Sometimes, it’s easy to forget how lucky we are. In the midst of running around and paying bills and cooking dinners and catching buses and shopping and walking and sleeping, you can lose sight of those little everyday sparks that make you smile. So, in case you’re having trouble finding yours, please share mine from yesterday – a beautiful necklace made for me by my five year old niece, Lauren. Yes, that’s a silver Barbie logo and little silver handbag (Carrie Bradshaw, eat your heart out) and there’s a pearl and a shell and too many other good things to mention. And it fits over my head and sits beautifully, like a designer necklace should. Tiffany & Co, look out.
Ok, so firstly, I need to confess that I didn’t know that Snoop Dogg had changed his name to Snoop Lion. But rest assured, I’ll be looking into it. That aside, I recently saw an interesting post on the Ecouterre website about Snoop Dogg/Lion supporting an MTV initiative to recycle US guns into jewellery. And that sounds like a much better use of the metal to me.
Word, Dogg. Errr, Lion.
Jewelry for a Cause is the place where you can buy the limited edition MTV x Caliber bracelet. Here’s how they explain the concept: “The bracelet carries the unique serial number of an illegal firearm turned in to the Newark Police Department during a recent gun buyback. The item is part of the Caliber Collection, a line of jewelry that is made, in part, from the steel of reclaimed illegal guns. Proceeds from each sale of the MTV x Caliber bracelet will be donated to the Newark Police Department to help fund future gun buyback amnesty programs in Newark, NJ.”
One of the MTV x Caliber limited edition bracelets.
That’s the special MTV bracelet – not really made of recycled guns, but featuring the serial number of a gun that’s no longer on the streets, which is still very cool. But the story is even better for other jewellery in the Caliber Collection – they use actual ‘guns and bullet casings seized by law enforcement’ to make their pieces, some with added diamonds to up the bling factor.
So much prettier – brass with eight little diamonds (and the number of the Newark gun it came from).
You can check out the full Caliber Collection at the Jewelry for a Cause site here.
And back to Ecouterre – if you haven’t checked it out, it’s a pretty interesting site: ‘your online guide to the best ideas, innovations and emerging trends in eco fashion, sustainable style, organic beauty and ethical apparel’. It’s here.
Oh, and if you want to read more about Snoop Lion, his Wikipedia page is here.
Now that the festive season is out of the way, it’s time to move on to the next exploitable holiday in the calendar – Valentine’s Day. Now let me just state for the record that, even though I don’t have a Valentine (waaa waaa), I still think that the idea of celebrating love and giving thoughtful trinkets is a fabulous thing. But, I fear that many poor saps get trapped by savvy marketers and become convinced that if you love someone, then this is the day you must step up and show them. Preferably on a grand scale and the more public the declaration of love, the better.
I do worry about those romantic fools, hoodwinked into spending too much money on questionable jewellery, giant I WUV U bears, scent-less roses that have magically tripled in price, dinner accompanied by the soothing sounds of the piano accordion. That sort of thing. Never fear though, I have scoured etsy and come up with some great gift ideas for your Valentine – gifts that won’t break the bank, cause offence or mis-spell love. You’re welcome.
Firstly, from Crafted Cookies, a pair of very cute sweet treats for Valentines. Or for police to give to criminals out on parole. Or for teachers to give the naughtiest kid in the class. Or for creepy Valentines-from-a-distance (I think the technical name is ‘peeping toms’) to give the object of their affection. It just works on so many levels.
I love you. So look out.
I actually really like this next one, a cool necklace from A Charmed Impression. But I do have to question their chosen model in the promo pic, given its inclusion in the Valentine’s Day collection…(To be fair, Katie’s necklace does appear to feature an ‘S’ for Suri (I presume it’s not for Scientology, anyways) rather than a ‘T’ for Tom.)
Valentine Schmalentine says Joey from Dawson’s Creek.
And another idea that I like, but question their photo choice for the Valentine’s Day collection, comes from Jubile Jewel. They are sterling silver initial earrings, which make a lovely romantic gift for your special someone. But could result in some mis-communication or a fight if your beloved happens to be called Fred Ulrich. Or Fanny Underwood.
Maybe not quite the romantic sentiment you were after…
Another interesting gift for your sweetheart comes from Plantables & Paper. It’s a love letter kit, which apparently provides you with 50 small cards with a typed intro on each, to get your romantic sonnets flowing. Although this one in the picture does feel more like it’s leading you to put an expiry date on it. If that’s something that you want to convey, maybe Valentine’s Day isn’t quite the time to do it. But when the time is right, if you use this card, it will definitely seem like a smoother delivery of a much nicer message. Of course, I take no responsibility if that presumption turns out to be false and you sustain an injury.
