apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

mirror

I like the mirror but not the vase.

I vote NONE OF THE ABOVE which wasn't an option. I don't like the concept. I don't like the look. I don't like anything about it.

when I first saw the bottle I thought it was covered with bangle bracelets and I thought -- hey, what a great way to organize your bracelets. But alas, it was not that at all. I would never buy one of these items but could be a fun "craft" to try sometime. On second thought, I'd never actually display one of these items so not worth the effort of making it. But, I do think that a glass bottle is a cool idea for storing bangles on your dresser top.
www.simpleeffects.com

i like the mirror but not the vase or frame. I have a trivet made out of recycled newspaper. It's really cool.

I like the picture frame. How do you think it's made. I'd love this as a DIY project.

Daily Nuance, your wish is my command!

Thanks Alex! If only ALL my wishes could come true so easily!

With an actual color scheme applied to each item, this could look great. The current random color and pattern just emphasizes the trash origins of the building materials.

I saw some hatboxes like this a few months ago online and this weekend saw them at tj maxx for under $10. I had just started making my own by using this tutorial I found on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefanie1/sets/1577206/

I made necklaces out of magazines when I was a kid. We would just dip strips of magazines in elmer's glue and string the beads together! A really great craft project!

I see things like this all the time at stores that import fair trade 3rd world artisan wares. That's pretty much what I think of it. Doing a good deed for someone in another country who may not have a better source of income than making home goods, probably repetitive and factory-like and overseen by some surly bossman nonetheless. They're making something sort of ugly and recycled and you buy it because it's not something you can get at Sears or Urban Outfitters. Makes you feel all do-gooder, gives your trinket a heartfelt story so when people ask what's this mangled trash, you can tell them someone poor made "exotic" home decor instead of sneakers, and you're supporting their income.

Where do they say these are made? Most of the quaint One World Village (whatever they're called) crafts look about like nothing you'd pay an American to make, so maybe these are sourced in the same villages, or maybe not.

If UO wasn't pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into its anti-gay political agenda, I'd totally buy the vase, admire the mirror, and pass on the frame. For now, I hope they sell zero, and then ship all the surplus to their buddy Rick Santorum. ANd yeah, I hope one of the vases is made from old Honcho mags.

I like the look in pictures, not quite as much in person, and not at all if its from Urbnan, not DIY.

At first I thought that vase was a cocktail shaker.

I have a box made this way, and I like it. I use it to store memories and cards and pictures and stuff. You know, if people made these and painted them, I bet people would be a lot more excited about it.
- MM

i love these! i actually made a picture frame like this once after seeing the ones at urban. my advice to others: just buy the ones at urban, it was a VERY time consuming project!

I really like them...

I actually just purchased a very similar vase from Reform School...

There are many kinds of these things:
http://shop.bibelotshops.com/details.php?prodID=6809
http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2007/10/24/recycled-magazine-bracelet/
http://www.greatgreengoods.com/2007/10/23/recycled-magazine-mirrors/
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=9224497
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5673005
http://www.eco-artware.com/catalog/CG5-Gecko-Sculpture.php?c=tabletop

Do a search and choose the store you want to buy from.

i like the mirror and frame but not the vase!

Love the mirror.

K T G come on, really???
One should never buy 'mangled trash' from some '3rd world artisan' just to feel 'all do-gooder' about it. If you don't like it, just don't buy it. Period. So many other ways to help the less fortunate other than bad mouth their work afterward.
Buying something from 'someone poor', just to brag about it, is kind of sad. Is it not?

afterwards. ooops.

Yeah, it's sad. I don't get all impressed by stuff like this, or even moreso because it's at Urban and not in some "unique" shop for globally situated fair trade artisans. Some of that stuff is pretty cool, but as expressed in this thread, recreating this type of craft is tedious! Usually when I see it, I see mangled trash, some kind of emperor's new clothes or what have you. Someone in an impoverished country making these instead of your sneakers or working in the field... at least when you buy it through an outlet like Ten Thousand Villages, they preface the buy with some notion the maker was some benevolent and artistic person with a leg up than if they had a job in the field or in some other kind of factory, but the workmanship indicates some tedious labor and not exactly artisanry, am I right? I don't think Urban Outfitters carries the same guilt-free assurances of "fair trade" with someone if not the actual makers of the items.

I guess something like this gives me a bad feeling the same way some people feel bad about the skulls and antlers and stuff. Most things we consume are produced by people in awful conditions, but I often wonder most about some factors of greed in the export of certain "artisan-made" "fair trade" articles. Who really wants a picture frame made of magazine pages? Why would someone in the Philippines* think this is something that will sell? Is this craft indigenous or just profitable to someone? Is there a more authentic yet less profitable cultural item they're forgoing to create this mess?

*I chose Philippines because similar items are made for the store Ten Thousand Villages by a co-op of women in the Philippines. I don't know where Urban Outfitters gets these, or their t-shirts or lamps or earrings or sunglasses or car air fresheners either, but I start thinking about it.

The recycled metal stuff I like, and the recycled plastic is okay, but this looks like Kamp Krafts.

I'm not crazy about the picture frame--it really distracts from the picture inside. But the rest is fun.

I like the idea but not as a product.
This is something you make in your garage.
Why those recycled stuff always so expensive?
It's a kid's craft or child labor(whichever you would like to call).

just came back from Target and I saw Newspaper picture frames in their College section.

I've had my eye on that mirror for awhile now.

http://www.target.com/Recycled-Newspaper-Frame-4x6/dp/B0013LZ4WO/sr=1-1/qid=1215659764/ref=sr_1_1/602-2617873-8862243?ie=UTF8&index=target&rh=k%3Apicture%20frame%20newspaper&page=1

found the link.

Dig the mirror, though it all kinda screams COLLEGE DORM to me.

Everything will get dusty, frayed and worn in about a month.

I love the picture frame and the mirror. NOt crazy about the vase.

I really think this is stretching the definition of recycled. Yes, they may be using magazines or newspapers to make the items, but the overall impact on the waste stream is pretty much nil. The materials used to make these items (of which I have no strong opinion design-wise) just happens to be newspapers and magazines, and are used purely for the aesthetic look of the finished product. I suspect the materials were print over-runs and never actually were in the hands of consumers. Any printer that has excess print over-runs would have been selling the materials to be recycled as new paper goods anyway. So it's not as if the materials would have ended up in a landfill. I think the 'greenwashing' of products to make us feel good is a really bad thing... It is leading us to consume more products in the name of being 'green'.

I looked these over in person yesterday! They're printed in a language I don't recognize. The mirror is pretty large! I doubt the country of origin (or India, the same country that produced the letters made of recycled -tin?- if it's not the same country, also for sale at Urban Outfitters) had some recycling program for these magazines once they're printed and/or used. I could be wrong. All in all, if India is going to make me something, I'd like it to be some kind of cultural-borne craft, something authentic and beautiful. This reeks of hey let's start a factory let's enterprise our greedy American consumers with this unfathomable hipster junk, produce produce produce. After my last post, my next thought was, if this is a look you must have, then it's the perfect project for your meth-addicted friends and loved ones.

If it looks tedious, and people say it was tedious when they tried to reproduce it, believe me, it's not less tedious in India. It's not a lovingly artisan-crafted imported piéce, it's a repetitively formed tchotchke made by people who don't even notice what it is.