Unfortunately other work has intervened and we can’t be at the store on Saturday morning. We’ll be open by midday and the kitchen knife sharpening workshop will go ahead. Apologies for the inconvenience.
Please call to visit usethings store outside of our regular days. We’d rather open the store by request any day than be open five or six days a week.
Despite being all-for conscious consumption usethings is up on all the latest aspects of marketing.
So we’ve kicked of a brand awareness campaign and it’s having benefits already – we are getting less burns.
We are making progress on the brand identity, I’m all for calling it Eric.
We’ll get into brand extension at some stage with a wooden handle planned in the near future.
Taylor McKenzie-Veal’s upcycled piggy bank: “This Little Piggy.”
Taylor has taken an industrial process and knowledge of plastics to upcycle – as core77 calls this taking low value waste and turning it into a useful object.
Thermo plastics are able to be reformed with a little heat and pressure, it’s so great to see this industrial process on a human scale – see the video below.
Bottles flood out of these industrial processes, deliver one serve of a liquid, then become waste. Showing that this is even possible is really bringing home recycling potential and understanding – it’s not just something that happens in a remote factory to a small portion of the bottles made.
These are costly materials when you look at their environmental, climate, and social impacts. They also have great properties so understanding the materials and processes can lead to better use than a single serve drink. Thanks Taylor for playing with this idea.
usethings branded wedges made from production off-cuts.
The mighty wedge can do so much more than holding a door open, they are a very useful thing.
I got to know the power of the wedge in shipbuilding where incredible force could be applied – like lifting the 38 tonne Enterprize replica to put the lead keel under with fox-wedges and pig-styes (stacks of timber to rest heavy weights on). They where one of the most used tools and regularly broken in the hard service of heavy timber shipbuilding.
If you watch TV keep an eye on ‘The Block’ on Channel 9 as one of the contestants, Lara, ordered a drying rack. Much to his surprise Tim was filmed delivering the rack and explaining how to rig it.
People pinning usethings images on Printerest: http://pinterest.com/source/usethings.com.au/ thanks to Andrew for letting us know.
It was a surprisingly difficult task to judge the fine entries we had. We were very excited by the ideas behind each useful thing and that people where inspired to share this with us. Also a great learning for us to see these responses to useful, as usefulness is the core of usethings.
We ended up combining the ‘made‘ and ‘repurposed‘ category as all the made things where from repurposed or recycled materials.
Winners in the useful thing bought or given category… the envelope please…
Ilana Solo – tube squeezer (for the love of a great functioning thing)
Thais Sansom – cherry pitter (we love tried and true solutions and things that work for generations)
Prizes in the combined made/repurposed category:
Mark Pitman – scaffold & door desks (love the design serendipity of the planter in the air grill hole)
Bergen O’Brian – tap coat rack (special mention for being a very funny man)
Ian Higgins – light hoe (revival / evolution of a broken tool)
Cathy Parry – boxket (a great name, might have them in usethings store)
Graeme Galloway – stool (nice joinery for firewood)
Steve Carrol – pier (and the many other things he recycled his shed into)
Scroll down through older posts to see images of the winning entries.
Winners will be notified and can pick up their Opinel paring knife from usethings store, except Mark – we’ll post his to Perth.
Thanks to all those who entered the competition and into the spirit of useful things.
We’ve made a few changes to our wobble board, it now comes finished in a water-based acrylic clear and has a roughened deck so you don’t slide off in socks. They have been taken up by Pilates and Yoga teachers and those rehabilitating or realigning their bodies. We are soon to publish a brief article on proprioception – the ability for the body to process and respond to information about movement and position. Proprioception is gaining interest in studies of development and learning. Made in our Castlemaine workshop from E0 plantation hoop pine ply and sugar gum.
Available in-store for $60 or online for $70 + postage
Two entries from Bergen O’Brian:
Bergen O'Brien - hat rack
A box of dumped, totally mineralized, Central Australian Aboriginal community brass taps and a freshly planed, ex-decking plank have been repurposed into a classy hat rack. Choose hot or cold to store your hats, jackets, umbrellas etc. The taps came with a patina that would take a thousand years of city living to achieve. Even the slightly burnt, completely decomposed hose ends add that impossible-to-achieve-in-the-factory look that neighbours and interior decorators worldwide will envy.
