Happy Halloween

Upcycling a laser pointer into a digital microscope

I recently found on Instructables.com, a way of making a microscope using a cell phone or an Ipod touch. I wanted to give a try myself, but wanted to make it "more portable" but maybe not so fancy.

The only thing you really need is a lens from a laser pointer, and magically, I had an old broken one that I kept for no reason..... until today.

I unscrew the tip of the laser pointer and here it is:

 At this stage, the only thing you need to do is to make a hole in a piece of plastic to hold this tiny lens:

You just have to put your cell phone on the top of it:

To focus properly, you can put the object on the tip of a bottle, like this and hold the box up and down to get the best picture:

And this is the results:

Wthout the lens:

With the lens, you get roughly 10X magnification if you campare the 2 pictures.

Hours of fun with my kids from now! Send me pictures if you have some.

Furnitures made with carton boxes

Found here (in french only)

The corrugated carton is a great source of decoration when used properly on the furniture.

Found here

From this spanish studio

 

There are more and more places where you can buy furniture like these.

Sculpting with piano parts...

Allen Christian's makes sculpture from everyday's life objects. Here is a set of sculptures made from piano parts:

 

His work is vsible now at the American Visionary Arts Museum in Baltimore titled “Human, Soul and the Machine: The Coming Singularity.”

Spoon chandelier

A chandelier made with spoons, by Daisuke Hirawa. Each spoon has hundreds of holes to let the light goes through.

Recycling/upcycling thrift store painting

I think this concept is based on a wonderful idea: adding monsters or funny characters to paintings that inspires no interest for most of us.
I must admit, you have to be gifted to do that, but at the end, this is a really fun project that could end up in kids bedroom instead of a trash.
This is some painting made by Chris Mc Mahon

 

A different style, made by Thyrza with prints available here on Etsy:

This is really inspiring, and I'm reading to go to thrift store and get my own painting to give it a try!

A fold-up pallet desk

One more shipping pallet project, but this one does not need any disassembling, only sanding, staining and adding a piece of plywood with hinges to make the desk. Very ingenious to save space.

Bike saddles

from Jeremypetrus.com

Pallet Furniture at its best

This beautiful 2-seat sofa is really made of shipping pallet. This French design company Studio-aparte aspired for a new recycled pallet aesthetic that can match any contemporary interior. When painted in black, it's hard to guess what this sofa is made of.

For people who like to travel

Found at www.apartmenttherapy.com

PVC pipes used for water play!

Summer is coming, and here in Baltimore, we had a sample of the hot temperatures we might have later on. So I made this easy to make water play, to refresh our little ones when swimming pool is not an option.

This is really easy to make:

This is what you need to connect the pipes, pipes are 3/4 inch diameter. You need 3 stoppers, 2 T-shape, 2 elbows and one hose connection. For the pipes you choose whatever length you need. Most of the water play I have seen are kid-size, but this one is more than 6 feet tall. I have glued most of the pipes together except the 2 connections on the top to be able to store the structure in my basement.
To cut the pipes, you can use any little hand saw you want, it's really easy.

The most difficult part of the project was to find the connection from the hose to 3/4 inch PVC pipe. It must look like this and you can find it in the irrigation aisle:

To glue most of the pipes you have to use PVC primer and cement glue that you can find at the home depot or Lowes:

The top bar needs to have these special mister that will give you a very thin cloud of water, you can put as much as you want by drilling a hole (9/64) and then screwing them in.

And more importantly, kids love it!

Upcycled stools

These stools are found here made with pieces of hardwood. The pieces are tightened up with long bolts.
You can make your own stool by using long bolts used for building decks:

Or you decide to pay 500 euros for this original stool named "Bits of wood 2.0"

Using PVC pipes to make a bike seat

There are a lot of front mount-bike seats on the market. Most are available on line but you can not try them on your own bike. I found this one on Amazon that I like but was concerned about the geometry of my own bike to fit this device. This front mount seat was $99 and is not available anymore on amazon.

I then decided to make my own using only PVC pipes and zip ties.

The main pipe is 2 inches PVC pipe that I drilled at each extremities to fit the seat post and on the other side where the stem is. I used hole saw attached to a drill to make clean holes all the way through the pipe.

On the seat post

On the stem

For the passenger feet, I had to design a T-Shaped structure made of 1 inch PVC pipes, I happened to have 2 holes in the frame where you can attach a bottle holder, instead I attach the foot rest pipes, with an extra zip tie to help the screws that are a bit further down:

I attached an old saddle to the main pipe by drilling little holes and using zip ties:

At the end, the PVC pipe is very sturdy and does not care about a 40 pounds kid seating on it. I did not put any handle for the passenger, I think it's not safe in case of a fall. it's too close to the chest.

Also, one downside with my version: it's not as good looking and It's not quick release, but I do not care.

The good side: it cost almost nothing to make it: $5 if you have to buy the pipes... and I feel very safe to ride with. But even if it looks safe, if you try your own version, I'm, in any case, NOT (thanks geembob) responsible for any injury that might occur...

Upcycled inside walls

From here

I love the idea of reusing pipes, bottles to create walls and separate inside spaces with an refreshing touch.

From Recyclart

Upcycling naval mines.

Naval mines are probably the most unexpected upcyling you could think of.
This is made by an  Estonian artist named Mati Karmin who collects the mines left from world war II.

A Firelace:

A bathtub:

A chair:

A baby carriage:

With upcycled "toys" for the baby!!