A Little Dice of Fun...

This is as cool as Michel Gondry's legos video for The White Stripes.
Lovely song by Fujiya & Miyagi.

via MILK

My Love Hate with Rain

I've been super happy with Seattle for the last 4 days because of the amazing sunny weather we've been getting over Christmas. But of course that didn't last very long. So it's back to reality with the rainy cloudy weather.
But despite my negative attitude towards the rain, I've been loving these adorable rain print series by La Casita De Wendy!
What a way to turn something so horrible (like the rain) into something so delightful!

I did a brief interview on the talented duo (Inés Aguilar & Iván Martínez) of La Casita De Wendy awhile back. You can read the post, here!

Mega-Doily making some blog tours

Besides our recent exciting mentions on D*S of our Mega-Doily rug and on Apartment Therapy, they've also been making its way around the blog-o-sphere on all sorts of blogs...oh! what a great world that is....

Just when I was starting to feel a little too depressed in this cold and rainy city....there's a beam of sunshine coming out of my computer screen with little blog people smiling and waving at me.... :D
Okay, maybe that's a little creepy...

In any case, thank you all my blog friends and confidant!!

found us on fffound!
The Coveted (of all things stylish)
Petite Pomme (lovely lifestyle blog)Crochet Today (On the Crochet Today Magazine's blog)

Making Chicken Salad (adorable vintage inspired blog)Sodapop Design (a German blog!)
and few others...
Crochet Spot
Chicpea Studio
CaseyBaudin
Erin Everafter
Loverswin
Urban Flea

So Far and Yet So Close...

Not sure about you, but I'm always a little behind on knowing what's new and awesome in Seattle...and for the fact that I don't hang out in Downtown Seattle nearly enough, I was REALLY behind in discovering this AMAZING shop/gallery called {far4}....a total hidden gem!

We first came across the shop when Jamie of Iacoli & McAllister mentioned it to us when she invited them to one of our JOIN shows. With the luck of such great exposure at the show, Jenny Klimenkoff who runs the store contacted us wanting to carry some of our Chalk figures! (there's our Mr. Rabbit in the window!)
We were incredibly honored and excited to be in their shop, since they boast an amazing collection of the highest quality handmade housewares, art, antiques, and designs from all around the world. While it seems like a shop from NY, they're actually located in downtown Seattle with an open space and beautifully exposed brick wall that houses {far4}'s shop and gallery showcasing carefully curated selection of ceramic ware and art. (lucky us!)

With an unexpected mixture of objects of both great elegance and humor, I find myself mesmerized by every detail of every single item while feeling unsure if I should even be allowed to handle them!

Here's Jenny & Yelena behind the platter of hard-to-resist French Macarons from local Seattle bakery, Honore.A fabulous porcelain sculptures of a life-size monkey that reminds us a little bit of Jeff Koon's Monkey!
Check out these realistic looking pea pods and flowers with paper thin petals from Klimenkoff Studio!! Holy
wow.....Ceramic doll heads on top of Iacoli&McAllister's Pedestals. Love the arrangements together!
The patterns on the cups are made using only colors of the clay by Yusuke Aida....just incredible.

L&G on Apartment Therapy!

Our Mega-Doily rug got yet another nice write up by Seattle's AT contributor, Anne Reagan.
Anne gave a well-summarized post about L&G studio and the rug. On top of that she even provided a little wonderful history about doilies! What a great way to expand our knowledge on a daily biases, wouldn't you agree?

It's been great to see all the positive responses about my Mega-Doily rug. Thank you everyone! But with that said, there's still people with their oh-so-wonderful-but-not-so-positive comments.... I still thank them for taking the time to share their opinions....for my own amusement. Chuckle chuckle...oh they things they say...I friggin' LOVE it! :D

L&G on Seattle Metropolitan

We're still raising the roof since yesterday's mention on D*S. (we slept with our hands up...boy was that hard!)
Jenny of {far 4} kindly shared our mention on Seattle Metropolitan blog with a flattering write up by Laura Cassidy about Chalk series!! Woot woot!

Thanks Jenny for sharing this! Thanks Laura for the kind post!

Au RIGHT!

Our friend Joelle King recently launched her new line of jewelry, Au Fait. Her new collection, BOOM, is inspired by vintage radios, remote controls, speakers and cables. They're versatile, sleek, and handsome modern pieces that can be adorn by both men and women. With such well-designed and refined proportions, we almost wish that they're actual radios that we can put on our credenza!I'm in love with the Cable Necklace where the ends are filled with yellow resin.
They're available here, and she's offering free shipping till January 1st!

