Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Blue "Green" Couch

I don't know about you, but one of the things that creeps me out about buying furniture (or rugs) is the idea that they are made with all sorts of crap like formaldehyde and other nasty cancer-causing toxins. Not only are organic and other green versions of products becoming more and more readily available, but they are getting more and more hip and cool. Some great examples of these products are from the company Lee Industries.

I have long admired the couches from Lee Industries. However, until now I was not aware that they were a green product. Dig in.

Amazing Photos










More eye candy. These photos are by Nick Brandt. Just lovely

Friday, November 7, 2008

Know a Bird-Lover?



Personally, I think these would make a great gift for anyone, but then again, I love birds.

You can find these handmade Shorebird Bird Calls at Uncommon Goods, or this sweet little "starter" Audubon bird call (which I hear really attracts birds!) at REI for only about $5.

Some Things from My Childhood.





Weren't so bad after all. :) I am grateful for growing up knowing how to say Marimekko, and what it stood for.

This Finnish clothing and textile manufacturer has been around for a while, and thanks to their bold graphic designs are still going strong.

Ikea only dreams to create stuff like this. This is the real thing, and they have tons of great bright fabrics and products for all parts of the house, including great bedding and pillow covers.

If You Can Afford These for Your Kid...






You are sick. Seriously. Way overpriced, but cool as hell. If I can't afford them, I suppose I feel like sticking them under the noses of others; misery loves company. I know just what Isabel would say if she saw these and was told she couldn't have them: "SHIT!" Seriously though, we do need to clean up that girls language.


I almost forgot... for the richy-riches, you can find them at Rose and Radish.

Hut Up.



Yeah, I am doing a lot of products lately. T'is the season, no?

So, why not post something made out of the new hottest thing: felting - ?

These egg cozys and potato planter by Hut Up are pretty darn cool. After all, aren't gifts supposed to be something way overpriced that you would never buy for yourself? Oh, and cool, too. These are pretty darn cool.

Also found at Rose and Radish. The flowerpot is a mere $67. I think I am seeing a trend here. ::ugh::

Another Cool Etsy Artist.


Some really deserve the coverage. This is a fabulous photo, no?

Done by lifelovepaper at Etsy.

Placemants.


Cool place mats.

Find them here.

For those of you who don't know me well, I have an unhealthy adoration for squirrels. Not the real ones - those are just rats with fluffy tails. I mean the darling, cute, twee graphic ones that don't eat your birseed or run in front of your car as you are already high on adrenaline late for work.

Placemants with squirrels? I can't resist.

I Want My Whole House In Salvor.








Looking at the Fauna pillows by Salvor, I came across these prints - a new product made by the same company. Now I want my whole house done in Salvor Products. I swear. This sucks. They are just too cool. Can't you picture stark white walls, tons of light, and these fabulous prints? I can.

Fauna.






I probably posted about them before. I am still in love.

As I sit and decorate our new Method Home (we both decided I need to get a job and we will buy one) among other things, I am constantly drawn back to the fauna pillows.

Seriously, I want a clean white (green) home, like a studio, with tons of beautiful art and images tossed around. One can dream; More likely, one can endlessly window shop on the Internet and sit and drool for hours.

I want a hundred of these pillows. If I could do my own silk-screening I would, since these things are not cheap. Just drool-worthy.

They can be found, along with tons of other cool things, at Yoyashop.com.

Just Cool.


Reportedly non-Photoshopped. I just thought this was a really cool installation and wanted to share it.

Now I will quit with the StumbleUpon. I mean, I will try to quit.

New, Completely Useless Waste of Time


Thought some of you might like to know about this: StumbleUpon

My husband couldn't believe I hadn't heard of it. Although there is some completely useless stuff there, there is also some fascinating and stunning bits of information and imagery. Check it out. You can just waste hours and hours. All you need to do is click on the button at the upper left of the screen, and click again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.....

Food for Thought


* "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
* "Imagination is more important than knowledge."
* "Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love."
* "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
* "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
* "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
* "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
* "A person starts to live when he can live outside himself."
* "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
* "God is subtle but he is not malicious."
* "Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character."
* "I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."
* "The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility."
* "Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
* "Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
* "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
* "Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds."
* "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."
* "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
* "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
* "The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
* "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education."
* "God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
* "The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
* "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
* "Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding."
* "The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
* "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
* "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school."
* "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
* "Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater."
* "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity."
* "If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."
* "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
* "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
* "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
* "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
* "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
* "The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there's no risk of accident for someone who's dead."
* "Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
* "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
* "No, this trick won't work...How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?"
* "My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind."
* "Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
* "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
* "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
* "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
* "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
* "The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
* "Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."
* "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
* "One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."
* "...one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one's own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought."
* "He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
* "A human being is a part of a whole, called by us _universe_, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
* "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

Greener Than the Jones'


This one wins. And, it gives new meaning to the phrase "out to pasture."

My husband tells me he wants a green funeral. "You mean cremated?"
"No," he says. "That is horrible for the environment. I want a 'real' green funeral."
He proceeds to tell me about this new green trend for funerals, where you are not embalmed, not even put in a box. In fact, apparently, you are put into the ground on government land, which insures that the land remains sacred and untouched.

Actually, I did a little research and found that there are coffin options. (OK, this is getting a little too morbid, even for me.) The prices from a place called Ecopod range from around $100 for a basic cardboard box (probably what I would choose - come on now) to $3,000 plus for a custom-made hand-painted job. These are 100% environmentally friendly.

There is tons of information out there on the Internet, if you dare, but a good place to start is the Green Burial Council or the Centre for Natural Burial. Better to know sooner than later, eh?