a bit of green

As some of you might know, I recently moved to a new appartment. The old one was already furnished, so I was lacking several basic things such as a couch or a table for the living room.

A while back, I salvaged an old window from the garbage and I’ve been meaning to do something with it; so I decided to make a window table! My dad (maybe you remember his skills from the bike panniers) came over and we built the window table together. Here’s the whole process!

Many of you have asked for some kind of pattern for our roll up panniers. The time has come at last!
Here’s a teaser image; you can download a high resolution PDF here.

According to Wikipedia, “Guerrilla gardening is gardening on another person’s land without permission”. The term was coined in 1973 by the Green Guerilla group that was active in the Bowery Houston area of New York. The act itself, however, dates back to at least 1649 when Gerrard Winstanley and his group of Protestant agrarian communists called “the Diggers” was active in Surrey, England. The land that is guerrilla gardened (or bewildered as Australian gardener Bob Crombie likes to call it) is usually abandoned or neglected by its legal owner and the guerrilla gardeners take it over (“squat”) to grow plants. This gesture may or may not have a political flavor to it. In our case it doesn’t, at least not consciously.

Recently, we’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, baking all kind of goods. Our latest addiction is bread! From baguettes to country bread, we’ve tried different recipes until we made one of our own: breadettes!

The recipe is based on a traditional french baguette recipe and various other bread recipes we found across the Internet.
Here you go:

Now that my university is closed for winter holidays, I finally have more free time to do all the crafty things I’ve been wanting to. One of these is a lamp made from plastic cups I’ve seen at taf, the art foundation, in the Monastiraki region in the center of Athens.
When I first saw it at taf, I was amazed; I looked closely and I couldn’t believe my eyes! The object itself is so peculiar, modern and alien-like it could be in any design exhibition. With my best friend’s birthday coming up, I decided to make it myself and give it to her as a gift. It turns out it was the easiest craft I’ve even done, the epitome of DIY objects!

Well, I suppose I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I’ve wanted to makeover my bike for quite a while and I’m really excited about it! The makeover is far from extreme right now, but I’ve got some  other projects in mind, such as some DIY roll up paniers (I deeply envy these!) and maybe a polka dotted helmet like that one from ohjoy.
I’ll let you know if I ever find the time to do these… I’ve got a huge list of craft projects that I rarely get the chance to even start. Oh well, at least I’ve got the ideas!

Searching for vertical garden examples, I stumbled upon those plans for a free standing hydroponic plant wall.

It’s a proposal for a botanical garden or a public space, that consists of three large curved walls, free standing, with over than 11.000 plants on the sides of the walls. The plans were made by Peter Kastan, the co-writer of the blog Jungle Walls. The design is colorful, a mix of digital and traditional-like media. Enjoy!

Remember that post about vertical gardens?

I tried to gather information on how to make one, in case you’re one of those with green fingers and not enough space to exercise them, or just want your own green wall.
Green walls can be simple or more complex, depending on your needs. The cost of making a vertical garden mainly consists of the price of the structure materials, which is pretty standard, and the cost of the plants, which can vary greatly depending on your choice of flora.

Here’s a very nice project I stumbled upon, called Creating a Greener House. It’s about the restoration of a 1928 house where great attention was given to energy efficiency. The site contains details about insulation, energy efficient heating and cooling and ventilation. A heat reclamation device is also installed in the form of a shower heat recovery mechanism. Measurements of the actual energy savings have also been made.

If you’ve ever visited Greece in the summer you will probably know how hot it can get here. While going through one of our usual “over 35 degrees Celsius” weeks I discovered a very refreshing drink, Lipton’s lemon flavored Green Ice Tea. It was a very convenient discovery as I am currently trying to reduce my coffee and coke intake, without lowering my caffeine intake too much to cause withdrawal symptoms. However, Lipton’s product is sadly packed with preservatives, loads of sugar and taste enhancers. Not to mention that it costs €1.50 per 0.5 liter bottle.