?...
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Posted by greg at
12:07 PM
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Comments (4)
January 26, 2008
As a free market economy develops and becomes more efficient, participants begin to specialize, providing those inputs to which they are most optimally suited, relatively speaking. To update an example of the great neoclassical economist Paul Samuelson, you probably could...
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Posted by greg at
9:26 AM
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Comments (1)
January 24, 2008
So I'm looking at Dwell's new baby zebraskin rug [coming to Target next month, just $180!] and wondering "Seriously, is that somehow not supposed to be a reference to the skin of a baby zebra?" I worried if I...
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Posted by greg at
9:58 AM
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Comments (1)
January 23, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } The Crib, originally uploaded by Burton F.. I'm slow to the game, obviously, but I'm...
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Posted by greg at
11:25 PM
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Comments (3)
January 16, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Numbers quilt, originally uploaded by stitchindye. I've always liked this Ikea numbers fabric, except that...
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Posted by greg at
11:53 AM
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Comments (2)
January 11, 2008
When we last saw the Donald Judd daybed-inspired plywood toddler bed I was trying to get made, it looked like this: Just out of sight to the left is the meter, ticking away as I contemplated the invisibility of various...
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Posted by greg at
4:14 PM
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Comments (4)
January 10, 2008
My mom likes to make a quilt for each grandchild. As we were sweating over what design to go with and our--ok, my--ingracious inability to get enthused about the traditional quilty patterns was probably getting on her nerves, I...
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Posted by greg at
5:06 PM
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Comments (9)
January 1, 2008
L: before, R: after I had decided to repaint the red doors on the kids' Via Toy Box cube tower, and though I had some glossy Ralph Lauren black paint left over after refinishing all the doors in the...
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Posted by greg at
2:53 PM
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Comments (3)
December 30, 2007
The men of the south Ndebele tribe of South Africa are responsible for building dried mud house compounds for their families, while the women are charged with decorating it with the tribe's distinctive, bold geometric patterns. Inspired by this...
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Posted by greg at
12:01 PM
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Comments (0)
December 20, 2007
Well, if a "concerned" mom who was interested in the tween skankover mall chain Club Libby Lu because her daughter "was considering working there," and who had "read some horrible things online" took time during the busy holiday season to...
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Posted by greg at
11:22 PM
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Comments (1)
December 13, 2007
Master craftsman Scott Morrison describes his awesome Rocker Cradle this way: Here I updated a 1700's stlye Windsor Nanny Rocker using Sam Maloof's Classic Rocking Chair design as a basis. I wanted to add interest by creating different shapes...
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Posted by greg at
7:56 AM
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Comments (1)
December 12, 2007
From a photo tour of a Massachusetts family's loft, which is in a converted elementary school, Apartment Therapy, March 2005:That huge cardboard tube is going to be an access route through which the kids will crawl to reach a...
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Posted by greg at
11:50 PM
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Comments (2)
Wow. Ted Sears was an animator and the first head of the story department at Walt Disney Studios. According to his IMDb bio, he was very influential in the adoption by the film industry of storyboards. He wrote the...
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Posted by greg at
9:00 PM
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Comments (1)
December 9, 2007
In 1963, Isaacs was contacted by a University of Chicago child psychiatrist, who wanted to provide individual work/play/living/storage spaces for handicapped and disabled children in state institutions. The resulting design was two 35 5/8" plywood cubes with storage spaces...
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Posted by greg at
7:34 PM
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Comments (0)
December 3, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Where are all the hippie visionaries when you need'em? In the 50's and 60's, designer...
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Posted by greg at
8:27 PM
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Comments (0)
November 26, 2007
H is for Holy Crap, we're gonna have another kid in a few weeks. My wife's now solidly in the Alien stage, where you can see her belly writhing from across the room. Superficially speaking, we're ready for the new...
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Posted by greg at
7:23 AM
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Comments (18)
November 23, 2007
My elementary school had swoopy graphics like this once, I think. And according to the box, Canadian designer Ted Butler's complete Supergraphic set makes it super easy to create your very own Electric Company-ish graphics, "even if you've never...
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Posted by greg at
6:36 AM
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Comments (0)
November 18, 2007
Just as they once ruled the seas, the British once led the world in the development of the cardboard playspace race. The date was 1969, and while the US was fiddling around with some moon landing or another, the...