Bergen O'Brian toothpick
We’re talking raw materials right? …well the passing of an echidna is to be mourned. But the passing of a freshly dead one roadside is to be stopped for. Properly cleaned, dressed and pot roasted… oh that’s another competition! The quills can be put to use as an exceedingly good toothpick. Simply scrape an outer layer of the quill with a sharp knife and apply to the affected areas between your teeth. Incredibly strong, flexible and reusable.
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We’ve got the Aladdin Stanley stainless steel wide mouth thermos in for winter. Great for hot drinks or meals. A neat trick is to bring ingredients to a boil in the morning and pour into the thermos where they continue to cook in the insulated flask to be ready for a hot lunch. The vacuum insulation keeps things hot (or cold) for 15 hours.
My first job as a labourer was with some old Spanish guys who always had great hot soups with home-made sausage in a thermos for lunch… they also had home-made grapa mixed with lemonade which got them through the day.
The Stanley has a rugged construction industry heritage and comes with a lifetime warranty. We like the fact that you can get parts for all the old range – it’s this kind of continuity of production (since 1913 in Stanley’s case) that lasting practical products have.
We’ve finally caught up with the backlog of orders and have our drying rack kits in-store.
With higher than usual orders this summer we ran out of rods. As the plantation sugar gum comes from a co-op in Western Victoria and are machined to dowels in Melbourne it took a while to happen. Once they came in, the backlog of orders consumed all our cord, which then took a month to restock.
We sent the last five orders out yesterday and have got some kits in the store… kit I should say – one has gone already this morning.
We apologise to our patient customers on the waiting lists and are now able to ship kits as soon as payment is made.
It’s a lesson for us in dealing with so many orders and trigger points for restocking with slow suppliers. Anyway great to be under this pressure and to think that each rack will save 1 tonne of carbon every 5 years for its long life.
This is how it used to be done before refrigeration was widely available. Like our drying rack, these are existing low energy solutions to life’s needs.
usethings store now has Fowlers jars with lids and seals – 600 ml $11, 1 litre $14.
So store up some of that fruit for the coming winter – and check our workshop schedule for an upcoming preserving workshop with Niki Valentini on the 21st April.
usethings, and print-makers Kir Larwill & Clayton Tremlett will be part of Arts Open from Thursday 26 April to the Sunday the 29th at usethings store 8 Templeton St Castlemaine.
“The attached image is the first batch of desks for Cundall’s Perth office, made from old steel paint scaffolds and doors from the recycling centre at the tip and some stainless steel wire. The door/desk in the background has a built in planter which happened to fit precisely into the pre-existing hole in the door for a air grill. We think they’ve turned out rather well and are getting a great response from the big developers when they turn up for meetings. Door and trestle tables are certainly not a new concept but we like how our interpretation turned out. “
Mark Pitman office desks repurposed scafold and doors
Embarrassingly we sold out of drying rack kits this summer – not expecting so many sales we ran out of the sugar gum rods. As the timber comes from landholder co-op plantations in the Western districts, and then goes to Melbourne to be machined it’s taken a while to restock. Anyway we’ll be getting the rods this week and start dispatching kits to the patient people on our waiting list. Will aslo have kits available in the store again.
Packing rigging to deal with the backlog of orders
Ian Higgins mini-rakehoe:
“This is a lightweight hoe repurposed/made from a firefighting rakehoe that shattered. Each of two broken blade pieces was angle ground into a mini-rakehoe. A short piece of waterpipe welded on allowed attaching a handle made from feral Willow.
It’s much easier to carry and use than a mattock or full size rakehoe but can still handle chipping out virtually all herbaceous weeds and even small woody ones. Because it’s tempered (hardened) steel, it copes with stony ground unlike similar looking commercial tools. The toothed end is great for getting out tap rooted species like Dock. A brilliant landcare tool!”
Ian Higgins: mini-rakehoe
Ilana sent this with “Can’t believe how much I love this; perfect tubes forever” and a link… I thought it was going to be a surfing clip… Tube crimper in the bought or given category of useful things.
Ilana Solo: tube crimper
Thais Sansom: great aunt's cherry pitter (works well on olives too!)
One for the brought or given category.
Some ‘made’ useful things from the Cathy Parry at the Ron D Swan workshop:
Cathy Parry - boxket (part box part basket) workshop hold-all made from canvas offcuts.
Cathy Parry - curve tool to push out a curved corner when turning heavy duty canvas inside out
