Make stuff, be happy

If you’re a regular Shortlist reader, you might have spotted this recent cover feature on “making stuff”. In it, Matt Hussey explores the recent increase in men swapping their desk jobs for manual labour – whether it’s building bikes or making furniture. According to psychologists it can go some way to combatting male depression, an…

Three things I’ve learnt.

Over the past few months I’ve learnt three things: 1. 120 linear metres of frame mouldings is too much for a little flat 2. Framing without a guillotine is a lot harder than you think 3. Get your glass cut a little bit smaller than you think you should How have I learnt this? By…

Lil’ Kim

It appears that my woodworking career started much earlier than I thought. Here’s a picture of me taking a mallet to a plank of wood whilst wearing a hat that simply says BOSS. Which is how I’d like you to address me in future.

Drink Whisky Neat

I framed this little print as a birthday present for my brother. He’s very old now.

Launching today: frame me something

Richard Branson started with a record shop. And now look at him! He’s best friends with Usain Bolt and he’s about to send a load of people into almost-space. His cola was crap, but still he’s done well. Well, I decided to take a leaf out of his book (I haven’t actually read his book…

Ladder bookcase

This little ladder from http://www.the-restoration.com has been transformed into a handsome bookshelf. I’ve even arranged the books by colour. How sad.

The best lightbox in the world. Ever.

I’m glad my five years in advertising haven’t been a complete waste of time. My mind-controlling wizard tricks have finally paid off. After only a year of the brilliantly-named “makemesomething.co.uk” someone has finally thought “yes, good idea, make me something”. And so it came about that my mate Franz over at http://www.fudgegraphics.com became my modern-day…

Filaments

If you’ve ever been to a trendy bar in East London, you’ll have seen these trendy lightbulbs. In a bid to acquire some of that trendiness, I decided to replace the horrific bare energy saving numbers in my living room with these. I bought them from http://www.urbancottageindustries.co.uk‘s historic lighting section. I first came across these…

Kenny’s Koat Rack

After about a year of badgering, I finally got round to making this coat rack for my mate Kenny. It’s fairly minimalist – a simple planed block of Tasmanian oak with three mini G-clamps as hooks. I’ll hopefully be able to post some photos of it on a wall soon. This is the first piece…

Tumbleweed….

It’s been a bit quiet round here lately. I’ve been busy moving flat and haven’t yet found a workshop (if anyone’s got a shed near Stoke Newington, let me know). But this weekend I made a little bathroom shelf. It was essentially a copy of something I saw in a shop called Homage, which I…

La souris est en dessous de la table!

If you haven’t seen Eddie Izzard’s sketch on learning French, click here and come back to this when you’ve stopped laughing. If you have seen it, then you’ll be disappointed that this post isn’t very funny. Ah well. I have spent the last couple of weeks thinking about how to  build a dinner table for…

I love lamp. Still.

“A bad workman blames his tools” is one of those sayings that rally gets me. If I have a blunt chisel, why shouldn’t I blame it? Stupid thing should be sharper. OK, so I could sharpen it or throw it in the bin and get a better one. I suppose that’s the lesson I’ve learnt….