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Posted by greg at
12:20 PM
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Comments (1)
November 14, 2007
Right this way. Thanks for stopping by. It's four months on, and our 3-year-old daugther still loves her iPhone, by the way. The iPhone You Won't Have To Queue For [guardian.co.uk]...
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Posted by greg at
9:10 PM
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Comments (0)
November 12, 2007
This is so sweet. One of my biggest gripes about the whole DK My First Whatever Book series is the ridiculous absence of logos. I know exactly why it's the way it is, but it still bugs; it just...
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Posted by greg at
7:47 AM
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Comments (1)
November 11, 2007
The kid's been learning to hop on one foot at pre-pre-school this year. So this sweet Hopscotch carpet by Karin Mannerstall, uh, really jumped out at me on swissmiss. It's part of the Play series Mannerstall did for the...
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Posted by greg at
7:21 AM
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Comments (0)
November 7, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } puzzle pillows, originally uploaded by INV/ALT. Hmm, maybe I won't try so hard to find...
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Posted by greg at
7:31 AM
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Comments (2)
November 5, 2007
Alright, I notice there is no comprehensive list of all 25 celebrity doll patterns in Carol Meldrum's book, Knitted Icons: 25 Celebrity Doll Patterns. So I've compiled what I can from the various write-ups, which only make me wonder...
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Posted by greg at
9:01 AM
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Comments (3)
November 4, 2007
Alright, design gurus, I'm stumped. I swear I remember someone stuffing foam blocks into these dollar store plaid nylon shopping bags and making a sofa and chairs. It was a few years ago, maybe even Y2K, and I think...
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Posted by greg at
8:31 AM
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Comments (8)
November 3, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } , originally uploaded by asa*. Alright, the punch-out cardboard toy in a box student project...
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Posted by greg at
8:33 AM
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Comments (3)
November 1, 2007
The only Muno & Plex face painting I did at the kid's preschool pumpkin party was on myself. Lumpyhead's mom makes his DJ Lance Rock costume. And above, DT reader Jonathan and his East Village dadfriend were both rocking...
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Posted by greg at
5:53 PM
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Comments (20)
October 31, 2007
Babble was a sponsor of the baby & kid's division of etsy's homemade Halloween costume contest. The winners were announced today, too late for you to steal an idea for your own kid, sorry. The winner's on the left....
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Posted by greg at
9:36 PM
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Comments (2)
Orange fuzzy hats off to DJ Lance Rock Lumpyhead. Very niice. [lumpyhead via jason]...
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Posted by greg at
6:44 PM
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Comments (6)
October 30, 2007
Some noob with awesome sewing skills posted a picture of this sweet, plush Companion Cube [from the X-Box 360 game Portal] to the papercraft/origami section of rambunctious anime fansite 4chan, where Kotaku picked it up. The result: a foul-mouthed...
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Posted by greg at
11:28 PM
October 28, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Toy Kitchen 2, originally uploaded by annam42. Very nice. Anna, a craftblogging mom who knows...
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Posted by greg at
8:31 PM
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Comments (5)
October 27, 2007
Obviously, a brilliant design, though I gotta say, I think it works better as a t-shirt. From the Kidrobot November Releases announcement [kidrobot.com via boingboing, thanks jason] Previously: Winner of the DT DIY Muno Lisa t-shirt...
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Posted by greg at
12:30 AM
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Comments (2)
October 26, 2007
It's one of the things that bugs me most about DC: the graffiti in our neighborhood just plain sucks. No style at all, just one nervous hoodlum's crappy black spraypainted tag on every newspaper box. If I thought it'd...
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Posted by greg at
12:53 AM
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Comments (5)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Yo Gabba Gabba Muno Shirt, originally uploaded by super-structure. ...and that winner's dad has a...
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Posted by greg at
12:07 AM
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Comments (0)
October 22, 2007
My Modern Life is an eBay seller in Lincoln Nebraska who first crossed my radar when she posted some vintage toys in insanely great condition by Creative Playthings and Kay Bojesen. As if that wasn't awesome enough, My Modern...