L&G Chalk Series on D*S!

L&G finally made an official release of our Chalk-It-To-Me figures last week! The fact that we got our act together is already pretty darn exciting. BUT, we're even MORE excited to be on Design Sponge's post some amazing paper work! AWESOME!
We're dancing around like we're raising the roof right now. Now.....that's REALLY exciting!!

Another Heart for El Perro

El Perro Del Mar came out with a new album 'Love Is Not Pop'. I know..this is probably really old news for some people....just been out of the loop...well,REALLY out of the loop. I'm devastated for missing her performance with Pete Bjorn....I hate myself.
But here's a video of her new song "Change of Heart"
It's not some muscle man contest....they do some amazing mind-blowing acrobatic stuff...just insane.

Chikabird + Piano Nobile Line Debut this Weekend at UCU!

If anyone is around this weekend in Seattle, please come by and say hello and check out our exciting new line of notebooks and cardcases with Piano Nobile at the BIG holiday Urban Craft Uprising show!

December 5th & 6th, 2009
11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. both days
Seattle Center Exhibition Hall
Admission: FREE!

Isabelle and Nickolas of Piano Nobile runs a multi-faceted design studio where they could be described as professional designers and colalborators. Isabelle has a painting and printing background with a great sense of material, color, and texture. Nickolas on the other hand has an architecture background with mad building skills in all realms whether it be funiture, design build or a large scale printing table. I'm pretty sure he can build a pyramid.... I remember reading that in his resume somewhere....

Not only do they have the perfect print studio with their self-designed and welded textile printing set up, they're also just a short bike ride away from our studio in Ballard! It's almost too good to be true!
(and yes, convenience does matter...)

Did I mention that they have a dog named Bauhaus, and also owns a sweet vintage Vanagon and Volvo?
Can you stand it?!....I can barely keep my composure thinking about all their awesomeness.

So here it is! Our collaboration line with PN! Okay, so come to UCU to see all the goods in person! You can also go to our shop to check out the entire PN collaboration line.

Henrybuilt....Perhaps the BEST?

Remember back in October when we voted for Henrybuilt and Viola Park for the 2009 Interior Design magazine's Best of Year Awards?

Well, guess what?! Both Henrybuilt and Viola Park are one of the 3 nominee under two separate categories!! This is SUPER exciting...actually BEYOND exciting!
So, today is a big day for Dylan, since he has left (don't worry, he's not leaving me forever...I hope not) and is on the way to the Big Apple to attend tonight's Best of Year 2009 award ceremony at the Guggenheim!!
So let's all keep our fingers crossed and hope that Dylan will bring home both awards!
Man! It sure it's hard to type with my fingers crossed....It's all worth it.....fingers....getting cramped...

Chalk It WHAT?!

LG is excited to finally present you our "Chalk It To Me" figurine series!
Remember when we first debut these at the Ctrl+Alt+Design show back in June? Well, it turns out that they were a hit, and we've started selling these babies in awesome stores like {Far4}, and Fancy in Seattle!
But don't fret if you don't live in Seattle, because now they're available for sale on our website! Feel free to raise your hands and go "Woo Hoo!"
These are our first production run of cute ceramic animal pals with a chalkboard coating. Ready to be adorned by their adopted parents (aka. you!). The line up includes a piggy bank, a horse, and an over-sized rabbit. Each is handsomely finished with satin black chalkboard coating accompanied by our chalk kit with a felt rag and a pair sharpened chalk sticks.We'll be adding all sorts of figurines as we go, so check back frequently to our website and see what's available!

Muji + Lego=Ultimate Fun!

Dear Muji,

Why have you gone and achieved awesomeness yet again? Give the rest of us a chance will ya'?

Seriously though guys...just when I thought legos were about sold-out (star wars, sponge bob, Indiana Jones, etc) you, Muji had to come right along and inject some of that playful simplicity you so soaringly distribute to everything you touch.

The result: a simple set of legos made spectacularly and invariably more interesting via a few sheets of colored paper, a hole punch, and a few basic suggestions. You've managed to remind me exactly why legos were a childhood favorite of mine...it wasn't the razzle-dazzle space ships as much as the endless possibilities of our imaginations.

Oh, but you have failed in one respect where you have also failed in the past: making it easy for an Americans like us to get our hands on your best products. While this product doesn't appear to be available on the US Muji site, it looks to be available on the Japanese one. Why do they torture us like that?!

These brilliant little wonders will be released in Nov 27th in Japan. Would it be crazy if I got a ticket to Japan just to get theses? .......NAH!

via Design Boom