I received one of these gift envelopes over the new year from Design Night. It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the red pard of the card is actually a lasercut piece of paper which is wrapped around a yellow envelope. It features a pig to celebrate the chinese year of the pig. The detail on it is really quite outstanding, and the price is nice at $6.50 each.

Available from Design Night for $6.50.

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Mary needs some good advice. Here is the problem:

Can i get tips on laser tools ? i am interested in using a laser to construct a wall to divide a room. i borrowed a friends laser (black and decker bdl310s, $80 at hd) and got very frustrated trying to make the outline of the wall on the two walls and ceiling and floor. i ended up, to determine how to get the new wall square to the room, measuring off an existing wall onto 2points on the ceiling, dropping a point onto the floor w/ a plumb line from those two ceiling points, and only using the laser from this point on to extend those 4points into a square outline. i was really expecting the laser to help eliminate the plumb line and the ‘measuring off the wall’ step.

could it have been easier ? what laser product can anyone recommend ? very frustrating.

Head over to the forums to see what I think, and give her some advice.

I thought I should give an update on our house. I have spent the last couple weeks trying to get everything in order to apply for our loan. It amazes me what you have to do before the bank will give you any money. We had to have all our plans done, and approved by the city. We had to do all of our zoning variances and get our building permit. The worst part of it has been getting all the bids. It’s hard if you don’t know anyone to know who you should call to get a good bid from. Luckily I ran across a great General Contractor who was nice enough to kind of hold my hand through the whole process. He will be doing all the framing and siding for our house. We finally got it all together, along with every financial document we could find and met with the loan officer today. She said it all looked good, and that it should be a week or so until we can get the money. So far the numbers run like this; We bought the house for $106 thousand, put another $8 thousand into it, are taking out a loan for $60 thousand, and will end up with a house that appraises for $195 thousand. All in all not too bad of a deal, just a lot of work getting there.

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Maybe once I have a kid, the idea of a white pillow will not seem like such a good idea anymore, but until then I wouldn’t mind getting this pillow from Ser-vice. Their description is less than helpful, but somehow totally appropriate:

Nature. Respect. Check a landscape. Give a little back to an old, old soul. Show ‘em you got no pity for the city. Leafy, leafy, nice motify.

Available from Ser-vice for $68.

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I am loving these great Cherry Blossom Branches with decorative flower lights from London based Graham and Green. Available in either white or pink, these delicate lights plug in to make a great small accent light. Each branch comes with 35 individual flower lights. The price is not too bad either for how unique the product is, £16.00 ($30). It looks like availability may be spotty though, and I have no idea about shipping. Anyone see something like this stateside?

Available from Graham and Green for £16.00 ($30).

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Max in the Box is a modular furniture system that can be used in a myriad of ways, limited only by your child’s imagination. It can be a table and chairs, or flipped on its side it can be a treasure chest, the sky is the limit. Lightweight, and strong, all the components are made of birch plywood with a clear varnish finish. Cubes are 14″ square, price for the two stackable blocks shown above is $245 which is a little high, but still reasonable considering you are getting two chairs and a table.

Available from Modern Tots for $245.

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Flipper Nation: The Blame Game

There’s more where this came from at: FlipperNation.com
If you cannot view this video, you can check it out at YouTube instead.

A couple days ago I posted about the accent wall you can see in the background of the picture above. Eric from Modern Self definitely has the affordable modern vision. This week he is back with more goodies. In his quest for the perfect Mid-Century Modern Pendant lamps, he stumbled across the ALANG table lamps from IKEA. At $29 a piece, they were way cheaper than any other option he had come across. With a few simple modifications, the two table lamps became two pendant lamps, and the rest is history. For all the details, head over to Modern Self

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We love plants at our house. Sometimes its hard to find a good modern pot to go with that special plant you have. I love the look of Aluminum, but it’s usually way to expensive to justify. Chiasso has the small 6″ size of these aluminum planters on sale, and they are a super good deal at only $14. It makes me wish that they had some of the bigger ones for that same price.

Available from Chiasso for $14.

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Well, we made it back from Mexico unscathed. Our travels brought us close to the Ikea in Tempe Arizona, but we didn’t manage to stop by. With an Ikea being built so close to our house, we felt slightly less driven to stop by the Swedish superstore. If we had gone in however, this Knappa Klover floor lamp was on my list of things to check out. The picture really doesn’t do it justice, as it is 30″ tall and has a 28″ diameter. This thing must look pretty big, but in classic Ikea style, the price is quite small.

Available from Ikea for $69.

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