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Posted by greg at
12:02 PM
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Comments (0)
October 19, 2007
This is so great. Joel created it for his daughter Isabella. Though I could get nitpicky about why G is for Gehry when K is for Konstantin, the truth is, I don't know how to pronounce Grcic, either. And...
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Posted by greg at
2:44 PM
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Comments (4)
See, was that so hard? Kiersten at Mod Mom Furniture is making kid furniture in her garage again, furniture that's even based on her own designs. And it's not bad at all. As before, you can buy with confidence,...
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Posted by greg at
11:10 AM
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Comments (11)
October 12, 2007
Eames Hack is part of a DIY-focused charette by a team of industrial design students at University of the Arts in Philadelphia. They modded two iconic Eames chairs with the intent of liberating "these once iconic, elite, forms." And...
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Posted by greg at
12:31 AM
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Comments (1)
October 8, 2007
See-through Predator from robertogreco on Vimeo. Bwahaha, medical ethics and bodily integrity implications aside, this is awesome. See-Through Predator is a wolf whose teeth were removed so he wouldn't bite his prey, and whose stomach was replaced with a...
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Posted by greg at
9:07 AM
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Comments (2)
October 4, 2007
This was on BabyGadget a little while ago, the FYS Finish Your Self Junior chair made of recycled cardboard--oh wait, no, it's "100% recyclable"--by David Graas, an Amsterdam designer interested in environmentally sound products, or as he puts it...
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Posted by greg at
10:46 PM
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Comments (0)
October 3, 2007
So what better prize for the unofficial YGG! contest than an unofficial YGG! T-shirt? Basically, it's made with a stencil cut from the iron-on transfer images on the Nick Jr. site. If you make one yourself--possibly because you don't...
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Posted by greg at
1:43 PM
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Comments (3)
The kid and I went to Springville, Utah last week, in the Provo metropolitan area [sic, but less and less sic every time I go back]. La Casita #1 is still a reliable source of decent Mexican food, and...
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Posted by greg at
12:01 AM
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Comments (3)
October 2, 2007
I needed to practice making the YGG! contest prize--see those stencils on the left?--so I tested a stencil on one of the kid's American Apparel shirts. It's from the blog Saffron Revolution Worldwide, which was an early, active resource...
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Posted by greg at
12:13 PM
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Comments (2)
October 1, 2007
Haha, of course, who else but Samuel Beckett could make sense of the first four months of parenthood? Here's mom/blogger Stephany Aulenback talking about the boardbook she conceived [heh], Beckett for Babies:Beckett's work is bleak yet comic, much like...
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Posted by greg at
8:48 PM
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Comments (1)
Seems like we missed the Crafty Bastards Craft Fair down in DC yesterday. For a second, I thought I should be bummed, but then I realized there are about 10,000 edgy craft fairs popping up all over the country...
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Posted by greg at
1:27 PM
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Comments (1)
The wholly independent human robot modders of RobotsRule.com have loaded a harmless, hilarious Elmo personality into the RoboSapien, then they chopped up an Elmo hand puppet, and created a fleece RoboSapien bodysuit to complete the transformation. It's all good-natured...
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Posted by greg at
7:28 AM
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Comments (0)
September 29, 2007
Awesome:I hate Thomas. These stories, written from the 1940s by an apparently rather crusty old vicar, seem to me to constantly harp on about how all the little engines should be obedient and "really useful" to the corpulent rich...
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Posted by greg at
10:51 PM
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Comments (0)
September 27, 2007
How does Joyce Wadler find these people? The NY Times Home section has the renovation fairy tale of the extremely handy drummer Mark Robohm, who gut-renovated his 400-sq ft Chelsea studio for $11,500 while living in it. Now he and...
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Posted by greg at
8:52 AM
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Comments (1)
September 24, 2007
This auction ended a couple of weeks ago, unfortunately, but it deserves a shoutout: eBay seller and master craftyperson nimbus8895 [update: who only now comes out as DT reader and frequent tipster/commenter Melissa] made an Oscar the Grouch Halloween...
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Posted by greg at
11:18 AM
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Comments (1)
September 21, 2007
Sheesh, I sure love the way the vinyl wall decal thing has taken off. But watching this 2-hour installation of a massive Blik decalscape condensed to 1-minute, I just can't imagine not totally screwing this up somehow. [Not that...
