Wordplay

The Bright Side Project features lovely interesting designers and lets you win their goodies just by posting answers to the artists’ questions on their blog. Do it before April 25 for these WONDERFUL MULTI-USE SUPER VERSITILE TOE-PLEASING MOHOP SHOES:

Image from The Bright Side Project.

You can tie them up however you like, whenever you like, for whatever you like.

I like. Mmmm. Mohop.

Recession special: monthy free art from Indix Fixx and the Feed Your Soul Free Art Project.

She’ll be featuring a new print each month from her participating artists–free for you to download and “even just thumb tack to the wall.”  I prefer to put much bigger holes in my rented walls, so maybe I’ll hang mind by a gigantic J hook.

Here’s one of her first featured prints by Samantha Hahn.

About Samantha Hahn: Samantha Hahn is an illustrator, surface pattern designer, crafter, blogger, and art teacher. She also writes the blog Maquette where she writes about art, design, craft, and eclectic style. She also often shares her daily drawings there as well. Samantha has done commercial work for: Glamour Magazine, Craft Magazine, Hallmark, Mankind Magazine, Blanket Magazine, & Lovely Magazine among others.   To purchase prints of her work, visit her etsy shop,  Little Paper Planes and Shiny Squirrel.

Two more are waiting for you on Indix Fixx. Happy printing!

Alone print by MagnolijaART

Yep, I’m now on Twitter. Notice that new addition on the right? It’s me pretending someone would be intersted in my daily activities.

Anyway–FOLLOW ME if you are so inclined!

It’s hot:

New endeavor from a gaggle of (laid-off) Portfolio.com staffers that wish to bring the world more sticky recession news. It’s only for the time-being (so they say) and hopefully it won’t be here forever. Catch it while you still can (good for passing time whilst wistfully waiting for employment opportunities to arise).

1. Watch some of their recommended  feel-good movies–feel good because you’re better off than these suckers:

The Fly–because you could be half-insect.

Cast Away– because you could be stuck on an island and not only have no paycheck, but have to talk to a volleyball smeared with blood.

Carrie–because you could constantly piss people off by accidentally setting them on fire. Well, or maybe you could view this film as a how-to.

The Wrestler–because you could be on the minor leagues wrestling circuit–and yep, that really would be worse.

2. Watch for their daily Recession Briefings — a day’s worth of corralled doom and gloom heds from the papers.

This week:  Mom, I joined the Army–because I couldn’t find a job from CNNMoney
The Department of Defense says all branches of the armed forces met or exceeded their recruiting goals for January, despite the two ongoing wars.

3. Follow Joe the Trader’s daily schedule of life after Wall Street:

Monday, 3:18 p.m.:
Go to Equinox on 45th and Lexington. When it first opened, it was conveniently located near Barclays, Bear Stearns, JP Morgan and the Park Avenue hedge funds. Bear is gone, and I wonder how much longer the others will be around. There sure are a lot more guys here in the mid-afternoon than I would have expected. Are they all out of work too? Or do they just have nothing to do at work? I guess one positive benefit of the recession is that a lot more Wall Street guys will be able to run an eight minute mile.

4. Think you have creativity left in you? One contributor mentions how to decorate your new (smaller) apartment (near JFK)  in these tough times, including a $0 project made from old spiral-bound notebooks. Trash diving is now posh, I suppose.

Me? I just Rasterbate when no one’s looking. It’s free and it feels good:

Photo by Iñigo Amescua (I like how he sees U.S. photography), NYC, 2008, Rasterbated on 8.5 x 11 sheets of printer paper, meticulously trimmed and joined with Scotch tape and a careful eye.

You are about to enter a world where everything has been created by hand…

Coraline arrives in theaters today and the diy blogorhood is overly anxious. The marketing team even sent out button kits to their fave crafters.

Via Craftzine.

Yep, it’s the first handmade film shot in 3D, but as the creators like to say, it’s “The biggest smallest movie ever made.”

The website is a design junkie’s dream. There’s all sorts of hidden gems…bookmarks, wall paper, posters, sweater knitting instructions.

And if you aren’t weirdly disgusted by eyeball-related activity,  you can button your own eyes in the Other Mother’s workshop. Or read more than you’ll ever want to know about this movie: NYT style.

Althea Crome: Knitter of Coraline’s sweaters and gloves, size xxxs–

Oliver Jones, magic gardener: Making flowers blossom and puppets fly–

Jeanne McIvor, Professional skeleton maker–

Author Neil Gaiman discusses Koumpounophobia:

“And that’s irrational, isn’t it—to be scared of buttons?” So eerie and wonderful.

If you want even more Coraline news (because why wouldn’t you?) check out Evil Buttons, where you can find many strange and fantastic things, among them:

Rules of a mystery box swap

Coraline concept art wallpaper

And most importantly:

A side by side line up of Coraline vs. The Pink Panther

Decision made!

Illustrator Christoph Neimann plays with LEGOs in Berlin and thinks of New York:

Images from Neimann’s Abstract City blog/the NYT Opinion page yesterday, where you may find more of his miniature tribute.

On further inspection, Neimann seems to have rather amusing rapport with his editors as well as an unhealthy coffee affection–both worth your time to inspect, seeing as it’s mostly visual treats.

His LEGO construction shed some light on our similarities:

He plays with plastic blocks and coincidentally creates charming NY architecture and cultural symbols. I play with plastic cards in my wallet and painfully create credits in my checking account.

However, my bankruptcy = not charming.