Wantist: Give Amazing Gifts

Posts by Brittany

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Support them, love them, hang them on your wall

Society6

Gallery quality prints from your favorite artists now at Society6

Bare white walls. They make me sad. Beautiful, inspiring artwork makes me extremely happy!

For that reason we’re very excited about Society6’s new shop. Photography, illustrations, paintings, and collages from artists all over the world are right there at your fingertips and offered at incredible prices.

Since we can’t always afford the originals, this is the next best thing for beating bare-wall syndrome and directly supporting the artists you like. While they’re not the first to make great artwork accessible and affordable (20×200, we love you too), their approach is different and we’re certainly enjoying perusing the artwork on their lovely site.

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You deserve a little mi time

Mi Spa Bath Products

Simple, natural and indulgent mi Spa body products

Fewer ingredients, more information

We’re paying more attention—to what the products we use are made of, and what we put into and onto our bodies. You might say it’s because we care—about our planet, ourselves, our families—and we do. But it’s also because we can. More information is being made available to us because we’re asking questions and taking the time to be considerate shoppers.

When it comes to beauty products, natural choices can be extremely effective and refreshingly simple. And while not all synthetics are bad, for you or the environment, mi Spa’s not-so-secret ingredient is especially good.

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You can get a t-shirt anywhere, but a mystery shirt?

Hipstery T-Shirts

Savor the suspense with a tee from Hipstery

Love for Hipstery is love for novel experiences and we say, bravo! They’re selling t-shirts of their choosing to mystery-starved chaps like us, and we and our brethren are digging it.

Their assumption? That we could all use a little more uncertainty in our lives. That our technological surroundings have afforded us instant answers and very few unknowns—great for fact-checking, but short on surprise.

“We’ve forgotten how to enjoy the unknown, and we’re not better for it,” they say, and this instant-gratification fiend can attest to such truths.

Anticipation is good isn’t it? The waiting, the wondering, the yearning, the burning!—there’s whole damn songs about anticipation. I think they’re on to something.

“Give up control to the hands of fate and once again enjoy the suspense,” they also say, and here’s how they provide such fun while selling you a t-shirt:

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Beautifully responsible

Branch for Blog Action Day

Branch’s purpose-driven collection of delightful products

We’ve chosen to celebrate one of our favorite eco-retailers today. If you’re unfamiliar with Blog Action Day, it’s a one day global collaboration to bring attention to an important issue. This year the topic is climate change. If you’d like to participate, there’s still plenty of time. Almost 10,000 blogs have gotten involved already. For a quick resource on climate change, we recommend 350.org, it’s a great place to start.

So why an eco-retailer and how does that apply to climate change? In a nutshell, because all kinds of activities contribute to increased greenhouse gases in the air, and one of those is the production of many of the products in our lives. Any retailer that makes it easier for us to buy consciously manufactured goods deserves recognition.

In our effort to highlight all kinds of better, and fortunately with a growing pool of wonderful manufacturers and retailers to choose from, we decided on Branch. They’re an online boutique of gifts and housewares with a welcome overlap of beautiful style and responsible design.

We saw a lot of ourselves in their description of why they do what they do and wanted to share it with you.

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They make the world around you

Objectified Movie Poster

Objectified documentary now available everywhere

Most everything we touch was conceived by another human being. That person’s intuition, research and imagination about how you will use your potato peeler, MacBook or alarm clock directly impacts you.

What an awesome responsibility. And what an often overlooked relationship we have with other people.

Objectified is a documentary about such relationships—those we have with the “manufactured objects around us, and by extension, the people who design them.”

If you enjoy reveling in the world of industrial design, or simply love gorgeous manufacturing porn (how could you not, raised on this: Crayons!), Objectified will make you swoon.

If to you there’s nothing like a wonderful documentary that celebrates creativity, makes you think, and speaks casually with the world’s most influential designers in a style that only Gary Hustwit (also director of Helvetica) can do, then you will love the film.

And if you’ve ever relished a great purchase or looked longingly at something while window shopping, you should watch Objectified.

We were fortunate enough to catch Objectified when it was screened in Portland back in June.

More about our thoughts on the film after the jump.

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Release your inner treasure-hunting adventurer

Uncharted

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a must-have experience for the PlayStation 3

The contender most likely to win Game of the Year is (finally!) out today.