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Posted by greg at
9:40 PM
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Comments (3)
September 20, 2007
StarWars.com blogger Neil Baker made a Star Wars Alphabet for fellow Star Wars bloggers to put on Star Wars t-shirts to wear to the Celebration IV Star Wars anniversary commemoration a few months back. Then he turned his alphabet...
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Posted by greg at
1:44 PM
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Comments (0)
September 18, 2007
Heath and the BLT Boys are scanning in pages from the 1975 magnum opus, The Complete Encyclopedia of Crafts. It's 24 full-color volumes of fantastic craft projects your parents never got around to finishing for you. This wall of...
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Posted by greg at
11:00 AM
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Comments (0)
Artist/illustrator Patrick Lau started with a painting of a robot for his kid's nursery, which began, as his wife Maya put it, "to slightly have a theme." He added giant gears to the walls, and there's a shelf full...
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Posted by greg at
10:11 AM
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Comments (5)
September 16, 2007
The kid's sick, the laptop battery was dead, so when I curled up with her [the kid, that is, not the laptop] for a little Sesame Street Therapy this morning, I grabbed a copy of the Dutch/LES design journal/zine...
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Posted by greg at
5:11 PM
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Comments (1)
September 11, 2007
image via mega(k)nits Better to figure out how to scale the various knitting patterns for kid-sized heads. When I asked her how easy it'd be, she said "very easy," and then she said she was going to Europe and...
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Posted by greg at
7:44 AM
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Comments (0)
September 10, 2007
It seems I've wandered into the web's Knerdish Knitting Knook. Samantha made a little snuggly/baby washcloth thing with the Starfleet insignia on it for some pregnant Star Trek fan/friends. [with Trek-themed music, but no Starfleet uniforms or Klingon cake...
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Posted by greg at
6:58 AM
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Comments (0)
September 9, 2007
This is awesome. On Instructables, Tracy_The_Astonishing shows how to knit this sweet 6-12 mo-sized Space Invader earflap hat in just three easy steps. Granted, one of those steps involves drawing a sheaf of arcane stitch patterns on graph paper,...
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Posted by greg at
11:20 PM
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Comments (0)
September 4, 2007
When the Mobile Industrial Complex left him high and dry, new dad Will took matters into his own hands. Now he just watches for the day when his Baby not-Mario can jump up and reach these question cubes; that's...
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Posted by greg at
5:10 PM
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Comments (0)
August 31, 2007
If you're sick of waiting for months--or even years--for a recall to find out just how much lead is in your kid's Made In China toys, have I got the blogpost for you! Craftzine has rounded up a giant list...
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Posted by greg at
8:32 PM
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Comments (0)
August 16, 2007
Wow. I don't know what's more shocking: the sweet DIY goodness that resulted from this classic Ikea Gulliver crib and some specialty lumber, or the fact that an Ikea somewhere didn't have a Gulliver in stock, and the expectant...
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Posted by greg at
6:28 PM
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Comments (4)
August 11, 2007
Ever the eBay shark, Andy found this sweet, modernist plywood-and-plexi dollhouse for sale on eBay and posted it to Stork Bites Man. The description says it was designed and built by an architect; the plexiglass walls can slide out...
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Posted by greg at
8:12 AM
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Comments (5)
July 31, 2007
Oil industry-and-art-world scion-turned-graffiti artist Dash Snow has always done his best work with semen. As he explained last January in a New York Magazine cover story titled, "Warhol's Children" [he's the tattooed one on the right]:“I’ve always been a big...
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Posted by greg at
11:34 AM
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Comments (1)
Unassisted childbirth advocate Laura Shanley and midwife Mairi Breen-Rothman will be discussing the "over-medicalization" of childbirth and the issues, advantages, and challenges of giving birth at home--and taking your requests!!--live today at 1pm EST on the Washington Post's website....
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Posted by greg at
8:05 AM
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Comments (2)
July 29, 2007
Here are a couple of interesting-looking SDCC finds from Kidrobot's photostream: Up top is a DIY version of Mike Burnett's awesome Neighborwood toy figure. When it comes to the preferred mediums of the indie toy scene, wood is a...
