Mrs. Orme Thornberry, balloon girl at the Near East Relief Benefit Garden Fete
I would frame this and hang this in my house if I had a frame and a house.
Among my favorite Unconsumption posts* is this one on using worn leather belts as new webbing on old lawn chairs.
The use of leather belts on the chair pictured above, made by Sao Paolo-based artist Rodrigo Almeida, reminds me of the lawn chairs. This makes me happy.
For those of us who love belt-repurposing but have few unwanted belts of our own, old belts can often be found in abundance at many thrift stores.
For additional projects/ideas involving belts, check out earlier Unconsumption posts here.
*Unconsumption’s published a total of 2,045 posts, so far. Tell us: Which one is your favorite?
(photo via TreeHugger)
From the Los Angeles Times Rose Parade coverage on Jan. 2, 1915:
Probably the most unusual entry was that of a small runabout entered by the Los Angeles Ostrick Farm. Cloudburst, a hugh African ostrich, drew Miss Virginia S. Moon, daughter of the ostrich farm manager. She wore a handsome Parisian hat and boa of pink plumes plucked from the bird she drove. The bird, which stands more than eight feet in height, appeared to enjoy the experience as much as did his fair driver.
Before football became the Rose Bowl tradition, ostriches were raced after the parade.
SHIJIAO, China — A single strand of burnt-out Christmas lights weighs almost nothing in the hand. But a bale of burnt-out Christmas tree lights the size of a love seat? That weighs around 2200 pounds, according to Raymond Li, the general manager of Yong Chang Processing, a scrap metal processor in the southern Chinese town of Shijiao.
He would know: on a recent Saturday morning I stood between him and three such bales, or 6600 pounds of Christmas tree lights that Americans had tossed into recycling bins, dropped off at the Salvation Army, or sold to a roving junk man. He had bought that 6600 pounds for my benefit, to show me how his company’s Christmas tree light recycling system works.
The huge volume was nothing unusual for Shijiao, the world capitol for recycling the old, unwanted Christmas tree lights that Americans throw away every year. Yong Chang recycles around 2.2 million pounds and Li estimates that Shijiao, located about an hour’s drive from Guangzhou, is home to at least nine other factories that import and process similar volumes. Combined, the factories here process in excess of 20 million pounds annually.
Via MetaFilter, which notes that the writer, Adam Minter runs the blog Shanghai Scrap, explores many aspects of the scrap and recycling industry in China.
Everyone collects those extra buttons that come with new shirts, but what can you do with them? Use buttons to make bowls! Inigo Canedo, an industrial designer from Mexico, has created this beautiful and resourceful piece of artwork by simply gluing buttons together over a round object. Using colorful yet translucent buttons allows light to shine through, so the beauty of the bowl can be seen on the surfaces around it, too.
Never enough Audrey.
During Christmas Services in Church of Nativity, Bethlehem
Circa 1930s
Gorgeous! Wish I had that sense of style!
Top: Margebelle Stewart in her high school graduation dress. Photographed by Earl Norman in 1932.
Bottom: Margebelle Stewart, 2011.
The 1932 photo is part of Portraits of a River City: Natchez in Photographs, an exhibit currently on display at LSU.
Via Cool Chicks from History
Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
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