Wednesday 14th July:
Turning water into wine
Spike Your Juice gives people a buzz to call their own. Getting started as a fermenting master requires a Spike Your Juice kit, 72 ounces of juice, and only 48 hours of time. People add a magical powder to any juice (pomegranate or cranberry are recommended), then let it sit in the fridge to brew. As the juice ferments, the sugar content drops and the alcohol-per-volume soars as high as 14%. The result is a unique fizzy cocktail that’s enjoyable for several weeks.
People not only want an array of flavors to pick from, they want to be able to create their own beverages from (almost) scratch. Brewing beer, making yogurt, cultivating kimchi … It’s all in a day’s kitchen work for today’s DIYers. As long as personalisation continues to rank high with people, many will be curious enough to home-brew their alcohol.
Tagged with: Alcohol, DIY, Food and drink, Personalisation
Friday 30th April:
Progressive yoghurt
The health benefits of probiotics have been recognised for years, but consumers mostly buy them in nutraceutical form. Now, however, you can make your own. Australia’s Microbioflora has produced Progurt, a do-it-yourself yoghurt kit that aims to provide an alternative to those store-bought products.
The company sells a branded DIY yoghurt maker along with accessories including refrigeration tubs, electrolyte complexes, prebiotic syrups and probiotic sachets. With over 1 trillion CFU capability, each Progurt probiotic sachet contains a formulation of multiple strains of probiotic bacteria of human origin to enhance and strengthen the immune system. No artificial flavours, colours or preservatives are added. A starter pack including one incubator, one tub, prebiotic syrup and a pack of 15 probiotic sachets is priced at AUD 440.
Currently, Progurt is available online and through select Australian retailers.
Ref. http://www.springwise.com/food_beverage/progurt/
Tagged with: DIY, Food and drink, Health
Wednesday 28th April:
Beautifying the functional
The growth in window box gardens, allotments, and the economic need to put the ‘do’ back in do-it-yourself is giving more enlightened brands the opportunity to re-energise the somewhat functional worlds of horticulture and DIY.
Here are three examples of brands and designers working to tap into our desire to be more creative in the home and garden: French designer, Sammy Halim’s design concept for Pantone Paint; Spain’s Marc Monguiold’s design for Knack which uses nature as metaphor for the uses of the tools within the range; and finally Chloe Dunne’s designs for The Balcony Gardener’s new range of seeds..
Tagged with: DIY, Gardening
Thursday 8th April:
Coming face-to-face with food again
Much of the food we eat bears no resemblance to its natural form. Frozen in multi-packs, wrapped in cellophane or sporting a long-list of polysyllabic ingredients, it’s not difficult to understand why we feel detached from what shows up on our plate. Add in all the health and environmental issues associated with our food, and it’s no surprise that a movement to bridge this gulf between farm and table is underway.
Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed the steady rise of farmers’ markets, urban gardens and home canning. And now we can add DIY butchering to the list.
In New York City, the eagerness to get hands-on with a side of meat has really taken off. This is thanks to classes like those hosted by Brooklyn Retailer and Kitchen Classroom, The Meat Hook. Their pig butchering demos are a consistent sellout (along with the emergence of grizzled celebrity butchers).
The phenomenon seems to point to a general tendency among people who want reconnect with their physical world in a meaningful way. You simply can’t replace the feel of cleaver on chopping block with a touchscreen interface.
Ref. http://www.psfk.com/2010/03/bringing-home-the-bacon-and-butchering-it-too.html
Tagged with: DIY, Local, Retail, Sustainability
Thursday 7th January:
Car-parks start earning their keep
Home Depot may be struggling, but it owns a lot of land – up to 15 acres per store, including vast parking lots. Now it hopes to cash in on all that sprawling vacant asphalt by selling off lots to other retailers.
There’s nothing more useless than a vacant parking lot (unless you’re a teen doing wheelies). Most shoppers would appreciate the opportunity to easily check off multiple store errands during their Home Depot shopping trips. So to lure potential tenants during a real estate slump, the company is targeting chains that complement its morning contractor business, like auto repair shops and fast-food chains that sell breakfast.
Recession-resistant chains like Chick-fil-A are continuing to expand, so it could be a smart move. ‘It’s no different from a power center anchored by a Target or Kohl’s, with small tenants like Sally Beauty Supply as a co-tenant,’ says Colin McGranahan of Bernstein Research.
Tagged with: Credit crunch, DIY, Retail
Thursday 13th August:
How can you help customers get what they really, really want?
Trust us, says sexybachelorpad.com, you need us. It seems the busy, busy boys of NYC who’d rather work late and party hard than sort out their apartments would agree. Those who’d previously been slumming it with mismatched furniture are flocking to the website to set up a consultation for sexybachelorpad.com to transform their space.
It seems the service is particularly aimed at boys wanting to shake off their bachelor status, though. As one line goes, ‘you got her home, we’ll make sure she stays’. So, any bachelor in the area who thinks the way to a lady’s heart is through interior design might like to give them a call.
Ref. http://www.sexybachelorpad.com/index.php
Tagged with: DIY, Furniture
Monday 9th March:
How can you help people do more D.I.Y?
Clothes make the man, but in the wake of the global financial crisis, D.I.Y. projects and online portals like etsy or dawanda are showing us that, in fact, (wo)man makes the clothes and accessories.
The new Cut-Magazine in Germany is showing promising signs of success as Germans become more interested in creating things themselves. It includes 170 pages showing how you can make your own clothes. It’s released four times a year so your homemade fashion can always be bang on trend.
Ref http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/the-diy-trend-inspired-cut-magazine-the-man-makes-clothes
Monday 1st December:
How can you introduce a little do-it-yourself into your project – good for these credit crunch times?
Think like Oz brew-on-premise facility ‘The Beer Factory who have a selection of over 200 world-class beers that can be brewed by consumers in their commercial grade microbrewery using the highest quality brewing ingredients from around the world. (tx to JPS and Roger Jackson in Sydney)
The end result is a 100% chemical and preservative free beer that will taste crisper, cleaner and better than anything you have tasted before – all at a fraction of the price of similar beers from the bottle shop (off-licence).
http://www.thebeerfactory.com.au/index.html