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Posted by greg at
5:12 PM
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Comments (2)
July 28, 2007
Wow, I was definitely taken in by The Dark Side of The Force on this one. I was about to blast George Lucas like a Tatooine womp rat when I saw this picture of a kid hugging a pink...
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Posted by greg at
8:16 PM
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Comments (7)
July 11, 2007
Don't worry, the 500-pound bomb was lined with rubber as part of the conversion to a toddler plaything. If there's any sense in the world, this thing should be turning up at a Honolulu garage sale someday. Popular Mechanics,...
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Posted by greg at
12:55 AM
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Comments (0)
July 8, 2007
So a couple of months ago, after seeing Funk-Station's computer bag reworking of the classic blue IKEA bag, I wondered if you couldn't tweak it into a diaper bag, too. It has three separate pockets and both hand and...
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Posted by greg at
10:14 AM
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Comments (3)
July 6, 2007
What, another interview with the AT-AT strollermodding dad? Thingamababy's got a sitdown with Florida Star Wars fan and new dad Rick Russo, and it's just like ESB vs. SW: the sequel is definitely better. I'd go so far as...
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Posted by greg at
9:48 AM
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Comments (1)
July 4, 2007
My mom was insanely cool even before she knitted an iPhone. Last week, as the hype was peaking, I braced for reports of kids across the country grabbing for their parents' new iPhones; it was a drool-soaked disaster waiting...
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Posted by greg at
1:26 PM
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Comments (50)
July 3, 2007
Wow, it's amazing how the same basic idea--make the kid a modernist dollhouse out of recycled building materials--can have such different executions. Dutch's Miesian townhouse is spare and unfinished to an extreme, letting the kid play God by filling...
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Posted by greg at
5:49 PM
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Comments (2)
David from Hemming's sent me this link to Sniff Patrol's latest spy shots of the BMW 1-Series, which got me thinking about sweet, small coupes. Totally unrelated to that sight gag, I remember seeing a momblogger who'd repainted her kid's...
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Posted by greg at
11:42 AM
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Comments (9)
Droog-and-beyond designer Marcel Wanders spent six months collecting rare and unusual beads, beads with stories, to make a necklace for his daughter, Joy. Now, whether he had enough beads left over, or he just replayed the concept, I'm not...
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Posted by greg at
10:46 AM
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Comments (0)
July 2, 2007
After his son's AT-AT Imperial Walker-modded stroller made the Internet rounds, Star Wars fan dad Rick Russo finally stepped into AJ's Thingamababy spotlight. And now he's given an interview with the Star Wars Blog, explaining his inspiration for the...
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11:55 PM
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That's Dutch as in JD, Juniper's dad, of course, not the country. Though the Netherlands is known for the quality of their kid's design, I'm afraid the whole Bugaboo-pushing lot of them takes a backseat to our Dutch, who...
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12:00 AM
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June 27, 2007
What a great feeling it must be to take a hacksaw to a piece of Ikea furniture. Wired's Geekdad needed an efficient reconfigure for their two sons' room, so they chopped up the bunkbed and bolted it to the...
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9:51 AM
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June 20, 2007
AJ's the Jedi Master of stroller detective work. He tracked down the origins of the awesome AT-AT Walker stroller mod that's been making the rounds on the net recently, and he's deduced quite a bit of the DIY that...
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7:52 AM
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Knit the helmet! Knit the helmet! Oh mighty warrior t'will be quite a task How will you do it, might I enquire to ask? I will do it with this kit from Bella Knitting! This kit from Bella Knitting?...
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12:26 AM
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Comments (3)
June 17, 2007
Unbelievable. And an interesting discussion in the Threadbared comments, too. Maybe you could tweak them to be a Mr. T sweater instead, you know, to match the kid's doll. There are vintage patterns for Golly Jumpers coming up on...
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5:17 PM
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June 15, 2007
I was going to ask for some suggestions on how the kid and I should pimp out the Mini Munny Mobile that Kidrobot sent us to try out, but then I saw that they launched a Munny Mobile Custom...
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9:02 AM
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June 14, 2007
Like everyone else, I wanted sea monkeys and x-ray goggles. Unlike one guy, though, I was never able to convince my parents to pony up for the crap advertised in comic books. Now it turns out, the $6.98 Polaris...
