Gifts for Valentine's Day

Still looking for the perfect gift for your sweetie this year? If you're in the neighborhood this weekend, we've got you covered.

Megan Dempsey from Letter Paper Flower will be in the Shoppe from 12-3 this Saturday and Sunday selling beautiful (and affordable!) Valentine bouquets, so come by and pick one up!





We've also got some great merchandise in the shoppe for loved ones, including:

Sweetheart Patch Kits from Chikabird

Tactile Poetry from Leafcutter Designs

"Yours 'Til Niagara Falls" postcards from Brooklyn Rehab

We're back!

Happy New Year, friends! I didn't realize how long it's been since our last post here at smartsandcrafts until I sat down at the computer this morning. December is always a bit nuts for us at the shoppe, and we hightailed it out of town as quickly as we could on the 24th for our annual week away from all things work-related. Headed up to our favorite cabin on the Russian River again for 7 days of relaxation, hanging out by the fire, watching movies, taking walks among the redwoods, and visits with family. We have lots of exciting projects planned for 2010, and we're looking forward to a great year!

Lauren's Wishlist

All right, folks- one week and counting until Xmas day....
I was inspired by Derek's list of favorite items in the shoppe to put together one of my own- and here it is!
1. Crayon Rings by Timothy Liles
2. Chartreuse Tea Pot by Russel Wright
3. One Inch Necklace by Nous Savons
4. Yours 'Til Niagara Falls Postcard by Brooklyn Rehab
5. Stuffed Log Kit by My Imaginary Boyfriend
6. Wishbone Card by Threefold Collective
7. A Field Guide to Weeds by Kim Beck
8. Cats Let Nothing Darken Their Roar 2010 Calendar, by Noa Bembibre
9. Wooden Magnifying Glass by Singgish Kartono
10. "Brick" Rest Pillow by Linnea Blomgren

A Few of Derek's Favorite Things...

It's true that it's my job (and pleasure) to shop for the Curiosity Shoppe. But that doesn't mean I really get to shop in the Shoppe. So this Holiday Season I thought it would be fun to do a little shopping in my own Shoppe. Here's a handful of items I want to take home with me at the end of every day (clockwise from top left, sorta...):

1. Birdie Light by Kiel Mead. Kiel is a very talented young designer working in Brooklyn. He's got a wonderful aesthetic, and hits all the right notes for me: funny, functional, beautiful. (And I just realized he has 2 items on my list! Go Kiel!!)

2. Eye Clock. This is one of those things we sell here that if you get it, you really get it. If you don't, you don't. I love this clock. It's magically expressive and makes me happy. (For those of you asking yourself, "How is that thing a clock??", the one in the photo above reads 10:20. Get it?!))

3. Comb USB. I've been looking for a reason to carry a comb around in my back pocket since 1987. This is the excuse I've been dreaming of. Looks totally badass and holds 2 Gigs of data. And it keeps my hair in check.

4. Jason Polan Curiosity Shoppe Holiday Sampler. One of the biggest thrills of owning a business is collaborating with people you admire. I'm a huge fan of Jason Polan's work. He's an amazing artist, and an all around cool dude. He's always got a million projects going, so I'm especially thankful that he took the time, energy, and effort to make something super special for us this Holiday Season.

5. Handmade Baseball. Not many people know this about me, but I used to be a total "sport". Spent the first 14 years of my life with a baseball in my hand. But you don't need to be athletic, or even like sports to appreciate this gorgeous object. The lemon peel design is based on ye-olde baseballs, but the stitching gives these beauties a real contemporary edge.

6. Rope Money Clip. Hey, it's that Kiel Mead character again! I think money clips are classy. And I love rope. So there you go.

7. Wrench Bottle Opener. Looks like a cast iron wrench, feels like a cast iron wrench, opens bottles in a snap.

8. Letterpress Coasters. I love these super fun "Put It There Pal"coasters designed by the talented Matt Singer. The shape, the colors, the sentiment...right up my alley.

9. The Thing Issue #7. The Thing is a quarterly art subscription started by two amazing local artists Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan. We are 1 of 3 stores in the world lucky enough to carry Issue #7 which consists of a pair of glasses related to a new book by one of our favorite novelists, Jonathan Lethem, and designed by Selima (of Selima Optique) and Matt Singer (Oh wait, that makes 2 people who are on my list twice! Go Matt!!). The frames are super stylish (you can have your own prescription put in them) and the concept is great and fun and totally intriguing.

10. Poem Cup and Saucer (with pen and notebook). My morning ritual consists of coffee drinking and list making. This was made for me. And it looks great.

Mission Holiday Block Party!!

