via Treehugger
Artist Jane Perkins has taken junk and made art. Good art. Of people like President Obama and (fortuitously seeing as the Jubilee was just last week) The Queen. Recycling items such as ‘buttons, toys, [and] plastic forks’ to create colourful portraits of luminaries such as Nelson Mandela and David Beckham. And they’re always smiling, appropriately.
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Last year Nokia produced the I#recycling video and it still males me smile to this day. The old phones planning an escape from the recycling bin. Awesome.
via Nokia
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More recycling now, to create an extreme machine. Well, a bicycle. But the world’s fastest bicycle. Graeme Obree is a world record-breaking cyclist, and he’s planning to go at over 100mph on his new bike, built from parts scavenged from all over, including bits of a saucepan from his kitchen! I am *so* hoping he can take this bike to the US in September and prove that a bit of human lateral thinking and dedication to the cause can outdo all the technicians and laboratories that have tried before.
The best bit? Graeme built his bike in the kitchen, and this makes me smile.
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Another piece of recycled beauty now, and one I may well get a chance to see this week. It’s a water tower on a building in Brooklyn, New York. But instead of the usual drab brown/grey/black combo that seems to be the staple for these structures, this one uses recycled glass collected from all across New York City. It’s not functional, but it’s a great way to exemplify how the ordinary can become extraordinary by the simple act of recycling and it makes me smile.
via A|N Blog (photo from Robert Banat)
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Quick Grins
A few quick smiles now, *all* of them submitted via Twitter by uber-grinner Christian Trohin.
First up some singing. Watch this guy silence a baby who is determined not to stop crying, by using only the power of the Cohen (I have to say, and this will probably not win me any friends, but the song has the same effect on me).
Similarly, singing 5 yapping puppies to sleep. Not sure which video is the cuter. Both made me smile.
And it’s always funny to see people walking, texting and falling, so take your pick from the lady on the news or the lady in the mall fountain.
Thanks Christian. You made me smile.
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So what’s been making you smile this week? You could be like Christian and have your smile featured right here on MMSM (you might not get your own section, that was a first and possibly a last). Let me know in the comments or on Twitter using the #MakeMeSmileMonday tag.