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12:29 PM
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June 11, 2007
Since he got it at age 14, Ryan Bell's has shared some of the most important milestones of his life with his 1967 Camaro. It was with him as he dragraced his way through high school. He dropped the...
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9:31 PM
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Egg Press has released Let's Stitch Frank!, a hand-screened canvas dog kit that's the first in a promised series of sew-it-yourself toys. [Well, the first if you don't count Hoot and Scoot, the other DIY stuffed animals Egg does.]...
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1:03 PM
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Comments (1)
June 3, 2007
Charlotte, NC dad Rodney Huss needed to tune a new daily driver, something “'Euro' with the 'Bad Boy' attitude with a mix of the old school and racecar technology...and the clean, simple styling that makes the German cars stand,...
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2:23 PM
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Comments (3)
June 1, 2007
Sarah With An H thrifted out this sweet rocking dinosaur last fall for just five bucks. While I was trying to identify it {note: which I never did. Anyone recognize it?], I found plans to make a different rocking...
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3:55 PM
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So the kid's Miniboo is sitting in the corner of her room for a year-plus with one of the wheels broken off, meanwhile, a Mr. Wu of Somewhere Outside Beijing has made not one, but two robot-powered rickshaws, a...
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3:28 PM
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The New Chinky Workshop began when Crazy Asian Uncle Dude decided he could make a better table cheaper for his nephew's Thomas The Tank Engine set. Then his sister had twins, so CAUD whipped up a pair of pine-and-mahogany...
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Posted by greg at
1:44 PM
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Comments (2)
May 30, 2007
Hey-o, a fantastically mod doll house--with a floating fireplace, no less--that you make yourself with tinted and transparent acrylic, balsa wood, an ice cream carton lid, and some blocks? Damn right it's better. You know what'd be even better,...
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5:37 PM
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Comments (1)
May 25, 2007
A bit of friendly, unsolicited advice to the makers of the Mama Board: If you're gonna go and do something as awesome as engineering and manufacturing and marketing a skateboard that can latch onto a stroller, DON'T give it...
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9:50 AM
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Comments (9)
May 19, 2007
I gotta say, I'd like this Nintendo Controller baby rattle more if it was on etsy, not craftser. Until I can buy one in ten seconds, it's just sewing machine people rubbing it in my face, and that gets...
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4:12 PM
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May 15, 2007
I would imagine if you're running a handcrafted wooden toy company in a fully developed, expensive country like Germany, you constantly feel pressure from low-cost factories in China or Vietnam or Romania or wherever. What's the logical strategic response?...
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Posted by greg at
7:29 AM
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Comments (7)
May 10, 2007
If you're planning an old school Sesame Street disco pinball machine/Pointer Sisters theme for the kid's nursery--and who isn't? look at all the possibilities down there--brother, has Thydzik got the DIY clock tutorial for you. [There are even cleaned...
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Posted by greg at
10:12 AM
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Comments (1)
May 8, 2007
I just heard today from diaperbagmaker to the stars Mia Bossi that blue is the new black: “We know blue is going to be a big color this fall, so we wanted to incorporate it into the line—but also...
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Posted by greg at
9:07 PM
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Comments (2)
May 7, 2007
OK, I am officially in awe. DT reader AJ just sent photos of the freakin' geodesic dome he just built for his 2-year-old daughter. Here are his simple tips for cranking out your very own dome in no time:...
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Posted by greg at
2:51 PM
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Comments (9)
If I had to pick the most egregious examples of Spiderman 3 marketing asshattery we've seen, it'd be a tossup between the posters taped to the ends of the shelves and carts at our public library in DC, and...
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1:39 PM
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In 1954, the German-Swiss artist Dieter Roth created a book for the son of Claus Bremer, the German dramatist and concrete poet. Known as Kinderbuch, the book consisted of op-art-y geometric shapes and patterns rippling across 28 letterpressed cardboard...
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11:05 AM
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May 2, 2007
Very interesting. Gloria Caranica may beg to differ, but I'm not really minding the vintage mod on this Creative Playthings "Rocking Beauty" hobby horse. True, it doesn't have the elegance of the original natural wood and bright red ball...
