Subscribe to Color Me Katie if you don’t already. She makes fun stuff like these portraits all the time. I wish I spent more time at home doing things like this.

There’s a cool video of them assembling a cardboard chair–from salvaged pieces–here. It seems to go: Cut piece, apply glue, stack another piece, apply glue, stack, glue, stack, glue, stack, press down with something heavy. Repeat. I love cardboard for design work, it may just be my favorite material besides air.

I’m ordering some and will report back. Etsy is totally my late night shopping network. Thank god I don’t have tv or I’d be up to my ears in kitchen gadgets. Oh wait.

Jen Stark’s animation:

“Papermation” by Jen Stark from Jen Stark on Vimeo.

Add these cheeky references to trompe l’oeil to the list of personal projects I have been sitting on and thinking about and will likely never do. But it’s oh so cute! And I should add that my entryway is a crazy steep staircase where I put a pair of shoes on each stair, like gargoles. Beware the Campers guarding my hall!

I also like the idea of painted electronics and larger items that I don’t own, or whimsical critters that aren’t (thankfully) in my house. A painted gramophone? A mouse hole? A little bat on the high ceiling? Give me a can of black paint and a small brush and I’m off! Who has a steady hand and wants to help?

This is from some dressing room in Paris, I’ve lost the reference.

P.S. I have a real trompe l’oeil project (Franch for fools the eye, an optical trick) that is so tacky you’ll freak. Coming soon.

Three posts back I was debating what shelves to put on the wall that divides my kitchen from my kitchen nook, aka my home office (where I swear I’ll pen some poetry in 2009). As you may recall (what’s that? Oh, you don’t care? I know, but it’s my blog), MOMA has these nifty floating shelves at $15 a pop plus shipping.

Well well, Design Within Reach has answered with this set of five Flying Vee shelves which they call “classics,” marked down from $130 to $79 with free shipping thrown in:

So my yuppie (or bourgeois, take your pick) self is a little torn. Here’s the pros and cons and a teensy confession of the inadequacy of my education:

Pros of Vees:

• Create ledges to display things other than books
• Wouldn’t need to disrupt all the books to get to one
• That flap flap flapping away look
• Would display some of the cookbook covers

Pros of Floaters:

• Uh, floating
• No nasty visible screw areas like those Vees have
• Cheaper if I only buy two or three

So it’s five Vees for $79 or four Floaters for $70.95 including shipping.

Of course, I’m looking at both of these and thinking that there must be an easy way to DIY these. They’re like, bent pieces of metal. They look like pirated office supplies. Although, this is another chance to bring in the tag I introduced in my crocheted baubles post, ideas about things I would like to make myself and never will.

Like any good yuppie, I like to think my liberal arts background gave me the wherewithal to tackle projects like this, but the truth is that even if I got around to purchasing the supplies it would look like hell and probably fall apart.

Sunday is supposed to be Craft n’ Drink day with my friends at the Bye n’ Bye, but yesterday we were all too hung over from a naked lady party the night before. (Win: Liz’s dresses. Fail: Sequined black and white shirt with petal sleeves. BTW, follow that Liz link to see Amy in my apartment and me with much, much shorter hair).

These are available at Kjoo on Etsy, and created by Maria Riberiro, who is apparently Portugese and sweet to boot. Read this interview on Resurrection Fern where Maria explains learning to felt from a Martha Stewart tutorial, so maybe there’s hope for me, after all!

Top image from Resurrection Fern, bottom 3 from Etsy.