15 February 2013. At least.
And I couldn’t resist sharing this personalised ceramic mug from 39Cups.Perfect for a Valentine who’s a bit of a geek or a word-nerd. And we all know there’s nothing AT ALL wrong with that. It’s a word search, hand-painted onto a mug, with four words circled – your Valentine’s name, plus three words that describe them. Please note that each of the three descriptive words has to be 10 letters or less though, so it’s too bad if your man is really multi-faceted, or your lady issimply extraordinary.
This mug appears to be for Ashley – a sexy & stylish skater. Uh huh.
Well, that’s plenty of Valentine’s Day fodder for you right there, so I’ll stop now. But I do reserve the right to publish some more pre-Valentine’s Day posts if I discover other gifts for your consideration. Or if you find any true gems that I can share, please email me!
Hello, I’m Cate and I am globophobic. No, I am not afraid of the globe – I’m afraid of…balloons. It’s not a glamorous fear, I know – and I am thankful that it has an actual name, rather than being tucked away in the ‘weirdo’ section of the psychology handbook. Granted, it’s known to psychologists as an ‘uncommon phobia’, but I say why settle for a boring old fear of heights or flying, when I can have an uncommon phobia? Even if it is mocked by small children and adults alike.
According to Dr Google, I should be able to trace my fear to a traumatic event. But since balloons are mostly associated with happy parties in my memory, I am not sure where it started. I do remember hating those games where you had to pop the balloons to get a prize, but I don’t think they messed with my head any more than an egg & spoon race or pinning the tail on that poor donkey.
After childhood, there was a blissful mostly-balloon-free decade or so, then my beloved nieces and nephew came along and the balloons reappeared. At parties, from shopping centres, with showbags. Pop! Pop! Pop! But my family knows that I am a balloon hater, so they try not to use them very often. And my nieces – bless ’em – usually shepherd any stray balloons out of the room when I come in. So now I mostly just have to dodge the balloons in shopping centres (why oh why can’t stores just give out pens or ipads or gold bars as promotional tools these days?). You might have seen me, ducking and weaving to get away from a balloon in a shopping trolley, or a balloon being held too close to the ground by a little kid, or a balloon coming into contact with something sharp. I know, I know.
One day last year, I went to work in the city office of the insurance company I was with at the time. I was just expecting an ordinary day in the HR bearpit. But when the security door opened and I walked on to the floor, across the wide span of a football field of open-plan workstations, there was a sight to be seen. Hell had come to the office overnight – in the form of hundreds of helium balloons tied to ribbons, hovering over every desk. Before the first pop, I reminded my team mate of my fear and he kindly moved the closest balloons, but they lurked not too far away and kept bobbing about, getting closer and closer as the day wore on, like a pack of hyenas. I am not sure how I survived, but the psychologists in our team (it’s HR, so there were a few) said that I had participated in ‘exposure therapy’ and that I should actually thank the balloon deliverers for helping me to overcome my fear. Not only for the balloons, but I do not work there anymore.
So, when I saw this piece of furniture on the fabulous Umbra site recently, I thought that perhaps I should buy it and continue my ‘exposure therapy’ via this cool stool. Designed by young Canadian designer Natalie Kruch, the Balloona stool features over 500 brightly coloured balloons tied onto solid wood. It looks funky and not too intimidating, so I will think about it…(You can check it out here.)
Or there’s this beautiful balloon necklace, made by Nokike in Florence. These balloons look too cute to be scary – and if new jewellery can help conquer my fears, then I reckon this ‘exposure therapy’ might be a good idea after all. (Necklace is here.)
Of course, another option is to move into an inflatable house, like this one. Now, that would be confronting my fears.
Sometimes, you need to write something down, but you don’t have a pen handy. Or you really want to draw a picture to explain what you’re saying, but you don’t have any coloured pencils with you. This post could be for you. Or maybe you like jewellery that is pretty and practical – funk-tional – and you’re looking for a new ring. Or you’ve always wanted to be the artistic equivalent of Edward Scissorhands – Jonathon Pencilhands or Albert Paintbrushhands. Whatever, this post is for you too.
For these, my friends, are Crayon Rings. Such a simple, yet clever, idea by Timothy Liles. For sale on the cool design website Generate, these brightly coloured rings, cast in washable crayon come in a set of 8. That’s right, for less than $50 US, you can add eight new rings to your jewellery box and eight new crayons to your pencil case. And, you know, draw colourful stuff with your accessories.
But what if you accidentally draw in the wrong place? Or colour something that should have been black & white? Fear not, this Eraser+ing by ahead creative will solve your problems. Featuring bright colours and a ‘mild fruity scent’, a set of five costs less than $40 US.
If you’d like to check out these rings, or a whole heap of other kooky stuff, you can find the Generate online store here.
everydaysparks 