Designer by day in Columbus, Ohio. This is my place to hoard ideas that I wish I had thought of first. I have a dog named Beck. We both love cheese.
Feast or famine seems to be the story of my life when it comes to blogging. I’m either all here or have completely phantomed (as my friend Erin would say). My apologies. I’ll try and do better.
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Last month my girlfriends and I took a trip to Chicago for my birthday and while we were in Lincoln Park we stopped in a shop called Lush. I had never heard of it before but the smell alone lured me through their doors. Once we got to browsing all the fantastic products, I was hooked. Now, a month later, I am obsessed and want to buy the entire store. Luckily, we have a smaller version inside Macy’s here in Columbus.
Lush Cosmetics (which I don’t understand that name because they don’t sell make-up but I digress) specializes in natural handmade products for the bod. Here are their core beliefs:
We believe in making effective products from fresh, organic* fruit and vegetables, the finest essential oils and safe synthetics.
We invent our own products and fragrances. We make them fresh by hand using little or no preservative or packaging, using only vegetarian ingredients, and tell you when they were made.
We believe in buying ingredients only from companies that do not commission tests on animals and in testing our products on humans.
We believe in happy people making happy soap, putting our faces on our products and making our mums proud.
We believe in long candlelit baths, sharing showers, massage, filling the world with perfume and in the right to make mistakes, lose everything and start again.
We believe our products are good value, that we should make a profit and that the customer is always right.
* We also believe words like fresh and organic have honest meaning beyond marketing.
Besides Lush’s commitment to providing natural, environmentally-friendly products, I love how they market themselves and merchandise their products. It’s reminiscent of a delicatessen with their takeout container packaging and handwritten (on chalkboard) descriptions. The names and descriptions for everything are so unique and entertaining.
Lush's bar soaps are sold deli style! They slice them up and price them by the 1/4 pound. I recommend the Alkmaar.
Products are out in the open to smell, feel and try out.
Here are my favorite products that I’ve either purchased or have received samples (they are very generous in that they will give you a sample of anything you ask). I highly recommend:
Cynthia Sylvia Stout Shampoo: my favorite purchase by far
So many bath bombs to try! This one is called Waving Not Drowning. It was lovely for a right-before-bedtime bath.
Ocean Salt facial cleanser. This one I just received a sample of, but I'll probably go back and buy it. Baby soft skin.
Dream Cream (indeed) hand and body lotion
Another of my favorites that isn’t available online (because they need to be kept refrigerated) are Lush’s face masks. I tried the Ayesha but I plan on going through the entire gammot. Oh, and one more awesome thing: their recycling program. If you bring back five empty tubs to any Lush store, they’ll give you a free face mask. I love this place.
I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth, promise. I’ve just been busy trying to finish up a bunch of projects before I start a steady contracting gig. Thanks for checking in. More soon.
Beck finds my busy-ness unacceptable.
My mailbox was a bit light today with its only contents being a coupon mailer and this envelope.
I turned it over and got excited because I immediately knew what it was, since February is just around the corner.
I grabbed my camera to document the out of the box experience cuz I figured it’d be something great. And it was.
Seriously, who thinks of this stuff? It’s my 15% off birthday month coupon from Anthropologie; but instead of a cheeseball postcard, this is what they do.
I thought it was just a regular candle atop that hole-punch cupcake but then I turned it over and saw this.
It’s a candle necklace!?!?! How cute is that? Sigh…..
This is almost too cute to take apart. But I do want my 15% off so I guess I’ll sacrifice. This is just what I needed today.
Five Faves are back and on the new blog (hence, jumping to Volume 27). If you want to see where these originated, you can go here. But I digress.
1.18.10
1. I love the colors and style of this Oxl handmade shawl from Icelandic Market (via Decor8). I’m pretty sure I’d wear this everyday in the winter months if it were mine.
2. I was furniture shopping today with my friend Bes and we went to Arhaus to browse around. I hadn’t been in one of their stores in quite some time. I enjoy their style, but the prices are bonkers. I saw this light bulb tripod table lamp and was smitten (this picture does not do it justice). Alas, it is out of my price range. Sigh….
