Baby it's cold outside

Notonthehighstreet.com has an excellent collection of cold weather wear in groovy Scandinavian patterns. I only wish I had time to import one of these pieces before the frigid walk to the subway tonight.

Yards of cards

More neat cards from the gift show. I am totally loving the brown craft paper/botanical/monsters theme.
Binth cards

Weekend spy like project

I have always secretly wanted to make one of those super cool hollowed out spy books. While researching how to make a time capsule on Wikihow I stumbled upon the seemingly simple directions.
me + glue + exacto knife = pure comedy gold.

Stuff with a cause

Here's a cute little knitted squid phone cozy from plinkonet. They are custom made, so you could obviously order one to fit an ipod, or whatever your little heart might desire. Proceeds from the sales are going towards the artist's goal of earning $30,000 for her 3 day breast cancer walk. Great gift idea!

You make me squirrelly

In the name of all things rodent related (it's groundhog day after all) I present to you this terrific card from the curiosity shoppe. Perfect for your sweetie any day of the year, but especially great for valentines day.

Spring Amenity

Amenity's new Spring line of textiles is out, and the extra great news about it is that it is not only gorgeous, it is organic for the first time.
I wish I had room for the large stretched canvas piece above, but may have to "settle" for the lovely duvet instead...poor me...*wink!
All available from Amenity.

Pasta tester

I absolutely loved the booth that Pott flatware had at the gift fair. They had a bunch of really eccentric pieces and the people working there were so super helpful and nice. Check out the pasta tester which they smartly call the "al dente" which is a piece designed specifically for fishing out one single piece of pasta from the cooking water to taste for doneness. So clever!

I heart grab bags

How does that song go..."if there was a grab bag- I'd grab it, check out the hook while my dj revolves it. ice ice baby"? Maybe not, but there should be a hit song about grab bags in my humble opinion. Whomever wants to write it may be inspired by Pocketo's tee shirt grab bag or their wallet one. Grab away!

Glassy eyed

This handblown glassware from Juliska was so fabulously gorgeous at the gift show that I was afraid they wouldn't let me into their booth. Look at how delicate and feminine these pieces are. Straight up my alley for sure.
I was able to find several places to purchase these online, and I was suprised at how relatively inexpensive the pieces were. I hadn't had access to their price list at the show and was expecting them to be far more expensive. Shop at msn shopping and bsl home.

Tastes like beer?

Last night we had a great beer and tapas tasting at our favorite local watering hole, Against the Grain. We sampled four of the finest beers I've had in a while, all of which were produced by local Brooklyn brewery Sixpoint Craft Ales. I totally recommend their frothy deliciousness, especially the Sweet Action Cream Ale and the Otis Oatmeal Stout. Once we had tasted these two (generous tastes at that) we were happy as clams and the evening was really rocking and rolling. Also, kudos to the chef for the evening, as we were fed very well. Some of the highlights were the oysters with cucumber habanero mignonette, and the beer soaked sausages. Muy delicioso!
Thanks to all our buddies at ATG and the world famous GAG!

Ipod karaoke

Do we even have to discuss how potentially dangerous this little item could be? It appears that you have to download special songs online so that you can see the lyrics across the bottom, but I wonder if you could just use the mike to sing regular old songs off your ipod. I mean really, who needs the lyrics to "It's Raining Men" or "Beat It" anyhow.
Available from fredflare.com

Plastic food has come a long way in 30 years

While searching for those placemats I just posted below, I stumbled across these plastic play foods that feature latino cuisine items such as a taco, empanada, tamale, flan, etc. Boy has plastic food come a long way since I used to play with it or what!

