Challenge Reveal: A Love Supreme

Earlier this month, I began working on a scene to feature some of the new items I purchased or received as gifts. Last week I decided to pull the rest of you miniaturist in when I posed a quick and dirty little challenge but then I went and got all more is more. Hey it's all still very modern, plus it tells a story or 10. 

Welcome to the craft room/studio for two sisters. Meet the Illustrator and the Cellist, neither has a valentine this year so they chose to be one another's. Their month has been busy thus far. They've attended a number of events from a Wear Red dress fashion show to raise money for heart disease in women, to a National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day seminar, to performing in the Vagina Monologues which raises money to end domestic violence.

These ladies are so full of talent they each suffer a bit from adult ADD (attention deficit disorder) and this room truly reflects that fact.  

After spending time earlier in the week enjoying songs from the John Coltrane catalog like A Love Supreme and making cards and such, they've decided to spend the evening watching movies. Up first...Imitation of Life. A powerful story about maternal love. Followed by...KamaSutra. It's about...well, the name says it all! Breakfast At Tiffany's, The Notebook and Love Jones round out the roster of pull-at-your-heart-strings tales of love (and/or romance). The snacks are in place. Tonight they dine on sushi and chocolate. Why you might ask? Because it's great to feel sexy always, weather one has a man or not, no? 

Happy Valentine's Day! Be sure to click through the link to read more about the February Design Challenge reveals.

Details: Lil'Bratz Stylin' Space from eBay; cork side table with script from PRDminiatures, bottles filled with micro beads purchased from The Dollar Store; scrollwork mirror purchased from local flea market; red vase inside bookcase was swap gift from Mini Dork; "Love" cut-out was a gift from The Shopping Sherpa. 

Champagne Chair Contest Winners Announced

DWR announced the winners of it's Champagne Chair Contest late (for EST) this afternoon. They did something different this year by choosing 10 finalists and 7 honorable mentions.  I don't think my email had anything to do with that decision, since I have yet to receive a response from them. (I wonder if they received my original message? Doh!)

Nevertheless, the blog post announcing the winners read...

"On behalf of our judges and everyone here at DWR, we would like to congratulate the winners and all of the contestants on their beautiful, innovative and functional designs this year. Thank you for taking the time to create a champagne chair for our special contest. Please browse all 319 submissions here." 

I guess that's the part I found most meaningful. I was surprised to discover that there had only been 319 submissions. Perhaps, I should feel less bad about not making even a ripple in the design pool that is the Annual Champagne Chair Contest. And who doesn't like being told they had a "beautiful, innovative and functional design"?

F8 Chaise, Aaron Padilla---3rd Place

There's no need for me to cut and paste the DWR post since it was pretty short and to the point. You can read all the details for yourself here.  However, I will give a shout out for the F8 chaise, my personal favorite created by Aaron Padilla. I cannot believe it only won third place, the $250.00 DWR gift card! But hey, I'm not a professional designer. Well, perhaps Aaron will enjoying picking out a nice pillow or some other sort of accessory. Actually, I've taken the liberty of "recommending" a few items for that gift card. We all know DWR products don't come cheap and $250.00 spends like $10.00 elsewhere. He he he...

18"x26" Design 9297 Pillow, $250

Geneva Sound System XS, $249.95

5 Neutra House Numbers, $24 ea

Eames Hang It All, $199.00

8 Almoco 5pc Flatware Settings, $30 ea

2 Corniche Shelves,  $235.00-250.00

Congratulations to Jeffery Molter and Miwa F. as well for their designs of the second and first place winning chairs respectively. Hope to see them all on display at the DWR Georgetown before too long. 

Tutorial: Modified Director's Chair

After enjoying a great bottle of Lunetta Prosecco distributed here domestically by Palm Bay International. Its extremely affordable ($11.00 USD) with a crisp, light taste.  I loved it! (Forgive me, I digress.) I saved the cork, cage and foil packaging and proceeded to undertake my first attempt at designing a chair to enter into the annual DWR Champagne Chair contest. I gathered the following additional supplies: steak knife, X-Acto knife, wire cutter, scissors, glue (the only adhesive the contest would allow), and an emery board nail file.  So here were my starting materials:

