It’s time to replace your boring dust-collecting wall clock with something a little more unique. Add an eye-catching piece to your home decor, by switching out your traditional clock for a retro recycled vinyl record. Sacramento based shop, Re-Spin It, provides just that. David Enos and Daniel Woodson, started the company with the goal of creating great products with as little waste as possible.
David and Daniel are advocates for taking something old and revamping it by recycling! According to the company, digital music is taking over leaving no more use for physical album covers or vinyl. Re-Spin It not only features recycled clock vinyl, but also features re-purposed album cover notebooks. For the clocks, the company uses vinyl that has been declared unplayable yet, still has the label in great condition. The vinyl is then combined with old scrap materials to prevent it from taking up space in landfill.
Clocks are usually 12” in diameter and are mounted onto a stainless steel background. If you don’t see any products of your favorite artists or bands listed on the shop site, simply email them your request. We are definitely going to take advantage of these amazing collectibles that are all made in the USA.
We have been following this line for a while now and they have such a great story. Alabama Chanin is a product line started by Natalie Chanin, which makes limited-edition handcrafted products by using new, organic and recycled materials. They are committed to something called the cottage industry, which means they employ locals that live in and around Florence, Alabama – a community that struggles with unemployment. We admire Natalie’s commitment to helping the community and of course her design aesthetic. You can clearly see the time and work put into the details. Watch Etsy’s video on this amazing success story.
We recently came across this fabulous shop on Etsy called Retro Whale by Los Angeles-based artist, Kelly Puissegur. Kelly creates gorgeous paintings and sketches of everything we love: music, animals, song lyrics, movies and oddities. Her goal is to make affordable art that people can appreciate or relate to in some way. In a recent interview in Antler Magazine, she explains that she named herself Retro Whale because she loves everything 70’s and 80’s and she loves the ocean. We love her quotes, we love her process and we love her art. Here are a couple of our favorite pieces.
Did you know that handmade soap can slow down the aging process of your skin? Handmade in New Orleans, Sweet Olive Soap Works’ specialty soap will do wonders to your skin. Each scent is nutrient rich and made with organic grown herbs, fruits, vegetables and flowers. Sweet Olive Soap Works has amazing names and compositions, including a beer soap! One of our favorite names is “Bon Temps Poulet.” Bonus points because New Orleans is one of our favorite cities to visit, with such a rich heritage of arts and music. And we love True Blood. Find Sweet Olive Soap Works online on Etsy.
We recently met the couple behind Pollen Arts, a small business that creates beeswax candles molded in the shape of antique bottles. The pair literally stumbled upon the idea when they found an old bottle laying in a tidepool by the beach. They devised a way to take a mold of the bottle, and then filled it with melted beeswax. The results were stunning: a sweet smelling candle that serves as a hip-meets-antique decor object. They quickly experimented with milk bottles, apothecary bottles, inkwells, and even some of their own designs. As the candles burn down, the markings and designs on the bottle glow from within. Its no wonder their Etsy page has been a big hit.
The bottles demand a bit of a premium for a reason, they are still all handmade on the stove of a rehabbed winnebago in Long Beach, and the couple uses only 100% pure beeswax – no soy or paraffin wax blends here. As an added bonus, the beeswax is sustainable and helps support the disappearing bee colonies that farmers in states like California depend on to pollinate fruit and crops. We’re told they have plans to expand the concept to other antique objects soon – but we’ll have to wait and see exactly what that means.
Succulents are probably familiar to the Southern California dweller, but you may not have heard of them if you live in a rainy area. These typically desert dwelling plants store water in their leaves and roots, which gives them a trademark fuller, fleshier look known as “succulence”. They come in every size, from tiny little plants that can fit on a cocktail ring to giant agave plants and towering cacti. While all cacti are part of the succulent family, there is a huge variety of non-spiny succulents that are not considered cacti (seriously, there are so many).
While the different varieties come from the drier climates as far as Africa, South America, Asia and in the United States, they have become identifiable with the Southern California region because of their popularity as garden and home accents and their water saving properties. Some of our favorite varieties include string of buttons, zebra plants, black roses, flapjacks, and different types of echeveria. We love how easy they are to care for. They are drought resistant and hard to over-water. Most varieties do well both indoors and outdoors. You can also mix and match them in the same container, and fit them almost anywhere you need to – in a flower pot, on a wall, in a garden, or inside a terrarium. We even take them on the road to spruce up the the trade show booth, because they can handle being left in a car or getting bumped around a bit.
Succulents also create a lot of visual interest, because they take on so many shapes, textures and colors: concentric circles, spirals, columns and random forms of green and purple and red. Most recently, our resident stylist spotted an ideal location for the Spring lookbook shoot in a local LA backyard. Once we saw the pictures below, we were sold!
