Three Ephemeral Gifts

"Sometimes the best gifts aren't made to last. Everyone appreciates a useful consumable gift that won't add more clutter to their lives. This Soap Rock has the beautiful color and shape of a geological specimen without the permanence. Made from all natural ingredients, extracts and minerals the hand hewn soap rock is available in Amethyst, Turquoise, Aquamarine, Aqua Geode, Watermelon Tourmaline and Lapis Lazuli styles for $12 each online from Auto.

The delicate floral design of Joseph Schmidt's Chocolate Bowl may look like fine tableware but it's actually completely consumable. Made from dark chocolate with a hand-painted white chocolate interior, the Chocolate Bowl is great example of Joseph Schmidt's artistic innovations in the medium. Available exclusively from Dean and Deluca for $45.

What better way to say "Peace on Earth" than with this Hand Signal Candle? Also available in other hand signals, such as "rock horns" and a much less polite gesture ("bird"), the candles are $16 Urban Outfitters."

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Detroit's Object Orange Project::Wooster Collective On NPR

"Earlier this week, I participated in a radio segment about Detroit's Object Orange project by giving a short interview to NPR (America's National Public Radio). The segment ran yesterday on the show Day to Day and you can listen to it here

As you will hear (and are likely to expect), we're huge fans of the Object Orange project and expect to see artists and activists doing similar interventions in other cities around the world.

GOOD Magazine recently did a short documentary on Object Orange as well. You can watch it below..." - Marc (Wooster Collective)

"In our first issue we profiled a group of artists in Detroit who started painting dilapidated buildings "Tiggerific Orange" to bring attention to urban decay. We love these guys! Read more at www.goodmagazine.com. Video directed by Bristol Baughan, Shot by Jeff Becker and music by Tom Van Buskirk and Ian Walsh courtesy of PigFactory USA." - GOOD Magazine... (more)

Three Gifts To Help Organize Gadgets

"LaCie's new Huby USB and FireWire Hub hooks up your computer with plenty of ports for your cup warmer, ultrasound and Availabot, chargers, drives, cameras, music players and other gear, and keeps them all at arm's length on the 8 flexible arms. It also comes with a fan to keep you (and your gear) cool. Designed by Ora-Ito (aka Ita Morabito), it adds a bit of style to the clutter.

The Multipot (below left) is a light that doubles as a storage bin for all of your chargers. The cables that connect to your devices fit neatly through a cut out in the top of the pot, keeping all of the clutter hidden away, with just a single cord to plug into the wall. Designed by Dante Donegani and Giovanni Lauda for Rotaliana, the Multipot helps solve the problem of where to put—and charge—all of your devices. Available for $179 in multiple colors from Design Within Reach—the silver version has the added bonus of reflecting back it's surroundings making it "invisible." Visit the Multipot site for more details and vendors outside of the U.S.

Harry (above right) keeps your gear organized by gently grabbing it with its flexible coated wire hooks. Mount it next to your door and you'll never forget your kit on the way out. Available for $30 from Formila."

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Cotton to Canvas::Oddica

"Last night was gallery hopping night, and landed at ThinkSpace in SilverLake for most of the night hanging out with Olga Nunes + Sarah Coleman (of FABULIST fame! You know you read it, its too fab not to) ~ for Oddica's big two day show "Cotton to Canvas" ~ brilliant concept, see if you can follow this logic - Oddica has artists create limited edition shirts, then gives the shirts to OTHER oddica artists to design traditional pieces inspired by the shirts - and who knows maybe some of these new pieces will make it full circle and become shirts too! MANY pictures of my favorites below~ and some randoms to give you a feel for the ambiance."

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Wooden Food Toys

"German toymakers Haba and Erzi offer the most extensive collections of wooden kitchen play toys. From great basic sets like the gift basket by Haba which includes an assortment of fruits and vegetables, bread, dairy and chocolate ($19 from Moolka) to more obscure items like Sugar Cubes ($6), Noodles ($4) and Canned Pineapple Rings ($28), Haba's intricate details are irresistible. The Cheese Roll Cutting set from Erzi ($15) is a child-sized cutting board, knife, cheese and roll with halves that velcro together to make that satisfying real-life sound when "cut."

American toy makers Melissa and Doug also make a variety of wooden kitchen play toys. I love the generic commercial innocence of the packaging design on this Deluxe Wooden Play Food Set (pictured below left ) available for $20 at Amazon. For children with more international tastes, the Wooden Sushi Set ($20 from Genius Jones) is a wooden bento box comes complete with chopsticks, wasabi, ginger and soy sauce."

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Santa’s Ghetto With A Bit Of Banksy

"Banksy has a art exhibition, Santa’s Ghetto, going on in London this month featuring a whole load of other artists such Jamie Hewlett, Eine, Space Invaders and others. The exhibition is being called a squat art concept store and it is at 15 Oxford Street, London (Next to Tottenham Court Road Tube Station) and is going on until 23rd December. I should be going down this week so i will being a full show report soon. In the mean time you will just have to admire the Jacko piece above created by Banksy."

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Waris Tears Pins

"Jewelry designer and sometime actor Waris teamed up with French label A.P.C to create these Waris Tear Pins. Part of a new line he designed for the brand inspired by "love and heartbreak" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird," the all-silver pins make understated accessories and are an unconventional gift. They come two to a set for $77 from A.P.C.'s site."

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CO2 Eating Hummer Concept Won!

"In his remarks accepting the top award, Frank Saucedo, director of GM Advanced Design Studio in California, said, “We thought Hummer was the perfect brand to tackle this design challenge.” His studio threw out the idea of creating a vehicle that would be “less bad” for the environment, instead presenting a “blue sky” scheme in which the car would be a boon to the environment. “We developed a car that would give back — this is a ‘net gain’ vehicle,” Saucedo said of the concept. "
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Pet Hypothesis Jewelry

"Handmade from repurposed billboard vinyl, the debut line of Pet Hypothesis jewelry follows in the tradition of Freitag and other creative re-users by reinventing industrial materials as accessories. Designer Chelsa Robinson (also formerly ReadyMade's product manager) layers sterling silver chains over bits of colored vinyl that she sews with contrasting thread. We chose to feature Geopanic for its confetti-like abstraction of CMYK colors with red stitching, but you can see all her designs here. All pairs cost $75 and, true to the cause, $5 from every sale goes to the environmental organization, Conservation International."

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