a great sparkling wine

salvaging raw materials for building

Not too sure where this little project would end, I just stared at the raw materials for a bit. This is after having looked at some great designs from past years as well as current entrants. The name on the foil label made me think of the name on the back of a director's chair, so I went with that. I also thought it might be a little different to do a rocking chair.  I proceeded.  First, I carefully removed only the foil covering the cork, making sure to keep the round piece in tact. I uncorked the bottle and enjoyed a great glasses of wine (not the same day I made the chair...ha, ha). Later, I separated the bottom wire (that you untwist while opening the bottle) from the rest of the cage. By slicing the foil with the X-Acto knife close to the adhesive, I was able to remove the foil from the neck of the bottle in one large piece. Next, I cut the round top of the cork away form its narrower neck. By cutting that piece once again, I was left with two half circles. From the neck of the cork, I carved what was to become the seat of the chair.  That shape is called a trapezoid, I think. I had no idea that cutting sawing cork would be such a challenge but it was! I changed blades often, switched between knives and made do. As a result, the emery board made it easier to smooth out and even up the edges after I made my cuts. Here's what I had about mid-way through the project:

I used the wire to form an open ended rectangle with rounded corners. Using scissors, I trimmed the foil around the typography elements I wanted to feature. I folded the large 'lunetta' piece then wrapped it around the wire away from the open ends. I glued the foil to its self, sandwiching the wire inside. An additional piece of plain foil was glued over this to give a finished look to the piece. I attached the half circle pieces of cork to each open wire hanging at the bottom of what had become the back of the chair. I bent the wire so that the rounded part of the half circles become the "feet" of the chair. Next, I glued the second piece of foil over the seat of the chair, like upholstering. The sides of the seat of the chair were then glued to the sides of the feet (adjusting the angle by eye). Finally, a small triangular shaped pieces of cork was glued along the back of each half-circle shaped foot of the chair. I did end up removing two of the four twisted wires making up the cage, using each of them as an arm. I bent each piece like an 'L'. I inserted the raw edge of the wire into the top, front portion of the half circle allowing the finished edge of the wire meet the back of the chair.  Each arm was 'upholstered' with a small rectangular piece of cork. This was the final result from various angles:

Call-small did a wonderful job with her "Circle Chaise" and urged others to participate.  Did anyone else answer her call and make a cork chair for the 2013 DWR Champagne Chair contest? 


Update. More Blogger friends answered the call...

• Linda's Upright Hammock at The Hard Way
• Megan's Squared at Modern Mini Houses

An Open Letter to DWR...

Champagne Chair Contest

I want to thank you for creating a contest and marketing event that continues to inspire creativity and enthusiasm for modern design year after year.  For the first time, I decided to create my own design and enter the contest. I have no professional design training. I am a homeowner who, at best, can be considered to have very good taste. I am also an active member of a growing niche community online  that focuses on modern miniatures. A small group of us (about 4) all chose to enter your contest for the first time. In our discussion of the experience (conceiving then executing a design) a recurring theme emerged. We each spoke of intimidation due to the field of talent. This is not a criticism, it only speaks to the event's success. It inspired me to consider ways in which you might redesign this contest that has grown well beyond its infancy.

Perhaps you might...

1) divide the contest into amateur/hobbyist and design students & professionals 

2) consider superlative recognition in categories like wittiest, most intricate, most creative use of materials, most minimal. 

I'm not necessarily recommending you increase your investment in the budget for prizes. The recognition alone however would be very meaningful to many of your contest participants.

Sincerely,

(Modern Miniatures Collector & Blogger)
http://miniaesthetics.blogspot.com

I submitted the above to DWR via the contact function on their website. It occurred to me that others may also want to join the conversation and share their opinions. To that end, I share this email as a potential catalyst.

Cheers to Chairs: My 1st Contest

A sensible someone would not choose such a formidable challenge. Yet, after inspiration and suggestion over at Call of the Small, I decided to go ahead and create a cork chair to enter in Design Within Reach's (DWR) annual Champagne Chair contest. I hope I followed the rules correctly.  It seemed you could only submit one photo.  The smart ones submitted a single collage photo but several others, like me submitted only one view.  If you submitted your entry via Instagram or Twitter as I did, only one view in a single photo was possible.

I chose the option of tweeting my entry under #dwrchampagnechair.

The talent in this long-running contest is phenomenal and quite intimidating.  I decided to go for it anyhow. I wanted to share a few of this year's entries that intimidated the he*l, I mean stood out to me.

