giddygiddy

adventure playground

Spending a day at one of the best playground ever: Adventure Playground in Berkeley, California. There's really nothing like it! It's a kids' space of evolving structures constructed by and for kids. The folks there hand out paint, hammers and nails, and they let kids go at it. The premise is beautiful and is based on the notion that kids are capable. I love it!!!

Here is a transcript of a NPR interview on Adventure Playgrounds: ADVENTURE PLAYGROUNDS' A DYING BREED...

 

ROY: a one man jean making machine

You must check this out! This guy crafts artisanal jeans from start to finish. I find this video and this story (Link to his story) immensely inspiring.  Roy is the man, and his company, ROY DENIM, is based out of Oakland, CA.

He started making jeans in his apartment and then devoted serious time and energy into researching and perfecting this craft just for the love of it. Now he's a success story. Seriously, just how cool is he?

(Roy's a friend of a friend of a friend. Which almost makes him MY friend - and if that were the case, wouldn't my cool factor go up?)

Beach Bag: a reuse & upcycle project

A mesh produce bag is a beautiful thing!

I've always adored the beautiful diamond pattern. And then marveled at how this seemingly delicate material can stretch to eternity and hold a gazillion pounds of oranges! 

Today I incorporated one of these bags into a funky beach bag by combining it with fabric remnant and strategically sewing the mesh material at the bottom so that sand, dirt and water can be filtered through. 

This project was so much easier than I thought, and the results better than I had hoped for. I'm going to make a few more containers and bags with all this beautiful mesh stuff!

letterpress letters

I'm nuts about typography.

My little collection of wooden and metal letterpress letters allows me to spell GIDDY GIDDY (and also DID, DIG and DIY).  If this were my favorite word game, BOGGLE, I wouldn't score many points here, would I?

A mosaic wall

We are witnessing and participating in the evolution of an art tile mosaic wall. 

It's magical to see this wall go from bare surface, to the stage it is now.  When the first tiles were laid, those few pieces looked lonely and overwhelmed by the vastness and beigeness of the wall.  I suppose the organizer and visionary had to summon up both courage and loads of positive thinking just to get through the initial stages.   After hours and hours of devoted work from the lead artist and volunteers, one can now see patterns emerging and colors exploding. And yet, the wall is only 20% complete! This means, the super exciting & gratifying stuff is yet to come and we can't wait to be there!

In the meantime, guess what we get to check off on our family bucket list?  To take part in public art installation.  DONE!