A Container Contest...

So I'm reading me normal blogs and I come across this post about Dekalb Market having Not Just A Container: A contest! Basically they're going to have an outdoor market where every vendor is housed in a standard steel shipping container - It's actually pretty amazing some of the stuff they make out of these containers, check some shipping container houses here. The contest is to design any container you want with the guidelines of creativity, sustainability, design and community impact. If you win, you actually get to build it. So I had recently downloaded Google Sketch Up and decided to give it a shot - unfortunately the results are poor at best:

The idea was a bouldering cave/sitting area in the container, because I imagined that outdoor market type people would also like climbing and sitting. I think it might have went better if I watched more than just the intro vids for Sketch Up - oh well

Here's the frame - in my mind it was sustainable because recycled wood - or some other green material would have been used to make it.



This is when all the framing would be walled in


That's part of the wall being having the holds and a couch for sitting. It was actually pretty hard to make all the holds, which is why only one section is covered. It might look better in this pic because it's so small, but seeing the CAD drawing they are really nothing like really rock climbing gym holds. The couch looks super good because it's one of the objects that comes with Sketch Up - I just made it purple.


So looks like I won't be winning any design contests, but doing this sure ate up some of the time I was super bored.

~emy

Sarah's Wedding Bouquet

My friend Sarah's wedding came around pretty quickly because her fiance (now husband) is getting deployed in the spring. The ceremony was only immediate family and a few friends so she didn't want to go all out this time since they are going to have a bigger reception when he's back from overseas. So flashback to my Eco-Friendly Bouquet post, and the issue of what flowers to get was solved.

Now I can honestly say that I understand why you might pay $300+ for someone else on Etsy to create one of these bouquets for you, because it was a ton of work - and I didn't even help her to the final product! The day we started the project we probably spent 5-6 hours on it and only go to this point:

Though I feel like half the reason it took so much time was because we were trying to recreate something from a photo, and there was a lot of trial and error. Here's what some of the struggles were:

• Trying to figure out what size squares to use to get a certain sized flower
• Cutting out all the squares of magazine paper - The wedding colors were white, black and red so we were trying to cut squares with only those colors on them. Also we didn't have a paper cutter so every one was by hand
• Figuring out what size Styrofoam ball to use as the center. The original one was way too big , but we lucked out because when we tried to carve down the big ball there were 2 smaller ones inside!
• Arranging the actual flowers, they kind popped up on the sticks so you had to keep on pushing them down

Sarah ended up finishing the project with her mom, gluing black rhinestones to the exposed skewer end and adding floral tape and ribbon. It came out slightly larger and rounder than expected, but I'm pretty sure that's due to the spherical center. They also made boutineers! Check it out:

I don't know what the final cost was, but I do know it's way under $300 if you're willing to do the work youself. Another good thing about these flowers is that you don't need to dry them to save them as a keepsake!

~emy

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

So I finally finished reading Steig Larsson's 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' and I just don't see why it's a best seller.

Maybe there was just too much hype - for the past year I feel like every time I'm at a coffee shop, airport or beach I saw someone reading that book. It's also been in the front displays of all the major bookstores and is a New York Times best seller. Perhaps I just noticed it more because of it's easy to recognize neon green and yellow book cover (image via Amazon)



Here's what I thought about the book:

• Super boring beginning: I probably started the book 4 different times unable to get past page 50, until the 5th try.
  
• Un-intriguing mystery: I never really cared about who committed the murder, it wasn't a page turner like a traditional murder mystery, it was just dull
• Mystery solved, but ending not in sight: you find out the resolution to the mystery, but there's a 100 pages left in the book still! 100 pages of stuff that I didn't care about at all and didn't really add much to the plot at all, since it already peaked
• Too much violence: It was graphic violence - I'm pretty surprised they made a movie out of it already and are going to make an American version of it as well

Overall - not worth the time to read, unless you're bored out of your mind and there are no other books around because you're trapped in the house due to a natural disaster. Equally bad books that were best-sellers and did not live up to the hype The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time.

~emy