Elevate by elainenmak

"My Loose Interpretation Of" by jackstastic

F8 chaise by asp628

Perch Chair by djasoncrowder

an untitled piece by jcsonifrank

another untitled piece by nandy1702

I doubt much will come from my efforts, but you can best believe I will be taking a screen shot once my little chair is uploaded to the gallery of entrants on the DWR webpage. (A wry grin follows.) You can also check out contest entrants on twitter at #dwrchampagnechair. I'll share more on my chair making experience in a post to follow very soon.  The contest ended today.  They will select 10 finalists.  In the past, a traveling exhibit of these finalists go on display at DWR studios across the country. Be sure to keep your eye out for that. The winners will be announced online on January 28th.

Update. It's official. Here it is...my chair in the gallery of contestants at DWR.com!

Update. More Blogger friends answered the call...

• Linda's Upright Hammock at The Hard Way
• Megan's Squared at Modern Mini Houses

Challenge Reveal : What's for Dinner?

"Pizza's served..."

I've completed margaret_loves challenge to design a room around a decorative paper that we wouldn't normally choose.  This was my first kitchen scene. Can you believe that? I am so delighted with the way the table turned out.  It's made with a sample from The Rubber Flooring Company placed on top of two round tables I nabbed off of e-Bay.  The slate and marble table gives plenty of room for the family to gather. My inspiration piece, the kitchen icons wallpaper also looks great.  With the kitchen unit and storage shelves in front of the wall, the giant scale of the pattern doesn't seem so overpowering.  What do you think? I gave the all-in-one unit a face-lift because I felt the dark blue fought with the other colors.  I'm not in love with the results but sometimes we experiment, no?

The eat-in kitchen is a feature we don't see so much anymore.  I grew up in a house with both an eat-in kitchen and a formal dinning room but today's open plan houses don't really lend themselves to such duplication.  So this kitchen is a nod to the luxury of the eat-in kitchen. It's a little bit industrial, a little bit modern and completely contemporary.

As the command center, the bulletin board holds a calendar and a menu from a favorite restaurant (because sometimes you just gotta carry out) and space to catch as many messages as needed. But, there is plenty of cookin' going on in this kitchen, so several cookbooks are close at hand near the stove.

If you forgot how this room started just take a look over here.  Jazzi Mini's  has completed her version of the challenge and Mad for Mod has gotten started as well.  It was certainly a challenge partly because I chose to do a kitchen, taking about 3 hours (spread over different days) to pull this together. Thanks Margaret for giving us a little creative motivation.  I look forward to seeing what everyone else creates.  

Details: kitchen unit, storage shelves and all accessories except where otherwise specified from Dolls House Emporium; all chairs ReacJapan; bulletin board, pizza board, wallpaper and flooring from local craft store; ice cream maker from eBay; pizza from Rement.

Update: See the other finished rooms.  Wild and Sexy Ladies' Lair by Margaret and Fun and Colorful Kids Room by Mad for Mod

Cork, the Other Wood

Created at http://olioboard.com go there for all the product details.

A renewable resource, the unique qualities of bark from the cork oak tree help make our interiors safer and more livable places.  As a result, cork products continue to proliferate in interior design applications.  We see cork on floors and on the walls.  It's been used to create tables, seating, and storage pieces.  It can even be prepared into a fabric used to cover pillows and lampshades.  It's a superior insulator, heat retardant, impermeable and mold resistant.  The flexibility of this material also makes it very comfortable underfoot.  In short, cork is cool.

Details at http://olioboard.com

So, there was little surprise my search for new spring 2012 fashions yielded designs using cork again and again---right down to the metallic details.

L: Metallic & Patent T-strap Cork Sandal by Jimmy Choo
R: Cork wallpaper in Metallic Gold by Thibault, Natural
Resource Collection

With all this cork-love going on, I couldn't resist doing a round-up of how miniaturists are using cork in their own interiors.  Well, we've created (or repurposed) coffee tables, side tables, message boards, flooring and oversized vases, all in 1:12 scale.

Mini-bloggers counterclockwise from top left: ModernMC, 
ModernMC, TinyFixation, callsmall and callsmall

And sometimes, life imitates art.  So, an oversized cork stopper makes a life-sized table like the table TinyFixation of the blog, Large and in Charge repurposed from a champagne cork in her own dollhouse.

L: 1:12 scale and R: 1:1 scale

I would love to know how others of you use cork in miniature. Here are some of my own favorite cork applications.  I discovered purchased this great product, cork contact paper. It really ups the creativity quotient for the ways cork can be used in our mini-interiors.  If you've used this awesome product, please let me know by leaving a comment. In the room I set up below, you find it everywhere: on the floor, the stools, and the brick wall! Cork...it really is the other white meat wood.