I am trying all kinds of tricks to get our 3.5year old Ella excited about brushing her teeth. The latest thing is to turn off the light in the bathroom and brush her teeth in the dark with a flashlight. Oh, the things we do as parents. I think this Oral Hygiene Model would help her understand better HOW we need to brush teeth. I might just have to order one…
Bloom my Buddy is a vase that had me laugh out loud. Not really practical but highly entertaining: This unique vase is made up of three separate parts, each with their own reservoir, and perforated all over so that you can dress it in any way you like. It could be a girl, a boy, or maybe even a strange alien creature.
I bought this LEGO CD Boombox for little Ella yesterday. I hope she is going to be as excited about it as I am. Way cool for a kids room, no?
Gift Idea from the Archives:
Some of Andrew Zuckermann’s Creature Book Photographs have been turned into large-format floor Puzzles. I officially have a new favorite gift for little ones! Creature Floor Puzzles.
(via minordetails)
I am being asked a lot what my alltime favorite kids toy is and my answer is always: Magna-Tiles. We have two sets and play with it *every single day*. And yes, when I say ‘we’, I mean ‘we’. G and I often times start building our own structures after Ella’s gone to bed. Just last week my brother-in-law was visiting and he built completely new structures that we hadn’t thought of yet. (Of course, he’s an architect by trade!)
Yes, they are on the expensive side but are worth EVERY single penny. We have played with our sets for over 1.5 year now and are still not tired of it.
If you need a gift for a little one, Magna-Tiles is the way to go. Trust me.
Lovely Jane Mount asked me if I’d like to put together my and Ella’s favorite kid’s books for one of her Ideal Bookshelf Drawings. How could I say no to that? The print just went up for sale on 20×200. Check it out.
Jane’s statement from the 20×200 site:
For a while, I’ve been documenting people’s bookshelves as a form of portraiture; you can actually learn a lot about folks by their books’ covers. Now, I’m working on a series of “ideal” bookshelves: sets of favorites—mine or someone else’s—amalgamated in a picture, even if they don’t usually live on shelves anywhere near each other.
This set is Tina Roth Eisenberg’s favorite kid’s books. Tina is more often known as swissmiss, due to the popularity of her excellent blog and design studio. Tina documents all things well-designed and clever, and many things that “made her smile”, including lots of children’s products, since she is the mother of one and expecting another. As a longtime fan of her blog, I know she loves kid’s books as much as I do, so I asked her to pull her favorites from the shelves of her daughter Ella Joy.
The Books from left to right:
Papa Moll
You Can’t Go To School Naked!
Barbapapa
Dr. Seuss’s ABC (I Can Read It All By Myself Beginner Books)
Puzzlehead
A Fish Out of Water
Max und Moritz
Johnny Boo Book 1: The Best Little Ghost In The World
Flight of the Dodo
The Incredible Book-Eating Boy
Auf dem Lande.
The Big Book for Little Hands
365 Penguins
Giant Play and Learn Book (Activity)
This Is New York (This is . . .)
The Graphic Alphabet
The Way Back Home
Zen Shorts
Chowder
Follow the Line
Pippi Longstocking
Mr. Pine’s Purple House
Yummy Yucky
The Going-To-Bed Book
Good Night, Gorilla
The ten primary cloud formations illustrated and explained in one simple and easy to understand diagram. I heart clouds. Screen-printed on 100lb natural stock paper (20″ x 26″) with glow in the dark ink, so you can continue to study and learn long after the sun goes down. Perfect for any kid’s room!
(thank you mark)
Now that we’ve watched When I am 64 about a hundred times on YouTube, I think it’s time I purchase the Yellow Submarine DVD. Ella and I are equally amazed by the psychedelic graphics in this DVD. For those of you not familiar with this awesome animation, Yellow Submarine is a 1968 animated feature film based on the music of The Beatles.
And I thought this was an interesting fact from Wikipedia:
The animation of Yellow Submarine has sometimes falsely been attributed to the famous psychedelic pop art artist of the era, Peter Max; but the film’s art director was Heinz Edelmann. Edelmann, along with his contemporary Milton Glaser, pioneered the psychedelic style for which Max would later become famous, but according to Edelmann and producer Al Brodax, as quoted in the book Inside the Yellow Submarine by Hieronimus and Cortner, Max had nothing to do with the production of Yellow Submarine.
I’ve posted about David Weik’s an apple a day letterpress poster last year, and just learned that he came out with a new one, this time in a lovely dark brown.
Here’s how it works: Just peel the little variety sticker from every apple you eat and affix it to a square. Keep it interesting. Try a Belle De Boskoop, a Newtown Pippin, how about a Peasgood Nonsuch, or maybe a Turley Winesap. There’s no shortage of combinations and imagine how good you’ll feel, when, after a years time, you’ve filled each square with a colorful little sticker.
An Apple A Day Poster. Makes a perfect gift. Holiday season anyone?
I have just discovered and fallen in love with this awesome barded man by Matilde Beldroega.
(Loja de Estar is a portuguese online shop that gathers objects from a variety of Portuguese designers. “Loja de Estar” is the result of combining “living room” with “store” so it stands for something close to “living store”. Cute!)
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. What about a plush chicken/turkey?
(thanks jon)
Here’s a Children’s Book I meant to write about for a few weeks now and I was just remembered of it while perusing StickersAndStuff.
Big Rabbit’s Bad Mood is illustrated by Delphine Durand and written by Ramona Badescu. This Big Rabbit is putting a huge smile on my face!
This will make it under our Christmas Tree. I must order now.
How awesome is this Stripy Hoodie currently on sale at Oeuf?
(image by joan braun)
How crazy cool are these Eternal Helium Balloons? (Love the cloud!)
They are entirely made of fabric and there is in fact no helium in them. They are stuffed with kapok, and feel like a soft pillow. A tiny flap fixed at the top allows mounting it to your ceiling. It is key to hang them up as high as possible, in order to recreate the magic illusion of a real flying helium balloon! The most beautiful effect is obtained in setting a bunch of balloons together, forming a “balloon bouquet”. All these pieces are delicately handmade in my own workshop in Paris, in limited edition.
Check out more projects by Clementine Henrion over on her site.
(thank you christophe)
Can anyone tell me who this is from? Saw it over on PrintSociety. Designed by Beauchamping, view his etsy store here.
(By the way, PrintSociety’s Size Chart made me laugh)
These Motif Cubes strike a perfect balance of being a kids toy yet being so stylish you want to keep it out in your living room at all times. Perfect gift for the designy parent (and kiddo).
(via designmilk)
Lego Architecture Series Empire State Building. Is that a perfect Holiday Gift for a little one or Architecture/Lego obsessed grown-up? Yes!
Two swissmiss thumbs up for these stuffed felt letters.
How much would a little one love one of these fox-shaped scarfs? Mini Foks in Ginger
The Foks is a fox-shaped scarf, designed by Celapiu and made entirely by hand in their studio. Lovely!
I so need to get this Speaker Onesie for (the still unborn) swissmister.
(thank you for the sweet shout-out on twitter, heavy rotation!)
Monty the Fox, would you like to come and live at casa swissmiss? We’ll take good care of you.
But, does it come in *my* size?
