This South Florida Man Turned His Truck Into a Banana, Of Course

Categories: DIY

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via bigbananacar.com
The aptly, if not creatively, named Big Banana Car.
You've heard of banana boats. You've seen banana hammocks. But have you checked out the Big Banana Car?

Steve Braithwaite of Pembroke Park turned his perfectly normal Ford F-150 pickup truck into a giant traveling banana, and he's taking it on a road trip to show it off. Why? Because turning it into a giant peanut was obviously out of the question.

"I was planning on building a huge peanut roadster only because it's the logo of a nut company in Michigan but I had a falling out with them over a rather unpleasant incident concerning two bags of peanuts," Braithwaite explains at his website.

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Wynwood's First Permanent Fashion Market Coming in March

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The future site of Fashion de la Calle Studios.
If you've always wanted to participate in something hip and creative in Wynwood, You're in luck. Pamela Wasabi (of Wasabi Fashion Kult and former Cultist contributor) and Lombardi Properties are joining forces to bring you Wynwood's first ever permanent fashion market. Think: local on-trend designers, vintage shops, and artists. But they need your help.

The space will be called Fashion de la Calle (fashion from the streets) Studios, because, as Wasabi put it, "We are all artists whose ideas were born in the streets by watching and experiencing the city. We work the streets from venue to venue spreading our creativity, hustling here and there [and] trying to make our art survive in a capitalist world, amongst big corporations."

She hopes that this permanent market will set the tone, trend, and mentality of our culture and city. But here's where locals come in: She has room for others in her warehouse-like space, right next door to Crossfit 29 and JugoFresh on 29th St., and needs vendors. And it's a lot of space, too: 2,400 square feet of it.

See also:
- Wasabi Fashion Kult Launches Pop-Up Boutique in Wynwood
More »

Found Miami Design Grand Opening Party at MiMo Location Tonight

Categories: Around Town, DIY
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We love the DIY culture. There's something about buying an old, beat up piece of furniture with a beautiful skeleton, taking the whole thing apart and building the frame up from scratch. It's like completely rebuilding your sad, crappy life.

Though we love the thought of it, the time and effort required to do this massive undertaking is a bit more than we can actually handle. That's why we loved Found Miami Design.

They've relocated and they're throwing a party tonight for their new digs! Now we love them even more.

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Etsy, Not Regretsy: Five Miami Artists To Watch

Categories: DIY
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JennaDickes' prints: for cat ladies and Internet lovers everywhere.
One look at the DIY website Etsy proves it: Homemade crafts have come a long way since Nana's crocheted doilies. Though there are plenty of failed attempts at creativity represented on the site -- Regretsy, anyone? -- they're balanced by pieces that are original, inventive, and aesthetically stunning. And many of them come from our own backyard.

These Miami vendors were chosen for their unique approach to the homemade item, incorporating spunky elements and makeshift glam. After all, beneath all the diamond-encrusted panache strutting about Miami, there's got to be an understated longing for the simpler things in life.

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Fly Like Paper Planes: Artist Julia Veli Turns New Times Cover Into Sexy Dress

Categories: DIY, Fashion
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courtesy of Julia Veli
Model Alexia Delorme models a dress made of New Times covers by friend Julia Veli
Thousands of people read last week's feature on the deadly thrills and spills of home-built airplanes. Countless fans followed our instructions and made paper planes out of our innovative cover. But only one person took the story's DIY focus to heart.

Local artist Julia Veli made dozens of paper planes from the cover, then fashioned them into the sexiest thing to say New Times this year.

Keep reading for more photos of Veli's creation

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Handmade for the Holidays: Three Ways to Shop

Categories: DIY, Lists
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A sampling from the Downtown Open Market
If you're the kind of person who shudders at the thought of Black Friday or abhors malls altogether, chances are you'd be a good candidate for buying handmade this year. Not only do you avoid fighting your way through obnoxious crowds of sale-hungry consumers, but when you buy handmade, you'll know that you're buying a unique item that wasn't manufactured by underpaid workers under sweatshop conditions.

In an age when everything seems to be imported from somewhere else, it's nice to know exactly who made something and even begin to form a relationship with the seller if you decide to purchase from them again.

Behold these three upcoming South Florida indie craft fairs where you can satisfy your handmade hankering and buy something really awesome for everyone on your list this year.

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Mother Nature Rules at the Arboleda Vintage and Handmade Crafts Festival

Categories: Culture, DIY
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monicannone via Etsy
Just one of the many treasures Arboleda Festival is a fan of on Etsy.
​In Spanish, an arboleda is a grove of trees. Grace Castro and Francine Madera chose the term to name their vintage and handmade crafts festival -- which lands in the Design District this weekend -- because to them, the word represents "Mother Nature and her incredible power to create." 

Inspired by Etsy, the online mall for all things crafted or old, the fair offers about 60 independent entrepreneurs an off-line place to showcase their wares and chat in person with those who'll be enjoying the fruits of their labor.

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Make Your Own PostSecret Postcard: A Dullard's Guide

Categories: Culture, DIY
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At last count, the PostSecret web site had counted 466,771,333 visitors. Chances are, you're one of them. But the site has only received a measly half million postcard contributions! That means only .11 percent of PostSecret's trollers have had the burning desire to publicly share the shameful secrets of their souls. Or maybe it's just that 99.89% of people are just too boring to generate secrets horrible enough to slap on a postcard for the world to see.

In honor of PostSecret Live tomorrow at the University of Miami's Gusman Hall, here's our step-by-step guide to creating your own disgusting secret and displaying it handsomely on a homemade postcard. Even the lamest among us can enjoy the thrill of having our dirty laundry (real or imagined) aired out via the glorious interweb.

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Yugo and Super Dave, Miami's Cheech and Chong, Need Money for Weed Movie

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Cheech and Chong, The Dude, Smokey, Jay, Kumar. These are some of the great heroes of weed movie history. You can add Yugo and Super Dave to that list. They are Miami's own killer bud-smoking, Yugoslav rap bro, and Kentucky redneck answer to the stoner film genre. They're raising money for their feature film with director William Avnayim on Indie GoGo. All they need is $5,420 to produce their two new scripts: one for a short, and one for a feature.

The duo's epic stoner journey began back in 2009 with the 16 mm film short Killer Bud, a Casino meets Half Baked adventure where Yugo and Dave come home to a dead Cuban rent lady, find a joint in her mouth, and dump the body in the Everglades. We caught up with Yugo and Super Dave by video conference call and found out about selling dub sacs, Kentucky Kush, their new movie, and lighters with bottle openers.More »

The Beer Soap Co. in Miami Uses Brew Suds to Create Soap Suds

Categories: DIY
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Beer soap collage.
We love beer and its many uses, such as helping us forget that fight we had with our girlfriend or the two hundred bucks we lost playing Texas Hold 'Em at the Calder Casino & Race Course after the fight with little Ms. Pissy Pants.

We are not alone in our pursuit for bigger and better ways to use beer (such as dousing our hair with it for natural highlights). The Beer Soap Co., based right here in the 305, has found a way to combine hops and hygiene. They were also one of the vendors at this past weekend's Brickell Bazaar.More »

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