3. Thanks to Dottie Angel for posting this amazing Christmas tree from ATLITW (All the Luck in the World). She took a bunch of her small collections and attached them directly to the wall to form her 2008 tree. Genius! I need to hold onto this for next year….hmmmm.
4. Anthropologie foil-wrapped heels. Swoon. Yes please!
5. I saw Byrd & Belle’s laptop sleeve in last month’s issue of ReadyMade magazine. I could use something like this to protect my ‘puter which is jostled about in my messenger bag (while I am looking for the perfect laptop carrier – I swear it doesn’t exist). My favorite part about this is the homage to the leather elbow patch.
For Christmas, I followed one of Design Sponge’s guest blogger’s tutorial for this party flower pin and gifted them to my closest girlfriends and female relatives. They were a hit! I highly recommend trying it as it’s super easy and ends with a very satisfying result.
Here are four of the 10 (or so) I made. All of the fabric is from Sew to Speak in Clintonville.
Now I just need to make one for myself! Small detail.
Making magnets out of bottle caps is nothing new by any means but thought I’d share my little project from last night anyway. I don’t usually like the look of most bottle caps enough to put them on my fridge, but the tops of Sanpelligrino’s Limonata are the exception. I love the simple red star on the yellow background so when I was home over Christmas and my mom stocked up on the beverage, I saved the caps. I also held onto a few of the little glass bottles because I liked their texture and shape. I figured they’d make cute bud vases so I soaked off the labels and removed the ’sell by date’ stamp with nail polish remover.
My self-portrait compliments of my niece Olivia 
A big thanks to my friend Nand for telling me about Sundance Channel’s new series Man Shops Globe. Apparently I’m a little late to the party (per usual) since it premiered last October, but I watched an episode today and am hooked. The half-hour show follows Anthropologie buyer Keith Johnson all over the world as he looks for one-of-a-kind items to inspire the designers of Anthro.
What a dream job! I’ve only seen his trip to England so far but in 30 minutes time, they cover a lot of ground and pack in so many amazing items. I can’t imagine the pressure though to pick just the right objects to appeal to the Anthropologie customer.
One of my favorite parts of the episode was when Keith and crew visited textile artist Becky Oldfield (pictured above) of Lost and Found. Her specialty is creating new items from old and she produced some amazing Union Jack flag quilts. The one that Keith ended up keeping for himself is the one I’d want too:
Check out the show if you’d enjoy seeing behind the scenes of a company that always seems so top secret and usually has me scratching my head thinking “How did they think of that?!”
{Top three images from Sundance Channel; bottom photo from Elle Decor}
I am dying to try this project from Molly over at The Purl Bee. What an amazing idea! So simple yet such an elegant result. You could really have a lot of fun with bright colors here. Felt Flower Pillows!
I have decided to take part in Christina Likes’ version of Project 365 where you take one original photo per day for a full year. Since I’m just starting today, I’m really doing my own Project 360 (sorry, I’m a little late to the party). I like her version because there are assigned themes for each month. January is The Places We Go. Here is my first entry, my front doorknob.
I would love to be participating in this project with a kickass camera; but my little point and shoot will have to do for now.
Check out the group here. And here’s a link to my set if you want to watch my progress. Here we go!
Since the gifts have now been gifted, I can finally share the finished products. I decided my oldest three nieces were in desperate need of some updated (bigger) aprons since they were outgrowing the old ones I made them years ago. I had so much fun picking out the fabrics and stitching these together. Well, minus some minor (okay, major) frustrations involving double-fold bias tape. All fabrics compliments of Sew to Speak in Clintonville. That store is dangerous for me. Paradise.
Alexander Henry's Natura | Canyon Flutter
Alexander Henry's In the Kitchen | Bird Seed
Alexander Henry's Red Holland Tulips
{I used Simplicty’s 2492.}
Since I recently made my littlest niece her own apron, I made her this little dress out of Kokka’s darling Snow White print.
I am absolutely in love with this fabric. It’s so timeless and pays tribute to the Disney classic without it looking too “Disney-fied”. {This one is Simplicity’s 2711.}
I also gave them all gift certificates for a “Craft Day with Aunt Carrie” in 2010. Gotta start brainstorming for that one. Have any fun ideas?
I SUPPORT
