At the start of a New Year, one naturally thinks about organizing. (At least I do!)
BeInspire features pretty linen pillow covers along with a lovely collection of natural linen storage baskets that will help corral all your clutter in 2013.
Here are a few favorite selections:
Natural Linen “Love” Pillow Pair – $38
Natural Linen Storage Baskets – $18 each
Colorful Linen Storage Baskets – $14 each
(To receive a weekly email with the Etsy Boutique of the Week, join my mailing list here.)
Wine Country Craftsman designs and creates all kinds of art from recycled and salvaged items but specializes in tables and furniture made from the 60-100 year old retired grape vines of California’s wine country.
Mostly found in high-end wineries, galleries, and catalogs, there are also quite a few goodies available on Etsy.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Recycled Wine Barrel Bookcase – $500
Limited Edition Recycled Grapevine Coffee Table – $1600
Recycled Wine Barrel Ring Wall Art – $100
Set of 12 Recycled Wine Barrel Candle or Flower Holders – $250
(To receive a weekly email with the Etsy Boutique of the Week, join my mailing list here.)
I never get tired of the weather here in southern California. Friday sported blue skies, a light breeze and comfortable temperatures. So I decided to tear the coverings off the outdoor furniture and do some work outdoors.
As I settled onto the chaise lounge and fired up my laptop, I thought how incredibly lucky I am to be able to work from home. And the irony was not lost on me that as I sat alone by myself — just little ol’ me, myself and I — I was about to get very, very social.
Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Email. It was time for me to engage with the online world.
And just as I was preparing to send out a tweet, I suddenly noticed…tweets.
Lots of tweets.
Real ones.
First, a little coo.
Then a chirp.
Then a tweet, tweet.
Even though I’m smack dab in the middle of Hollywood, I was surrounded by bird calls, including the unmistakable cawing of my neighbor’s parrot.
I realized I could read tweets and send tweets in some social media cyberspace or I could actually LISTEN to tweets in the here and now.
So I closed my laptop, closed my eyes and meditated for a spell, tuning in to the social conversation of the feathered friends who share my neighborhood.
As we become more and more dependent on technology, it’s easy for us to become more and more distant from nature. And that’s a very dangerous thing for our planet.
When we humans forget that we’re part of a natural world that exists independent of 3G or WiFi, it’s that much easier to break a hometown watering ban, buy another gas-guzzling SUV, leave electronics plugged in during two-week vacations and support fracking and drilling even if they destroy important eco-systems.
So what about you? Are you paying more attention to tweets on Twitter than the tweets in your own backyard?
If so, grab today’s vintage Gucci bird scarf and do a little bird-watching and bird-listening of your own.
It’s a fine way to engage with nature for a Vintage Crusader.
Available at Farfetch.
(To receive the VPOD via email along with detailed size, price and purchase information, sign up for my growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)
I’m lovin’ this fab little handmade sign of recycled and reclaimed materials proclaiming a rallying cry for the world:
REDUCE, RE-USE, RE-PURPOSE, RECYCLE
And who doesn’t need to be reminded sometimes that less can be more, that quality beats quantity, and that new doesn’t necessarily trump old.
It’s a fine mantra for a Vintage Crusader!
Available at Sundance.
This is it. In just a few short weeks children from across the country will wave goodbye to their summer vacations and head back to school.
Do you remember trying to squeeze every last drop of summer fun out of those last few days of August when you were a kid?
I sure do!
My sister and I would tear through the front door in the morning and, except for a short lunch break, we’d be gone, gone, GONE the entire day.
Bike riding, skateboarding, tennis, exploring the woods near our house, running around in massive neighborhood-wide Kick-the-Can marathons.
And when I got tired of all that activity, I’d grab a book and a blanket and claim a shady spot where I could escape to anywhere in the world.
So you can imagine my dismay to learn that, according to the Bureau of Land Management, children today are only spending 30 minutes of unsupervised time outdoors PER WEEK!
In fact, the average American child can identify 1,000 corporate logos but cannot identify a mere 10 plants or animals native to their region.
I can just see Mother Nature with a tear running down her cheek at this news, much like Iron Eyes Cody in Keep America Beautiful’s famous “Crying Indian” pollution campaign of the 1970s.
How can we possibly expect our children to take up stewardship of the planet if the only water they see comes from a faucet, if they can’t identify vegetables grown in a neighbor’s garden, if their most recent interaction with wildlife was through a TV screen and if their idea of the ocean includes a ridiculous sponge wearing pants?
But before pointing fingers of blame at the media or the video game industry for our youth’s horrifying lack of inactivity, let’s remember pointing two fingers in that direction still leaves a few fingers pointing back at you and me.
When was the last time you felt grass or sand squishing between your toes?
Did you enjoy your lunch in a park or did you immerse yourself in the hustle and bustle of a busy fast-food restaurant every day this week?
Did you jog or walk around your neighborhood or did you instead do two miles on a treadmill while watching your favorite sitcom?
Certainly with our crazy-busy lives it’s easy to become disconnected from our natural environments. But this disconnection is dangerous because it makes it easy to forget that we humans have a direct impact on that environment.
Clean air, clean water, natural resources, other species…we need them all to continue to survive on this planet.
So if you have kids, muster up your parental backbone and unplug the electronics for these remaining days of summer. Heck, unplug YOURSELF this weekend and see if you don’t face Monday morning feeling more calm and centered after soaking in some sunshine and taking out your earbuds so you can hear the birds.
After all, if you can look at a handbag and identify the LV logo as belonging to Louis Vuitton then you should be able to look at the gorgeous print on this vintage 1970s Trigere blouse and skirt set and recognize the plants as tulips.
Remember: Honoring and enjoying nature is a vital element to becoming a Vintage Crusader!
Available at Shrimpton Couture.
(To receive the VPOD free via email with detailed size and price information, sign up for the growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)
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