Another burst of inspiration! Click the squares to find out more about what’s inspiring me lately at NOTCOT.org.

We needed to go get lost… in the woods… away from all our screens for a little bit. So Shawn loaded up Bucky and I in the NOTFZJ80, and we headed north! The California drought is no joke… so we weren’t sure what to expect on our hunt for greenery and running water, but luckily we found a bit (though not as much as there once was!) up at the Kern River, and found an amazing camp site alongside Taylor Creek. Falling asleep to the sound of the creek rushing by was amazing - and Bucky just couldn’t get enough of the fresh snow melt and spring water flowing through. While we didn’t do much other than relax and explore - i couldn’t help snapping a few pics on my phone - so take a peek at what we found on the next page!

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INSPIRATION!!! A peek at what has been keeping me giddy this week - as shared on NOTCOT.org! Click the pics to find out details…

Instagram inspiration - stumbled into @ontwerpduo - with description: “A bird cage in which you can swing freely, lamps that branch out like a tree. Visit the fantastic world of design duo Tineke Beunders & Nathan Wierink” So much lovely work in progress from their studio, Ontwerpduo, documented on their instagram, including this beautiful cutting board that is launching soon! Love the holes of various depths - perfect to catch bread crumbs, or store your marbles… that will make more sense when you see more of the pictures on the next page!

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Here’s the latest from London-based editor and resident zoologist, Justine Aw!

MonoFrame Glasses by Parsha Gerayesh of RCA’s Design Products are glasses whose frame is formed from a single material. Borrowing techniques from spring manufacturing, the glasses are made from wire fed through a series of coils and bends. See more pictures + video on the next page…

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Here’s the latest from London-based editor and resident zoologist, Justine Aw!

The Fuzzy Logic Project by Marta Santambrogio caught my eye at Central Saint Martins with an enormous “Exhaustophone”, adorable model vehicles and a fascinating concept. Santambrogio is a part of the Material Futures course and her project looks at the sound of traffic. With recent European law stating that electric and hybrid vehicles will have to make a noise by 2019, her project explores how traffic noise might create music, with individual vehicle sounds coming together to create a moving orchestra, from traffic jam to jam session. See more on the next page…

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Inspiration round-up time from the grid sites!!! Click the pics to see a taste of what’s been inspiring me over at NOTCOT.org and Tasteologie.

Dove down an internet rabbit hole of small ceramic planters inspired by all the recent succulent propagating projects… and discovered Cumbuca Chic - the shop of ceramicist Priscilla Ramos out of São Paulo, Brazil! Her naturally inspired small ceramics pieces are adorable! There are CAPYBARAS! And ANTEATERS! As well as adorable foxes, and the cutest, tiniest birds on mini pots. But seriously, i didn’t even know i wanted (or could find) ceramic capybara planters… and now i can’t get them out of my head. She sells through her website and Cumbuca Chic Etsy Shop - and you get a peek behind the scenes on the Cumbuca Chic Facebook Page. I can’t wait to see more of the Sloth she’s working on. Take a peek at my favorites on the next page…

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Conical glass cloches! Perfect for succulents and toys! This is one of the best late night impulse buys i’ve had in a while… they just arrived from Anthropologie, and are even lovelier in person! They are actually Capri Blue Cloche Candles - in small (white - Marine), medium (robin’s egg - Orchid Mint), and large (blue - Volcano). While they do smell lovely, in all honesty, i’m excited to burn through the candles to use them for succulents! They have such lovely details - from the lasered bamboo tags on leather… to the way the bases are cast (the bottom is surprising!) Take a peek at them on the next page.

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Inspiring me this week - click the pics to find out more!

Target provided the Jurassic World toys (and a gift card for us to pick some of our own) and Shawn, Bucky, and I happily took their inspiration and ran with it. Who doesn’t love dinosaurs? … and Jurassic Park was one of the first “scary” books I read as a kid. The movies are also ridiculously epic, so it’s hard not to imagine how fun the latest one will be too. When the box of dinosaur toys arrived, Bucky, the NOTpuppy, was the first to dive in and try to run off with the Indominus Rex (something about that rubbery face he just HAD to grab). I started to poke at the pile of dinos and when I discovered the Jurassic World Lego sets with Lego Unimog, G-Wagen, and raptors online… that Target gift card disappeared pretty quickly. The dinosaurs quickly spread across NOTlabs, the Legos were built over coffee one morning… and as Shawn and I played with them and brainstormed ideas to try out with the new Roland CNC - it hit us! Wooden Desktop Planters! A fun little set that we could attach the Lego pieces to made from a nice dark walnut wood to mix with succulents and strawberries would be the PERFECT playful table top setup for the dinosaurs!

So if you’re ready to see all the fun we’ve been having… and the ridiculousness that ensued… to the next page!

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It’s here!!! I’m so giddy to get to present our latest NOTlabs experiment, Plant Experiment #1 - and we’ve decided to make an extremely limited edition of them since friends have already been asking for some!

Plant Experiment #1 is a limited edition trio of walnut planters. Shawn and I designed them right here in NOTlabs, Los Angeles. Every piece is CNC milled (on the Roland Modela Pro II 540s we recently unboxed) from a single block of walnut and hand finished (by Shawn and I!) Inspired by our love of succulents, Lego®, a surprising Target sponsorship and the need for projects to get to know the CNC better - these square planters are Lego®-compatible and the perfect size for small and medium succulents, seedlings, and other plants. Each piece has drainage holes to keep your plants happy. You can also get creative and build up, down, and all around them turning them into mini worlds on your desk, pen/paintbrush holders, candy dishes… a little bit of each… and more.

The trio contains one 12x12, 8x8, and 6x6. Only 10 sets will be made. Each set will laser numbered on the base of each piece. Take a detailed look at Plant Experiment #1 on the next page - and pop over to the store if you’d like a set.

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Inspiration time! Another peek at what’s been inspiring us in NOTlabs lately - for more click the pictures and browse NOTCOT.org.

There’s a CNC mill in NOTlabs! While Shawn has been playing with (and missing) the full shop of 6-axis robots, huge CNCs, Objet 3D printers and more in his grad school days - i’ve been catching up and getting my hands dirty with it all through our NOTlabs projects! So when the awesome folks at Roland offered to lend us their Roland MODELA Pro II MDX-540S desktop mill, we were ecstatic! While we’ve been doing a lot of 3D printing (remember the Nescafe Alarm Caps and Free Universal Construction Kit?) - as crazy as you can get with additive processes, there’s a lot that subtractive can do (and in some cases, do better!)

We’ve been in the getting-to-know-you phase with this “desktop” beast of a CNC recently, but to catch you up - here’s the unboxing of what two shipping palettes in the driveway is like. We definitely needed to bring in an extra pair of hands to help move the machine itself. In addition to the Roland MODELA Pro II MDX-540S main mill, there is the case, the automatic tool changer, the rotary (4th axis!) and then a starter set of various bits… and of course, Roland’s software to get to know. Ooh and then there’s also various materials to try!

First impression? SO MESMERIZING! We’ve been spending hours and hours working alongside the machine to keep an eye on things, and experimenting with a few models to test out how it handles various types of curves, materials, and details. See the full unboxing and a peek at our experiments so far on the next page!

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This week’s inspiration! Click the squares to find out more…