ikea celebrates summer

it's summer over at ikea and it's looking bright and breezy. click here to check out their summer collection.

since we're all in sunshine mode, thought i'll post some outdoor or garden hacks.

container garden table
pia hacked an old lack table into storage for gardening equipment and place for her plants.

she says, "it now hides our tumble drier and lots of gardening equipment. i removed the old legs, put on vika kaj and turned them so they became maximum height, which is 90 cm (approx 35"), then i used some fabric and some ironing glue, you can buy that at ikea as well. no sewing required, simply measure the places you want to hang the curtains, and iron the edges - you need to make an opening for the curtainholder to go through, and then attach the curtains to the table as shown in the photo."

bouquets of bloom
chelsea pairs an old farm window with ikea for a bit of country.

she says, "so, i have a bunch of old farm house windows (from a friend's family farm), and had yet to put them to use, but had lots of ideas fluttering through my head. today i finally used one of the windows. it was super simple. i used a kroken kitchen rail, and 3 kroken cutlery caddies.

i attached some eye hooks to the back of the window, and then chain to that (which i bought by the foot at my local home improvement store), and then attached the chain using S hooks into the soffit overhang. i still plan to stencil a little hummingbird, and some sort of quote (once i decide which one). it was really easy, only took me about 20 minutes, and cost only $16!"

spruce up the old
alessandro gave the wooden applaro chaise lounge a sunny new colour.

let there be light
dario from italy, with help from his neighbour, sandro, hacked some outdoor lighting for his graphic studio.

he says, "i live in italy close to venice and have a graphic studio in the countryside. together with our neighbor sandro we had to decide outdoor lighting styles of the studio. he came up a cool and cheap idea.

here is what you need:
- light bulb
- light socket
- ordning cutlery stand
- ikea plastic mug (actually they don't sell what we used anymore, but i believe kalas can be even better.. no handle!)
- bolt and screw
- transparent rubber pipe

just make an hole on the bottom of the mug, cut the handle and put it together.. that's it! the mug keeps the rain away from the wires and will give a touch of relaxing color to your house!

see more on dario's blog.

now for some summer fun
need some thing to hold toys around the pool? this one from rob is simple but totally workable.

rob says, "i cannot take credit for this hack. i got the idea from familyfun.com. they say to use a small white clear wastebasket, and i thought of the fniss clear wastepaper basket. it only took a couple of hours. the nice thing about the fniss is you don't need to use the marbles per the directions. it makes a nice umbrella stand, then in the summer use it around the pool for toys."

see more on rob's blog.

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help change the world with an email
on another note, this is some thing we can all do to help make this world a better place. if you remember, colin beavan (who is also part of the liferemix network) of no impact man is meeting congressman jerrold nadler this friday to ask him to support an effective global warming mitigation policy that is based not on what is politically possible but on what is scientifically necessary.

his dream is to show nadler and speaker pelosi thousands of emails supporting his position. if you'd like to help, go to Colin's blog, copy the form email, and send it to noimpactman+nadler+pelosi@gmail.com. those of you who aren't American citizens, please put "From a world citizen to whom American policy makes a huge difference" in the subject, so that he can deliver them but keep them separate.