NY Gift Fair Finds
Twice a year in NYC is the New York International Gift Fair. It’s when designers/vendors and buyers collide and when decisions are made what home, beauty, and anything else you can pick up in a department store, catalog or gift store will be made. There is literally hundreds of thousands of items, some beautiful, some inventive, some eco-friendly and some outright what-are-they-thinking? worthy. This post is dedicated to the greener and better products I found this week.
Reusable tote bags have become like building a better mousetrap. Sure, everyone has as reusable bag and every store is selling all different types. There are plenty of terrible bags: the ones that barely hold anything or they rip after a few uses or have the giant SAFEWAY SUPERMARKETS logo emblazoned on the side. Not cool. So, the hunt for a pack of reusable tote bags that are sturdy, colorful, lightweight and can hold a whole cart’s worth of food may be over with these Baggu Bags.
All five of them fit into a tiny little bag. Because the nylon bags “memorize” the crease marks, they are very easy to fold right back up into tiny little squares. Each bag can actually hold up to 50 pounds each, meaning you can haul 250 pounds worth of groceries to and from your car to the house. The biggest question is: why on Earth are you buying 250 pounds of groceries?!? That question for another day…
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I’m obsessed with the word hybrid lately. We all know what a hybrid car is, but what about a hybrid….cutting board?
From Bambu (the makers of these eco-friendly—but a tad pricey—disposable bamboo plates and bowls) introduced this hybrid cutting board made from a combination of both cork and bamboo. Bamboo is great for knives because it doesn’t dull them and the cork is great so the board isn’t sliding all over the place when your dicing and chopping. Your fingers will thank you.
Forgive me, but I lost my notes on who designed or sell this, so if you know, please tell me in the comments. It’s a child’s dining set made entirely out of bamboo, complete with cutouts where the little bowl, knife, fork, spoon need to go when not in use. Adorable.
Still photography sucks for this reason: you can’t see what makes these solar powered globes special. They spin. Not quickly like a carnival ride, but very slowly. Almost meditative. Actually, addictive to watch. The company MOVA, who makes them, says it takes any kind of light—solar, from a lamp, just regular ambient light—to activate the floating globe to spin every so slowly on its base. No wires, no batteries, nothing. Just plop it on a table and be mesmerized.
It’s made by a company called FunFam (Japan)
http://www.funfam.jp/
I love the spinning globe idea- what a great gift for a child or child-at-heart!
Some most interesting gift finds, Danny. I was just looking for cutting boards the other day and the bamboo/cork option looks pretty intriguing. Also, a globe that is solar-powered to move on its own is very interesting and very green!
i loooooooove the bags!! and totally agree…why would one be buying 250lbs of food in one go? superbowl maybe??
I love my flip & tumble bags as they are made of ripstop nylon and have a wonderful stretchy stuff sack that is attached inside the bag itself and I can easily refold and stuff back in my small purse. I have seen others that don’t have this stretchy stuff sack and it seems to be a superior design elment in my opinion to others. When I pull them out I get comments on them all the time. I don’t carry a large purse and have two of them in there most of the time. http://www.flipandtumble.com/index.html
Ah! I love my Baggu bags. They seemed a little expensive when I bought them ($36 for 6, if memory serves) but I have never, ever regretted buying them and I’ll happily buy more IF mine ever break. I’ve had them for about two years and they’re still in perfect shape – and trust me, I’ve shoved a lot of heavy and/or pointy things in those bags.
I’ve tried Baggu bags (and EnV bags which fold up similar) and my only complaint is that they fold nice, but there is nothing to keep them folded, so when I stick them into my purse (if I just want to carry one or two), they don’t stay tight and compact and end up getting in the way. I still keep going back to my trusty Envirosax bags because they hold just as much, but roll up tiny and snap shut so they take up even less room in my purse, and always seem to stay shut and out of my way when I’m not using them. I also like that they have patterns, instead of just solid colors, but to each his own (some people prefer solid colors). I have this pattern: http://www.brightandbold.com/enplgr.html, which gives me just enough color but not too much.
They aren’t any cheaper than Baggu bags unfortunately, but like Danny said… much better than the cheapy store bags which scream their logos and usually rip after a few months of use. I say whatever makes people carry reusable bags and stop using goofy plastic disposable ones works for me, so Baggu, Flip & Tumble, Envirosax, tomAto, TomOto… it’s all good : )