Dogs and people — two of my favorite things. I like to kick off our Picks with creative inspo and this one cracks me up. Want to know more? Read on in pick number 7 below 😉
Photo: Stephen McMennemy (Instagram)
I have a fun collection of design inspiration, open-ended art projects (my favorite), science news, and creativity prompts for you today. I’ll start with a few from TinkerLab…
- Do you have a young child who likes to paint? New on the TinkerLab blog is a roundup of ten open-ended painting provocations that encourage creative thinking.
- Now that it’s officially spring (!), it’s making me think about Earth Day (April 22). Check out this massive list of 50 Earth Day Activities for something that’s sure to inspire your family or students.
- Related, spring is a great time to start thinking about how to utilize a garden or outdoor area for creativity. This three-part article shows you how to set up a mud kitchen, mud kitchen accessory ideas, and creative ways to shop for your mud kitchen.
- This will blow your mind: an underwater restaurant, Under, five and a half meters below the ocean’s surface opened this week in Norway. If nothing else, look at the photo on the home page. No surprise it’s fully booked for the next six months!
- Have you ever wanted to sleep in a shipping container? Flophouze in Round Top, Texas offers an opportunity to stay in their uber-stylish, super modern shipping container hotel. They even have a shipping container pool. Feeling DIY? They’ll show you how you can build your own container home.
- Caslon, Bodoni, Garamond, Cooper Black, and Baskerville. What’s behind these popular typeface names? Fast Company shares a new book, The Designer’s Dictionary of Type, and divulges the history of these 5 typefaces for us to enjoy. I didn’t realize that Garamond has been around since 1532!
- Stephen McMennamy’s collage photo combinations (see above) are not only hilarious and sometimes profound, they can inspire your kids to come up with their own clever combinations. Take a look at his Instagram feed and you’ll be hooked. The videos are captivating, especially the girl with the dog-wagging ponytail.
- Misophonia: have you heard of it? I remember my mom, who was hyper sensitive to sounds, getting upset when my brother and I chewed (loudly, maybe) gum in the car. Turns out that some people get enraged when other’s make sounds, and NPR tells us more about it in this article.
- Let me preface this one by saying that I had no idea pocket projectors (a tiny projector that attaches to a phone and shines on the image on a wall) are a thing. Just the idea of it is amazing, and now I’m caught up with the 21st century. So, you have to check out this really cool idea for using a pocket projector as a tool for a light provocation for young children. (Fairy Dust Teaching)
- This is a clever idea for creating Mondrian-style circle art from old maps. You just need some maps (or other black and white images) and markers to pull this off. Scroll down a few images to see the maps, although the other ideas are intriguing as well. (Imagination Box)
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p.s. Have you been inspired by anything this week? Tell us about it in the comments and we may share it next week.
