THE story this year

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Pollyanna

Canstruction is special this year. Rather 2013 is going to be a special year for Canstruction. Because it takes place TWICE. Once for last year (2012) in February and then another one on the regular schedule in November 2013 as it always does.

As many stories of compassion and kindness have come out since Hurricane Sandy here are the ones related to Canstruction.

Jennifer Greene from Canstruction sat with us and told us that in her 20 years of being with the organization, every year is special. The first Canstruction started with 8 teams/entries, and this year the expected teams were going to be 31. But the Hurricane threw it off and this rescheduled date has 24 teams participating. What of the 7 that decided not to participate in the competition?

In the true spirit of Canstruction, all teams donated their can collections right away to City Harvest so that they can be used for hurricane relief work. And 2 of those teams are back with MORE cans to build out tonight! Such spirit!

Lisa Sposato, Associate Director for City Harvest, greatly appreciates the spirit of this particular Canstruction event because it brings to mind the issues pertaining to hunger and food scarcity in people’s consciousness even when it is not holiday time. These cans will be making their way to all 5 boros through City Harvest’s distribution network.

Finally both Canstruction and City Harvest acknowledge the role and generosity of Brookfeild Properties who are hosting this event despite the fact that it is not part of the normal schedule of events at Brookfield for the year.

Enough of this sentimentality….let’s get down to see some cool designs!

Back and Canstruction 2012 but in 2013

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Pollyanna

After radio silence for so many weeks, nay, months we are back.
Why were were gone? Busy, Life, Work, Other Responsibilities etc – you know the drill
Why we are back? Because it is CANSTRUCTION time again in NYC!!!!

Reporting LIVE is one of things we love and the guys at Brookfield and BEAST SOCIAL have been so nice to invite us to report live on Canstruction 2012- which is actually taking place in 2013 folks, because of that superstorm that hit us….remember Sandy?

Yep.

But in the spirit of giving that is Canstruction- nothing phases these guys and the folks that participate. So what if it is no longer 2012. The show and the giving must go on!

And such a worthy cause!

For those who do not know- here is a link to their site.

So buildout starts tonight at 6:00 ( or 7:00pm) Eastern and we will be there and here, bringing it to you. Live. Fun. NYC Love.

The toy storage

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Pollyanna

After a short pause for the summer, the great de-cluttering and cheap interior redo process continues…..back in the kids room ( it never ends) from this:

To this:

Ah! The relief.

Some last minute darning

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Pollyanna

This post is from my work collaborators on the new project that we are so eagerly wanting to show you….

“Before we send our final pieces out to be photographed for the website, there is some last minute darning that needed to be done to some of the pieces. This one is in a gorgeous green brocade fabric. We love how it’s looking and hope that one the site and blog is up, you will love what we have done with it too!”

What is keeping us busy!

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Pollyanna

We are working on a new blog…

Why? You may ask. Shouldn’t we be working on this one and focus on growing it? Well-that’s a fair point. That is also in the works, and we have some very interesting conversations scheduled with some cool folks that bring an edge to design. But that aside, let us give you a bit of background on what ELSE is going on….

A while ago, in “Quiet Time is Over” we announced that we are working on a new start-up. The new Blog that we are working on is for that….makes sense, right?

We are launching a new benefit company that will help showcase the works of artists and craftsmen and help give them a platform to display and sell their works. Now you may think that the internet provides plenty of opportunities to do that. Yes….but some of these guys are not technology savvy, and do not have the resources or skills to comprehensively market their product.

So WE will help them Curate and Quality Control their work, and finally help them bring it to a sale–sounds like fun? Yep! It is! It’s also a LOT of WORK!

Below is our “Photo Studio”-Using makeshift products to photograph some of the products. Then its Photoshop/Lightroom and finally it will make its way to the Blog (more on that soon).

Hugs!!

Sustainable & Fun Night-lights

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Pollyanna

In continuation with Kids Room posts, here is another fun idea that we did for our children’s bedroom. We wanted some fun night lights but did not get anything we liked, so we DIY-ed our own. We used the basic IKEA Solvinden lights (string of 8) with a solar panel, like this:

Then we took some paint and my son went to work on them to take the white out and make them look like this:

And strung it up on the wall (near the ceiling) using a staple gun. It looks pretty decorative in the day:

We ran the wire so that the tiny solar panel rests in the window so that it charges in the daytime:

And at the end of the day, the lights emit a warm and lovely glow in the room. Since the “bulbs” have been painted over, they are not too bright-just enough to act like a night-light in the room. The boys love it!

Feel free to share. Just remember to credit us :)!

The DIY of the Chest

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Pollyanna

On Before and After you saw the pre and post DIY of some colorful drawers/chest from IKEA. These were relics from previous apartment moves, and some cheap sale items from the “As-is” departments. I was looking for ways to customize my furniture because I hate to waste things so I went online, looking for inspiration. After much searching I found Lindsay. Her DIY prowess and ability to make things her own amazed me and I decided to do something about my chest of drawers/cabinets.

So using her tutorial here, with a few modifications of my own (below) I made my IKEA my own for the kids room.

What you need to know:

You dont need a large work area to do this, only a dedicated one you can keep closed especially if you have kids, pets or both. Why– To keep them safe from fumes and keep fingerprints off while the paint dries. We gave up our bedroom and shacked up with the kids. This is what our room looked like for a week:

COVER IT- its worth the time saved in clean up afterwards.
GET ADVENTUROUS- it can always be changed. Paint is cheap.

What I changed from Lindsay:

I did not take my furniture apart. It was old and would not have been able to take the disassemble and reassemble process very well. I figured if I used enough masking tape I would be able to keep it contained to where I wanted it. And if it was not visible then it did not matter anyway.
We bought a sanding attachment to our drill and went right into it with a 180 grit paper but on a slow run. It will take just enough off, and fast.
We used B.I.N PRIMER with Ultimate Stain Block. Its a bit more expensive than the one that Lindsay used but dries in 15 minutes to the touch and 45 minutes for another coat. We left it to dry overnight anyway and did 2 coats of primer instead of one.
We ROLLERed on everything with a 4″ foam roller– Primer, Paint and even the final Polyacrylic protective coat. I just dont like brush strokes…! The small parts were finished with a 1″ or 2″ foam brush, but I got pretty good with using the roller so turned it in different ways to get a smooth finish.
Another thing about the roller-If your roller is not running evenly be BOLD and dip in the primer/paint/polyacrylic again. Also make sure you scrape the paint off the stick and handle each time you change the foam attachment. That helps!

2 and sometimes 3 coats of paint as needed. I watered down the paint a bit to make it easier to apply, but the final coat was with thicker paint. Always leave paint, even quick dry paint, overnight to dry.

Thats it!