Newspaper basket experiment....

So I finished two newspaper baskets.  For both, I created 'sticks' of newspapers by rolling them around skinny things.  The first skinny thing I tried was a wooden stick, but that didn't work well because it got stuck when I tried to pull it out.

The next skinny thing I tried was a metal bbq skewer thingy - that worked great because I could 'screw' it into the newspaper and get nicely even 'sticks' with out quite the same effort.  I made a pile of sticks and got to work.

Immediately I realized - OMG, my sticks are too thick .  Whilst I like the look of the thick sticks, they were totally hard to work with . 

I created the first basket by making a 'weave' of the sticks in a flat fashion, then bending them up and weaving in new sticks to create the sides.  I could not make a tighter weave; the sticks were just too darn thick and even squashing them a bit didn't help much.  The other thing that was difficult was that no where in the directions did it say how to do the first round of weaved stuff, once you start working on the side!  I eventually ended up taping the start piece and working my way around - seemed to work ok.  To end the piece, I took the long bits and folded them over, then tucked them into the chunks in the rung below, tacking them w/a little bit of tacky glue.  Sound confusing?  It was, LOL.  Despite the drama getting the weave done, tho, I do like the end result.  Still needs some kind of shellac to fortify the newspaper - I'm totally scared one of my kids is gonna accidently splash water on it.

The second basket was done by creating a wheel-spoke like thing, gluing the ends of 13 newspaper sticks together.  It took a long time to get the glue to dry and have them stick, so I need to find a better way to make that work BUT once I got them to stick, it was much easier construction.  Kind of cool, but again, the sticks are way too thick and it was hard to get a nice weave.  The bottom is also kind of precarious and un-flat, so it's tippy.  My GF suggested starting w/a disk, so I'm thinking maybe a cardboard disk w/the sticks glued as a wheel would work better - certainly it would have a more stable base.  Thinner sticks would be way better as well and it still needs shellac - thinking about painting it, but I do kind of like the fact that you can read bits and pieces of the newspaper print so I would use a clear paint, if any colour.

Haven't finished the third basket yet, but it will be a more traditional kind of longerberger-type basket made w/flat sticks of newspaper instead of rolled things.  Seems to be going together better, although I fear it will end up looking like a 5th-grade mother's day project instead of some kewl artsy-fartsy re-do of trash stuff.  Time will tell and if nothing else, at least it's not trash.. today.

What unemployed engineers do in their spare time...

I was RIF'd from my job of almost 12 years in June, 2009 - that means I have been prematurely sent off to retirement mode via a company-wide layoff.  Since I've been working basically full time since I was 17yo,  it's been a bit of a shock to the soul.  Sure, I could go find another engineering job and according to the EDD, that's just what I'm doing - looking for work, but since I find myself in this pisspot of an economy, there's just not a lot going on out there.  I also find myself completely and utterly burned out, leaving me in a disinterested state of even considering the idea that creating something new in C++ might be interesting or even fun.

Instead I find myself looking for other new, creative ways to keep the brain working - and hence, the look to trash and creating stuff, especially interesting to create beauty from trash.

So I've started this blog to document my ideas for reuse and abuse of ordinary trash items.  Seems to me that as a community, we create a lot of trash and no seems to notice... sure, we have recycling programs on board - blue bins, green bins - but where does it all go and do we use them properly?


So far I've found some pretty good uses for those annoying plastic bags you get every time you buy something at the store - gads, you even get them when you buy things with handles, what's with that??  It's got a friggin handle, do I really need a BAG for it?  Looking around, there are some cool patterns on the web at http://www.myrecycledbags.com so I've been going to town making plarn items - so cool, in fact, that my girls have been arguing over who gets which one and I've been invited to sell them for profit.  Not bad for trash.



Next - a friend sent me a picture of a basket that was lovely - made entirely from rolled up old newspapers and some glue.  A little bit of research led me to a site that sells these baskets made by ladies in Nicargua (a community, btw, that does not let a single thing go to waste if at all possible).  http://www.lavidaverde.com/Baskets/newspaperbaskts.htm   SinceI know nothing about basket weaving, so my first attempt is, well, not the prettiest of things, LOL - I'm going to experiment today w/skinnier reeds and see if that makes a difference.  I don't want it to look like a girl scout project gone bad.


Anyways, if you ask "why trash", go visit a landfill sometime - especially on a windy day.