We are so very thankful to have a shop in such a wonderful, vibrant, and unique neighborhood. Much of what makes the Mission District of San Francisco great has to do with our fantastically creative and hardworking neighbors. We are very excited to be participating again in this year's Mission Holiday Block Party. Please come down this Friday, December 11th and visit each and every one of the friendly, independently owned businesses in the neighborhood participating in this festive and fun event. From 5 to 10pm we'll be offering 10% off everything in the Shoppe, as well as free drinks and snacks. We've got tons of great new stuff arriving every day, so now is the perfect time to come say hello and pick up a little somethin'somethin' for all your friends and family. See you Friday!!!

Wooden Gift Tags by Miss Natalie

The holiday season is in full force, and we are hard at work packing and shipping orders, making sure we have lots of fun items in stock, and helping customers pick out the perfect gift items for their loved ones this year. You all know by now that one of our very favorite things is working with artists to create exclusive items for the shoppe, and we are so excited that our friend Miss Natalie created these special, limited-edition wooden gift tag sets for us this year.
Natalie created a set of 4 hand painted, wooden gift tags that can be used to adorn your presents, and then be kept as Christmas Tree ornaments for years to come. There are only 36 sets available and they're going fast, so get yours while you can! (Click here to purchase.)

Stencil 101 Workshop this Thursday

Ed Roth knows a thing or two about decorating with stencils. His how-to books, Stencil 101 and the new Stencil 101 Décor, are favorites of ours at the shoppe, and not only include awesome project ideas and instructions, but tons of plastic stencils that are ready to use. And we're not talking grape leaves and teddy bears here- Ed's designs include muscle cars, birds, and houndstooth prints. Actual patterns that we'd be happy to decorate our walls and furniture with.

Lucky for us, he will be stopping by the shoppe this Thursday. December 10th, from 7-9 pm to host a Stencil 101 Holiday Card Making Workshop. It's free to the public- no reservation required. Just stop by after work for a glass of wine and a little craftin' with Ed. It's guaranteed to be a blast.

Holiday Windows!

Last week, our friend Kate Pruitt (a regular contributor of incredible DIY projects to design*sponge) came by with a car full of amazing props to deck our our windows for the holidays.

She whipped up this cozy, miniature bear den, complete with a chair, gift pile, pendant lamp, and (best of all) framed Wayne White and Curiosity Shoppe Small Stakes prints.

These ingenious paper trees were a breeze to make, using fringed paper, wooden dowels, and our trusty hot glue gun.

Bear paws by Derek, and wallpaper background by Lena Corwin!

Here's Kate, among her forest of paper trees.

Apple Place Settings

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year, and used apples as our place settings.

Come On Down!!!!

Hey Bay Area Buddies:
Please join us this Saturday, February 7th, from 2 to 7pm, for an exciting day of special events and Shoppe-wide discounts! As part of We Heart the Mission we will be hosting 2, count 'em, 2 wonderful Valentine's Day-appropriate special guests in the store.

Our regular micro-correspondent Lea Redmond, of the World's Smallest Postal Service will be on hand to help you create the most unforgettable, teeny-tiny Valentines for the big love(s) in your life, (or anti-Valentines, she doesn't judge)...

AND the lovely ladies behind PodPost will also be at your service to help you whip up great-looking letters as well. To spread even more love, we're knocking 10% off everything in the Shoppe (except Thomas Wold's incredible artwork, because that's already crazy affordable). So please come on down, have some snacks, sip a little something and get in the Valentine's Day spirit with us!

We Made a Movie!

For today's DIY Wednesday post over at Design*Sponge, we decided to whip up a little movie. It was delicious fun to make. Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Thanksgiving? Yes, Happy Thanksgiving.

I hope you are all having a nice, relaxing holiday weekend! We haven't had a day off since who knows when, so we promised ourselves one full day of sleeping in and staying in our pajamas watching movies. Well, our plans were foiled when we were woken up by a phone call from our alarm company at 6 am...

It turns out we had an attempted robbery at the Shoppe yesterday morning. Grrrrrrr!!! Someone smashed in our transom window but didn't make it into the store before the alarm went off, which is something to be thankful for indeed. After the police and friendly CSI: San Francisco dude had left, we patched up the window with cardboard and ventured out to pick up a Thanksgiving feast-to-go at Pete's BBQ around the corner. Then it was back home, and back into our pjs for our much-needed movie marathon. Phew!

