the ReFab Diaries

In October I took Ms Ro to Fat Blossom Farm's Forest Fairy Festival (in Michigan). I know I was motivated, in part, by my love of miniature worlds ... especially ones made out of repurposed materials!

You won't be surprised to know that I was in love with The Borrowers growing up. And The Wombles! I always loved the idea that in some other world, there are creatures "making good use of the things that (they) find, things that the everyday folk leave behind." And have you seen The Boxtrolls? You must! 

Anyway, I recently stumbled upon this amazing breadbox dollhouse created by Dan Borg, a former employee of The Rebuilding Center and an amazing mosaic artist. I was, of course, entranced!

The tub is the brass housing from a broken music box. The faucets are cup hooks!

The window boxes are drawer pulls with shredded carpet for vegetation. For many more images, visit the Flickr page.

Have you ever wished there was a way to get in touch with people who had items you could use in your upcycling projects? Ever had a bunch of stuff at home that you had to throw out, but wished you could upcycle instead? Did you know that a few years ago, there was an app that promised to help upcyclers do just that? And another one looking for funding right now!

The app was called Cora, and it was supposed to be “your mobile app for a lower impact life”. Cora promised its backers the ability to search for items they wanted to get rid of or upcycle, and then presented them with ideas for new projects, or connected them to people in their area who were looking for the exact items they were trying to get rid of. Similarly, the app also promised to help users find items they needed in their projects, making projects inexpensive and hassle-free. Did it seem too ambitious? At the time, it didn’t. There had been a massive movement towards upcycling then, and an even bigger shift into mobile technology. Gaming Realms, the company behind Total Gold, said that there were 1 billion smartphone users by the end of 2012, and this number has continued to grow. 

With the app relying heavily on upcyclers willing to share their ideas and used stuff, the most difficult part about implementing Cora was getting upcyclers to sign up for it. They did and it funded. But, more than two years later, Cora has yet to surface. The team behind the app have, however, released Trash Backwards, a web app that does most of what Cora promised to do. But the web app is poorly designed, has limited accessibility (only available to 6 cities in MA and WA), and is, well, a web app, - not the mobile app that the upcycling community had been hoping for. Was it all too good to be true? Cora wasn’t the first app that tried to bring upcycling to mobile phones. A few months after their project closed, Create Change was launched on Kickstarter too. Alas, it didn’t get funded. 

Now there's GiftMe App. This is a mobile app currently crowdfunding through Indiegogo. With 19 days left to fund, they aren't close to their target. And I know they're committed - they've contacted me many times via different channels and I'd love to see their idea come to life. What do you think? Are you willing to fund a mobile app for upcycling? Do you use any apps to help you upcycle?

I tend to be a fake-tree person. This year, while contemplating getting a real one, things took a different turn. We spotted a pile of fallen branches and agreed they might make a fun tree. So I ended up with the mess pictured below ... 

In blog land, you get hit up by companies all the time. For what is essentially free marketing. That's not how they present it to you, of course. But essentially I, the blogger, get nothing. So I, the blogger, generally say no.

When I got an offer from Adam at The Bouqs, it was simple and direct: "we'll send you flowers if you'll commit to reviewing them." Done. No fine print. No BS. And that's how they seem to function across the board.

Last weekend I took myself and Ms Ro on a little woodland adventure in Michigan. We spent Saturday night near the beach a mile south of Sawyer. Then on Sunday, we drove up to Fat Blossom farm in Allegan. Fat Blossom is a family-owned organic farm. A couple of times a year, they turn the back woods into an "Enchanted Forest". I honestly wasn't sure what to expect ... but based on the fairy-house kits they sell at markets in the city, I was optimistic. And I wasn't disappointed! Everything is built using natural materials, most of which is found on the farm. They run building workshops for school groups, girl scouts etc - it's refabbing at it's most whimsical!