Amazing!

So in all that time I was supposed to be researching I never came across anything that was very Philly-specific but this weekend I had an explosion of discoveries in Philly design.
I guess first would be the guest post of a Philadelphian on design sponge, which was very timely.
Second was something I saw while flipping through citypaper (yeah, those old methods of communication do still work!) which was an ad for a class on making and using LEDs for yourself or your art at The Hacktory. Unfortunately, I was too late to make it to that class, which is a bummer because I've been really wanting to make some throwies for my friend's birthday, but I'm pretty sure I can figure it out anyway.
In addition to The Hacktory, there is Make:Philly, a group that does fun geeky projects , among so many other amazing things I was pretty embarrassed they hadn't been on my radar sooner. Their next meeting is Sunday March 30 and I am totally going and bringing anyone else I know who wants to come.

Almost flea market time

For the poster project I decided to advertise an event that is not pretend, it's real, and it's just around the corner. The Philadelphia area has a couple flea markets, but the one that is based in center city has a website. They usually advertise in the neighborhoods just before their scheduled markets, so I thought I would come up with my own design.

My Dream Workshop

This is for the assignment to create depth using photoshop to paste an image on a different background. So from my previous posts you may have inferred a few things, 1 that I like projects, 2 that I like to think I will do projects and never actually follow through with them, or 3 that because I am waiting until it is warmer to complete one of the projects outside, all I must need is a great workshop to get all of my projects done. For now we will say that numbers 1 and 3 are correct, in my opinion time is the determining factor for number 2, so we'll leave that alone for now.
So I decided to create my dream workshop where I could get all of my projects done in a timely fashion and make a mess all I wanted without worrying about dust in someone's cookies or getting paint on the floor. (The tools are meant to look like I'm holding them in my hands ready to attack my furniture victim.) I'm sure I am not the only one who would like to have a studio or workshop like this one, with a lot more tools though.

Another project, this one's not so complicated

I bought a table and 4 chairs recently on craigslist for a steal. The table's nice, and the chairs are too, but you can see the woman who owned them before had a VERY strong sense of color. My housemates and I determined green must have been her favorite color (a couple green pillows were thrown into the bargain) so that explains why one chair with arms has a green seat. Her husband, on the other hand, didn't want his seat frilled up with any loud colors so he got the tan chair with the arms. The pink and orange seats therefore must have belonged to the children. We love to show them off to our guests and get some reactions. Most people think they're great and encourage us to keep them the way they are, but this is not going to happen. I have some fabric I can recover the seats with no problem, but I think the wood parts of the chairs may need some sanding and maybe I'll even decide to paint them, in which case I might wait until the weather is nicer to do it outside.

My own diy projects

So I thought that if this was a real diy blog there would be before and after posts of my own projects. Well, here are some before pictures, the first is of my housemate's chair. This chair has been at our house since we moved in, and it used to be just the coat/mail/bag/bike lock holder chair, but we recently re-arranged some things. Now it hangs out in the living room for everyone to see how beat up it is. I would really love to give it a make-over, and I know it wouldn't be hard. I just need to find some time and fabric. The problem is I have the urge to pick crazy prints and it will be hard to decide on something that won't be too extreme.

Martha might be jealous

For the first photoshop assignment I decided it would be pretty awesome if you could take that chandelier I posted and hang it on your christmas tree instead, so this image is what I came up with. They do kind of resemble snowflakes, and I bet Martha Stewart would love to get her hands on some light-up snowflake ornaments like these.

Catching Up

So I haven't been too diligent in my homework, but good thing teachers invent things like presentations to jump start us all to get things done!
The next few posts will be about catching up, fyi.
This one is about this cool diy "chandelier" I found a picture of. I do think it might be a fire hazard, but that danger may be outweighed by how cool it looks.