Invisible Book Shelf and Suitcase Pet Bed

Invisible Book Shelf tutorial from Instructables.


A padded suitcase is the cat's meow -- and just the ticket for a contented kitty.

How to Make a Retro Pet Bed? from Natural Home. This pet bed uses the better half of a junk-store suitcase whose days on the luggage carousel are long gone. Simply remove the top of your vintage valise and tuck a feather pillow inside. An easy-to-remove flannel pillowcase makes laundering a breeze. This perch is the perfect curling-up spot for the discriminating catnapper.

Trashion light fixtures

My latest finds in trashion lighting fixtures made from recycled materials. I just wish I could do metalwork or electrical work.

Coffee filter sconce lamp


Propaine tank lamp by fringecollection.etsy.com


Tincan light fixtures by MariposaAvenue


WASTE NOT lamps made from recycled plastic utensils by BVBCollective





MILAN 2008: Fethi Atakol’s Functional Artwork


Lamp shade from recycled and melted plastic bottles by ThisGallery.

Junk Beautiful interior design book

I love my local bookstore Hobboks. Every time I go there I spend at least two hours just reading craft books and having the complementary(!) coffee cup and cookies while sitting on a very comfortable couch. This is why small books shops kick departmentstore ass any day. You are able to spend time in them, talk with the expert staff and READ before deciding what to buy. I bought three wonderful books today: Junk Beautiful, a interior design book inspired by junkyard finds and repurposed materials, Workspaces by Martha Fay, an interior design guide for working spaces and Denim Mania, a jeans refashioning book. I´ll post about the two later but now to the most inspirational one:

JUNK BEAUTIFUL by by Sue Whitney and Ki Nassauer
Website: www.junkmarketstyle.com (sign in to see the good stuff..)

This is the best book on recycled and repurposed interiors and it is propably the greenest interior design book on the market. The Junk Market girls Sue and Ki have an impecable taste in decor style and original (and humoristic) ideas in their projects. All the projects, instructions and designs are very clever and presented beautifully. There is nothing boring to be found, even the layout is pretty. If you're into interiors made from repurposed materials (or if you just like thrifted old wood and metal things in your home) this is the book to buy! I also love the fact that this book costs half of all other interior books on the market (23 euro in Finland). Thank you so much for the authors! 5 stars. I´m so using this as my new home decor bible. I had to order also their first Junk book, Decorating Junk Market Style: Repurposed Junk to Suit Any Decor.

Recycled belt design by Inghua Ting

TING is a small company that produces luxury products to sustainable, ethical principles. Inghua Ting established the company in 2000. Following her graduation from the Royal College of Art, Inghua worked in Japan developing innovative, futuristic fabrics. However, working at the forefront of fabric technology led her to considering sustainable issues, and the challenge of designing and producing a desirable, luxury product from recycled materials. Inspired by old leather belts, reclaimed seat belts, old braces, vintage leather saddles, salvaged fabrics and tie silks.

Car seatbelt cushion and vintage belt floormat, via Available at Branch Home


Ting produces three main collections: a range of luxury leather bags, belts and wallets; home and interior accessories and Orange Label, a range of bags made from seat belts. Belts, Bags, Wallets are crafted from vegetable tanned leathers and vintage leather belts. They are lined with bright vintage fabrics, tie silks and corduroys and have belt buckle fastenings.



Ting shoulderbag and coinpouch available from EcoBTQ.


Ting belt camera bag available from Ecocentric.

Manon Gignoux´s love for wear and tear

Manon Gignoux makes clothes, accessories, jewellry and home decor from pieces of fabric. I think she has a wonderful way to combine (muted) colors and to transform an worn down fabric into something comfortable, soft and inviting.

"The origins of my work can be traced back to my last year of study at France’s Duperré School of Applied Arts when I carried out a photographic study of the clothes worn by workers in the early 20th century and explored the "traces of wear and tear" on clothes. Starting with details of a hundred or so photographs taken from books, I filled research notebooks and ended up with four themes: the "carpenter" or the traces of alteration, the "washerwoman" or the imprint of repeated movements, the "inside-out suit" or the dynamics of (de)construction, and the "woman shopkeeper" or the encounter between work clothes and everyday life and the way an object that is worn fits the body." (paragraph from Manon Gignoux website)




"I play on the relationship between clothes and object, I dress objects in order to protect them and to tell their story… damaged coverings, darned, made from accumulation and colours faded by time."

Design Sponge Interior blog

Wow... just...wow. I have found THE diy+design+thrift interior blog. Ladies and gentlemen, let me present Design Sponge. It´s all here. Thrift store finds and small label design pieces spiced with stylish interior DIY projects all wrapped up in impeccable taste of color and form. I ended up browsing through all April entries and it took me three hours. There´s just that many posts so reserve time and a cup of hot tee. I´m particulary fond of their inspiring Before and After posts and DIY projects. This is what I want my home to look like...

Natalie "Alabama" Chanin interiors

Alabama Chanin is a sustainable label by designer Natalie Chanin. I adore her style in interior design and creating unique decor pieces. Her home textiles have some beautifull embroidery and the lamps are just pure trashion. She also has a sustainable eco-label that produces clothes and jewellry. Her "necktie-chair" is of course my favorite!



Now where could I find those gorgeous cow jaw-bones to make my own bonelamp....

Trashion dishes

Do you have some left over dishes and cups and a tube of superglue?? Why don´t you make some trashion styled candleholders and fruit dishes out of them! Here are some inspirational images to get you started by Torchhead and Arnout Visser (1962) photographed by HannyB at Flickr.

Recycled design lamps at ICFF 2007

ICFF 2007 interior design fair in New York had some fantastic lamp solutions. Sibir Designs CD Lamps, “Hungry” Silverware Chandelier by Fabbian and Mixko’s eye-catching lamps were one of my favorites.

See more pictures at INHABITAT