Gorgeously lush environments, believable characters you emotionally resonate with and a perfectly paced story that holds true to the end—if you played Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune as much as I did, you know that Naughty Dog can deliver on all three in spades. This is one of the few single-player games where a crowd will gather and stay put to watch. It’s honestly that engaging.

Whether you dig the story, the tech or the badass cinematography, you’ve gotta see the trailer for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Check out what we have to look forward to:

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Ten cozy scarves for Fall (Pt. 2, the guys)

Cozy Scarves Part 2

It’s the perfect accessory. Scarves add color, shape, texture, and interest—right there next to your beautiful face.

With a swish, a wrap or a knot you can dress up a tee, embellish a jacket and complete an outfit in a matter of seconds.

And when the breeze starts to bite and the days grow shorter, nothing is quite as cozy as bundling up in your favorite scarf.

We’ve pulled together an eclectic collection of fall styles for men and women. And it’s not just the look and feel we love about these scarves. In many cases there are some wonderful people whose creativity and hard work went in to these pieces, making them that much more covetable.

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Ten cozy scarves for Fall (Pt. 1, the ladies)

Cozy Scarves Part 2

It’s the perfect accessory. Scarves add color, shape, texture, and interest—right there next to your beautiful face.

With a swish, a wrap or a knot you can dress up a tee, embellish a jacket and complete an outfit in a matter of seconds.

And when the breeze starts to bite and the days grow shorter, nothing is quite as cozy as bundling up in your favorite scarf.

We’ve pulled together an eclectic collection of fall styles for men and women. And it’s not just the look and feel we love about these scarves. In many cases there are some wonderful people whose creativity and hard work went in to these pieces, making them that much more covetable.

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Hear your music with all new ears

SRS iWow


SRS iWOW plugin for iTunes improves audio by leaps and bounds

More music than ever is available at your fingertips; between all those MP3s you stumbled across back in Napster’s heyday and the present-day instant gratification of the iTunes Music Store/Amazon’s MP3 store (not to mention streaming radio), you’ve got days and days of music at your disposal.

Lost in this world of abundance and accessibility is fidelity. I’m not talking about the age-old debate of bit-rate encoding and vinyl vs CD vs MP3—just the sound coming out of your off-the-shelf Mac’s speakers regardless of its original format. Want to improve what you hear like magic? SRS iWOW is the trick up your sleeve.

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Understated style between your palm and forearm

VOID Watches

VOID Watches and Cufflinks by David Ericsson

Some days you need to be loud. Other days though, your style is a bit more subtle—modern, with a healthy dose of reserved and powerful. VOID Watches and accessories are made for those days.

An independent brand launched last year by Swedish designer David Ericsson, the line is influenced by the simple elegance of Scandinavian design and the smooth materials of modern architecture.

Updated this summer, the VO1EL has a larger backlight display than its previous incarnation. Made of half glass, half brushed stainless steel, the LCD is set into the frame for a smooth finish. The lines are clean, the shape contemporary and the band a traditional leather—a nice juxtaposition. Five colorways are available including a new copper face, though as you can see, we’re smitten with the black.

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Enthrall your little painter, pupil and performer

P'Kolino Easel

It goes without saying that kids grow and change quickly. And while they’re busy laughing and learning, their parents’ homes become a quick pit stop for all kinds of toys and other products that are loved one moment and out-grown the next. Nature of the (cute little) beast.

Then it makes perfect sense (in your head and your bank account) to do your best to choose products that are multi-purpose and engaging. So goes the philosophy of one of our favorite brands of children’s toys and furnishings, P’kolino.

Founded by two dads in 2004, P’kolino’s products are designed to be fun for kids, have an aesthetic value parents appreciate, functionally support a child’s developmental needs, and enjoy a long life in your home by having multiple uses.

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It’s pie season. How does your dough do under pressure?

JosephJoseph Rolling Pin

Joseph Joseph Adjustable Rolling Pin helps you ensure even thickness

Admittedly, we’re not the best bakers. Well, I take that back—Jacob makes a mean pound cake and I’ve been known to do a very tasty molasses cookie, but when it comes to dough of the kneading and flattening variety, our attempts have been disastrous. Dough everywhere but in the pie pan.

That said, we know a clever idea when we see one and Joseph Joseph’s Adjustable Rolling Pin is precisely that. It’s wildly simple, and isn’t simplicity usually at the heart of great design?

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