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Posted by greg at
1:16 PM
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Comments (1)
May 1, 2007
You've got to be kidding. I guess in the world of crappy, commercially made costumes, these Star Wars baby costumes might rank above average, but that's only if you include those drugstore ripoffs that are nothing more than a...
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Posted by greg at
9:09 AM
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Comments (1)
April 30, 2007
Why, viva my Revolucion, it's Playmobil Che! Look on the wall of Richard Unglik's photograph of a typical 1969 living room from his book, La grande aventure de l'Histoire avec Playmobil. Acros from the Playmobil Warhol, next to the...
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Posted by greg at
10:33 AM
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April 26, 2007
And get a case 'a them American Apparel bodysuits, because this summer, the kid's gonna be wearing nothing but Weird Wheels Wunzies, with pictures of vintage 80's grossout hot rods ironed onto them. Frankly, I'd like the source images...
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6:51 AM
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April 25, 2007
You wanna know the difference between our hippies and the hippies in the 70's? They both lived in lofts on the Lower East Side; they both went on about the environment, and they both built geodesic domes out of...
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Posted by greg at
1:38 PM
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Comments (2)
April 20, 2007
From now on, I pity the fool who tries to tell me pop craftiness is a 21st century trend. In 1984, "Miss Martha Originals, through a license with Big T Enterprises, (Mr. T’s licensing company) created a pattern book,...
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Posted by greg at
11:39 AM
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Comments (1)
April 17, 2007
Mr. McGroovy is dad and an art teacher-turned-entrepreneur, the success of who's main product, Mr. McGroovy's Box Rivets, is almost entirely dependent on getting more parents to make more play-related structures for their kids out of large cardboard boxes. On...
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Posted by greg at
2:06 PM
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Comments (4)
We've expended an enormous amount of energy keeping the kid from touchscreening our laptops, so we're already doomed on this one, but maybe it's not too late for you. A dad named John loaded Firefox onto a surplus point-of-sale...
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Posted by greg at
11:52 AM
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April 11, 2007
Good thing all the crazy DIY dad projects came to an end in 1962. Nowadays, folks do completely safe and wise things like using bungee cords to strap a DeWalt-powered saw motor onto their kid's Radio Flyer Tiny Trike....
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5:00 PM
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Does it explain a lot to know that Baby Boomers were apparently raised on a steady diet of lead paint, motor oil, and My Three Sons? According to Popular Mechanics [45 years, or in product safety testing and liability...
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4:06 PM
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...if I should die before I wake, it's cuz Dad hit the gas and not the brake. Frankly, it's a miracle any of us is alive to have kids at all. I just posted a scan of some plans...
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3:03 PM
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Comments (3)
March 12, 2007
Instead of dumping their busted, old entertainment center, a fine Craftserwoman and her hubby [...] transformed it into a play kitchen for about $40, not counting the cottage cheese:...We measured just below the rim of the bowl, cut a...
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Posted by greg at
4:51 PM
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Comments (3)
March 1, 2007
I just bought a couple of musty 1962 issues of Popular Mechanics from 1962. They have huge spreads of photos and plans for building nine great-looking pieces of play furniture by Swedish designers: toy bins and play tables, little...
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Posted by greg at
2:21 PM
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Comments (2)
February 14, 2007
Here are some great-looking techniques for turning any image you want into a wall-sized mural or decal, whether it's digital or analog, an Eric Carle kangaroo or a crazed, hammer-wielding yakuza. At his new blog Daddyhack, frequent DT contributor Eric...
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Posted by greg at
8:35 AM
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Comments (4)
February 13, 2007
This might just be cool enough to make up for the high chair. Swedish architect Stephan Gip is credited with the 1962 design for the all-wood, no-tray, trapezoidal stacking high chair that we wipe off a little every day...
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9:05 AM
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February 10, 2007
Cynthia & Chris are husband & wife designers who salvaged a store of vintage Eames shells from an auditorium fire and set to refinish them by hand. Rather than just return them to an impractical and ultimately inauthentic "vintage"...
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Posted by greg at
7:16 PM
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Comments (2)
October 13, 2005
I think I read somewhere that all the snowboarding kids are crocheting these days, making their own hats and stuff. Now unless crocheting and knitting don't mix--like how racquetball messes up your tennis game--all you crocheters can probably just look...
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Posted by greg at
11:53 PM
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