Special Delivery

Imagine my surprise when I came home yesterday to find a box of flowers propped up against the door to my apartment! Turns out they were from lovely Todd, who sent me one of his very own creations from the Todd Oldham flowers from FTD collection. If you haven't already seen it, you should check it out- there are loads of designs to choose from, and most of them come interesting and reusable containers, like colanders, teapots and cheese graters. Definitely something to keep in mind as Mother's Day approaches. Below are some of my other favorite bouquets:

Speaking of Todd, he asked me to pinch-hit for him in this month's issue of ReadyMade while he was off filming the final episodes of Top Design, and here is the project I came up with. It's a garden caddy with pockets all the way around to hold your gardening tools, while the bucket is used to hold flowers and clippings. Mine is currently filled with sewing supplies and fabric, and it works great for that as well. Also, sewn onto the caddy is a "Buzz Off" patch, one of my favorite items from the shoppe. (That's me in the background of the shot, wearing a shirt that Todd designed. It's all interconnected somehow...)

That time of year. Finally!!!

With Thanksgiving almost a week behind us, I think it's safe to start busting out the holiday music around here. Which is exciting because I'm a big fan of holiday music, though isn't it funny how offensive it sounds in, say, June? And that's a shame because one of my all-time favorite albums is a holiday album and I'd love to be able to listen to it year round. But I just can't. It doesn't feel right. The album I'm talking about is (of course!) "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio.
If you haven't heard it...Ha! what am I saying, of course you've heard it. Well, if you don't OWN it, please stop reading and get on over to iTunes and buy it. Every single song on it is fantastically good: O Tannenbaum, Christmas Time Is Here (both instrumental AND vocal!), My Little Drum, and of course everyone's favorite classic Linus & Lucy, oh, and Skating!! Can't forget Skating. Unbelievable!! If I was more tech savvy, or less lazy I would have clickable streaming mp3 jobbies here for all these songs. Sorry. Maybe L's mom can hook me up. She has mad blog skills.
Anyway, the good news/actual point of this post is that Vince Guaraldi was more than just the guy who most perfectly scored the television specials of one of the greatest comics in our nations history. He also put out a bunch of other really great albums that AREN'T icons of any particular holiday (that I'm aware of) and thus may be listened to any day of the year (except December 25th). So while you're out there picking up "A Charlie Brown Christmas" also check out some of his other albums which are also very excellent and deserving of our attention. Including "Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus" inspired by the 1959 French/Poruguese film Black Orpheus.

Also check out the official Vince Guaraldi website.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

-Lauren & Derek

Burn, Baby, Burn!!!!

In addition to the other fun crafts we indulged in at our Dia De Los Muertos/Halloween party last weekend (see post below), we also made a Flaming-Eyed Ghost Cake. We got the recipe and inspiration from our favorite new book "I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence" by the lovely Amy Sedaris. Check out the video (Thanks Josh!). The cake was a real crowd-pleaser, and oh-so-delicious! And the book is beyond great. Next up for us: "Jerri's Hot Fruit". Sounds scrumptuous!!! (No recipe for Glint, unfortunately....)

Sugar Skulls, Phase 2

Thanks to everyone who came to our Dia de Los Muertos party last weekend! Here are some of the beautifully decorated sugar skulls. We were so impressed with everyone's handiwork with the icing and sequins! In addition to these sugary crafts, we also made tissue paper marigolds and ghosts, carved jack o' lanterns, and ate a ton of great food prepared by our good friends and co-party coordinators Doug & Carrie. (Special prize goes to Carrie for keeping her cool after cutting her finger on a can of pumpkin and making it back to the party on time after getting it all doctored up.)

For those of you in SF, don't miss out on the Day of the Dead procession, taking place this evening in the Mission. More info @ www.dayofthedeadsf.org.

Happy Halloween!

I posted this photo especially for John, who requested "more kid pictures!" Here I am at age 3, obviously quite proud of my trick-or-treating bonanza and about to devour this entire mountain of candy.

Sugar Skulls, Phase 1

We're planning a Day of the Dead/Halloween party with our friends Doug & Carrie for this weekend, and of course there are going to be crafts galore, including sugar skull decorating! So far we've made 13 of them, and look how cool they are! I'm excited to see how they look once everyone has decorated them with sequins and icing, but I have to say I kind of like the way they look pre-decoration too. Spooky and sweet, our favorite combo. We hope to see all of you Bay Area Guild members there on Sunday!

Boo!

Fall is here and Halloween is around the corner- for us this means carving jack-o-lanterns, eating a ton of candy and putting out our ghost salt & pepper shakers by Marcel Dzama. Oh, and hanging fake spiderwebs in the windows. And cutting bat shapes out of paper to hang all around the house.

But let's talk about Marcel Dzama for a minute! A couple years ago his art was everywhere- on the cover of Beck's last album, in a children's book by They Might Be Giants, and on products for Cerealart (including our beloved salt and pepper shakers).

Spend some time at the Royal Art Lodge website to explore more of his drawings, and those by his talented friends (many of the drawings are collaborations, and those are amazing as well) and if you have a chance, peruse one of his books, which are goldmines filled with all kinds of examples of his classic yet somewhat twisted drawings and paintings.