Archive for alyssa

Rebound Designs are purses handmade from the reuse of old hardcover books, most of which predate 1970. The selection I saw at a recent craft show included textbooks, D-I-Y Manuals, Little Women and Shakespeare, offering a variety of colors and designs for that popular vintage look. Have an old book you’d like turned into a bag? Creator, Caitlin Phillips is happy to take requests. Wonder what she does with the pages of each book? Well, most are beyond repair, but are sitting in her attic waiting for anyone else’s creative reuse idea…hint, hint. On occasion she finds someone to rebind them and they’re donated for further reading. She’s also happy to send you the pages with your purchase. I saw a great use for old book pages when I was at the Hamilton Tavern. The women’s bathroom has a famous female writer theme. Half the wall is covered in pages from old Jane Eyre novels. It’s quite beautiful and you’re still able to read the words. I never liked sitting down with a dusty moisture-wrinkled magazine or old newspaper while on the “john” anyway, te, he.

This past weekend I visited a Baltimore Free Store event usually held on monthly at different locations around the city for one day only. Here, you can find goodies of all kinds on display, free of charge. There were lots of toys, clothes and household trinkets, suitable for gifting — or, as raw materials for your creative urges. I got a couple shirts, a sweater and some retro fabric. There’s nothing like making something wonderful out of free stuff.

Then it was off to the Charm City Craft Mafia Show at St. John’s Church. Some favorite new discoveries came from Caitlin Phillips, Rebound Designs, and Baltimore’s own Spinster Yarns and Fibers . Continued

Cunningham Farms specializes in gourmet sweet potato butter made from organic potatoes and apple cider. It goes great with a variety of foods or their gourmet sweet potato pie. Cunningham Farms is a community oriented company that was founded with the socially responsible vision of providing jobs for families of low-income areas. The farm is also is a member of the Appalachian Spring Cooperative . Read more about their vision of social equity on their site.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOzqc0Y6AZs[/youtube]

This short video Julie and I made received a warm response at the 2008 Baltimore Bioneers Conference. Thanks to all the photographers for some amazing imagines of our fair city and to Andrew Grimm for writing and performing the score.

Living Legacy Development LLC is a 100% Environmentally Friendly Cleaning and post-construction service catering to businesses, residents and schools in the Baltimore area. Owner, Erica McCoullough is a former Baltimore city schoolteacher who developed Living Legacy after receiving unfortunate news about the death of a former student, which was simultaneous with the fortunate birth of her son. It was then that she realized the incredible need to provide alternatives to city youth that thirst for socially responsible job opportunities that would also be sensitive to community/family pressures and support ambitions of higher education. Continued

It was an exciting weekend at the 2008 Baltimore Bioneers Conference, held at the Maryland Institute Collage of Art. Julie and I were able to screen our video first thing Friday morning to open the event. A short 8 min. animated slide presentation of the transition from some of the issues Baltimore faces, socially and environmentally, as a post industrial city, combined with inspiring solutions that are cropping up all over town. I’d like to thank everyone for the positive response and we hope to upload a version to the website as soon as we can.
Some personal highlights from the conference came from a keynote by mycologist and author Paul Stamets, and two breakout sessions on Urban Agriculture as Urban Economic Development and Visionary Green Design and Development.

Read more about each one… Continued

Baltimore ReStore is part of Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity developed to generate funds for more projects. "Providing quality products at discount prices to preserve our environment and keeping valuable items out of our landfills." You can find building materials, plumbing, flooring, cabinets, doors, windows, tools, furniture, lighting and more. Located in East Baltimore behind Johns Hopkins Bay View at Eastern Ave and Kane Streets . Find a list of other salvage centers in the surrounding area here .