Magazine celebrates fun things you can make at home
| • | Recipe for Pinup Lamp |
By Zenaida Serrano Espanol
Advertiser Staff Writer
Think crafters gone mad.
Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser
Maybe do-it-yourselfers meet Gen-X slackers.
It looks like a suitable furnishing for a tiki bar, but what it is is a lamp built from nothing more than lots of wooden clothes pins, a heavy wire tomato-plant cage and some electrical parts.
Or perhaps twisted geniuses with time to kill.
That may be the best way to describe the slightly demented but very creative minds who've conjured up the funky projects that fill the pages of ReadyMade, a new magazine for people who like to make stuff: unconventionally cool stuff.
For example, thanks to the latest issue of ReadyMade (Issue 4), you too, can put together a duct-tape wallet, candle holders made of hot and cold shower knobs, a wall of salvaged tires, newfangled advent calendars, even a decoder wheel chart (via a some-assembly-required pullout contributed by "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" author Dave Eggers) that tells you things you should know about Scandinavian Nobel laureates.
The quarterly print magazine, $4.95 and available at most bookstores, is for those "who see the flicker of invention in everyday objects — the perfectly round yoke in the mundane egg," according to the mag's Web site, readymademag.com. "Contributors draw up instructions for making things and, in many cases, take their own photos of the finished projects."
And these crafty contributors could probably care less about how Ms. It's-a-Good-Thing thinks you should reuse cheese cloth or terra-cotta pots.
Case in point: "Martha has it all figured out, down to covering a bulletin board with fabric to match your décor. We at ReadyMade see this as a missed opportunity," writes contributing artist and designer Adrian Van Allen. "When it comes to sticking things with pins, an acupuncture body chart is more suitably cathartic."
Van Allen proceeds to explain step by step how to make this "body of knowledge" bulletin board.
"This magazine publishes some weird science," editor Shoshana Berger writes in the "A Confession From the Editor."
ReadyMade is a magazine for people who like to make stuff.
Weird, yes. Fun, for sure.
The current issue offers ways to make lamps for those looking for lighting with a twist, including a styrolight (fashioned out of 250 Styrofoam cups), a snakelight (made with 10 feet of bulk dryer tubing) and a blamp (i.e. blender plus lamp).
We tried our hand at the pinup lamp — built from a wire tomato-plant cage and clothespins.
It was a fairly simple weekend project that cost about $20 and took 2 hours to make, not including the time it took to hunt down the parts at City Mill Home Improvement Center, Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse and Wal-Mart. (See box.)
To make life a bit easier, each project is stamped with a handy reference card that shows the required time, cost, skill level, ingredients and tools.
In keeping with the sometimes comically sarcastic flavor of the magazine, a skill-level indicator separates its readers into four categories: Monkey ("opposable thumbs"), Cro-Magnon ("has tools, fire, but may be clumsy with both"), Drudge ("has tools and basic know-how") and Craftsman ("uses terms like 'threaded nipple'"). The magazine warns, "If you do not fall into one of the ... categories, please reconsider doing projects yourself."
The pinup lamp, by the way, should be a breeze to build for Drudge types.
Reach Zenaida Serrano Espanol at zespanol@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8174.