Kids are funny

Oh I wish you could see these placemats very up close because they are HI-larious! They are disposable paper placemats with kids recipes printed on them. The kind man at the Bob's Your Uncle booth told me that they are coming out with a new series of these because they did so well, but for now you can get the old series at amazon.com
My favorite recipe of the bunch is for Blueberry Muffins and reads as follows:

Blueberry Muffins:
Blueberry
Sugar
Dough
Salt
Put into muffin things
Put them in the oven
Keep them there for a while
Take out
Eat them

Wood is good

These bracelets from Schlee Design called to me so I had to post them even though I can't seem to find an online retailer...darn it!

Bourdain's brilliance

Sigh...I love Anthony Bourdain.
Sigh...I love Top Chef.
What? Anthony Bourdain is guest blogging at Michael Ruhlman's blog? YES!
Check out Bourdain's Top Chef contestant run down and tell me he is not the greatest.
He's so dreamy!

Homesick Coloradoan

I just had to post this link to a great website I was just turned onto by the simply recipes blog. It's called Homesick Texan and it is all about Mexican and Tex-Mex food. Although I am not from Texas I can sure identify with the lack of great Mexican and Tex-Mex here in NYC. Those guys from the Pace Picante Sauce ad sure had it right!
Oh and by the way, the photo above is of chocolate frito pie. MMMM fritos...MMM chocolate....MMMMMMMM

Thoughts from the NY International Gift Fair:

So, I finally finished rummaging through the fair yesterday at approximately 6:00 pm. This means that I was at the fair for two full 8 hour days, and I am at least an inch shorter because I walked so far carrying 2 huge bags of press kits...but it was worth it.
Most of the feedback that I received from vendors at the fair was positive. I say most because as crazy as it seems to me, there are people out there that have no idea what a blog is. Wha??? Yes, it is true. Some people even gave me suspicious looks and questioned my intentions. It proved difficult to explain to these people that I was not looking to make money off of them, that this was just a hobby and that I provided a source of free marketing. Oy vey.
But let's talk about the good stuff shall we? As I said previous, I will be wading through the millions of business cards and trying to bring you some fresh and inspirational retail content over the next couple of weeks...it will take at least that long to post all the great design I saw at the show. Stay tuned!

Sink into Sukie

I stopped by the Sukie booth quickly on Sunday at the gift fair, and was reminded of how truly snazzy their pillow collection is. I know the designs above are not terribly new, but they are so cool they are totally worth putting up. Available from Sukie.

A different kind of cowboy dip

Instead of the kitchy cowboy and Native American images I am used to seeing on dinnerware, Abigail Hornik-Minckler has designed some really beautiful pieces of ceramic using historical photographs from her personal collection. Although the pieces are not available online, I wanted to post about her and the western motifs she is using anyhow as a sign of respect to the work she does. They all made me extremely nostalgic about Colorado and Wyoming, with sagebrush and grass as far as the eye can see. Extremely cool.
You can find her website here, and there is a store list so I hope you can find one near you somewhere.

Where in the world is my dinner?

Another great NYIGF find for you, and something that would make an excellent gift for the architect or city planning fiend in your life...the City plate series from notNeutral. These 12" platter/plates come in four different delightful urban flavors: Los Angeles, Berlin, Cairo and Shanghai. Although they are sold separately on their website, at the show they were displayed all together and I think they are more fun that way.
As a side note, the people at this booth were some of the nicest and most receptive to my blog at the whole show so I want to give them BIG PROPS! Thanks guys!

Small photo, big deal

Oh, it is so sad how small this photo is because this terrarium designed by Esque Studio is so gorgeous. Such a nice twist on the trend. Their booth at the NYIGF was really exciting, I especially loved the anatomically correct heart vase. Unfortunately there is no photo of this piece on their site, and there was no photo taking allowed at the show so you'll just have to trust me. They have tons of other fantastic pieces on their website though, so take a look at the cloche, the log vase, and pretty much all of the barware.

HOLY COW!

This weekend was absolutely wild. I'm going to need a few minutes here to process everything that went down.
The great news is that I collected 2 huge Marimekko tote bags (woo hoo!) full of materials to blog about, so get ready!