Gift Guide: Nature Lovers

1. Fresh Balsam Scented Candle 2/$20 bathandbodyworks.com; 2. Bonsai tree  $14, urbanoutfitters.com; 3. Teak Measuring Spoons $20, merchant4.com; 4. Make Your Place: Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills by Raleigh Briggs, $6, etsy.com; 5. Organic Coil wooden bracelet, $160, gustavreyes.com; 6.10x Magnification Binoculars $29.95 brookstone.com; 7. Blue and White Ceramic Flower Pots by Fallen Fruits, 19.99 euros, gorgeousgifts.co.uk; 8. Paper making mold $35, arnoldgrummer.com; 9. Bubble Wall Mount Fish Tank, $19.44, amazon.com; 10. Kiss My Face biodegradable Peace Soaps, $9.99, target.com; 11. Seeded wrap boxes (will bloom if planted!) $1.84  flowerseedpaper.com

Some gift ideas for those green thumbed people in our lives who live day by day marveling their surroundings. Whether they are awe-stricken every time they step foot outside or they are environmentally conscious or they simply stuff their closets with the colors of the earth (or all of the above), it is very likely that they will enjoy these gifts. Almost everything is under $50 (except for the bracelet) which is a plus, too. I have a smaller one-wick version of the Fresh Balsam scented BBW candle -- it is my favorite of all of their winter/nature smelling candles. For small enough gifts, I think the seed paper is a great (and easy) way to wrap them. You can hide any lack of gift wrapping skills while being Earth friendly at the same time. Binoculars may seem random, but they are good for bird watching and nature walks and all those outdoorsy things. I'm not sure if the fish tank is considered nature loving or nature abuse...but I asked my cousin who is an Environmental Studies major what she thought about it and she gave it a positive reaction, so hopefully it's nature loving.

-doe

Holiday Wish List

The Little silly things that make me happy... 

1. Yes To Carrots Pampering Conditioner 

greendaddyshop.wordpress.com

2. Bitch Magazine

bitchmagazine.org

3. Donna Marie Curling Cream

britishcurlies.co.uk

4. Prisma Markers

artistcraftsman.com

5. Bust Magazine

bustboobtique.com

6. Mac Lipstick in Freckletone

musingsofamuse.com

7. Tagged Bouquet Journal

anthropology.com

8. Handmade Papers

flowerseedpaper.com

9. Kinky Curly Knot Today

amazon.com

10. Nars Blush in Exhibit A

narscosmetics.com

-doe

The SHEI Launch

SHEI Magazine held it's launch party event yesterday to promote the latest magazine. I hadn't seen any of the shoots until then so it was a surprise to see what the photo and layout team put together. This year the theme was "The Art Issue." I'm on the literature team for SHEI, so I knew about the theme already, I just hadn't seen what the other teams did with it. My pink article was in it, called "The Girl Color" - yay.

I feel like the theme seemed a little more morbid than simply "art" though, when considering the photo shoots. Especially the plastic surgery photo shoot. Lots of masked faces and kind of bloody imagery. I think maybe each art movement could have been it's own photo shoot or maybe instead of art movements they could have done art mediums...I guess the point was not to have the whole magazine be obviously about art. But, fashion and writing and photo and layout/graphic design are all already forms of art so I feel like if you're going to have a compilation of art labelled as an art issue maybe it does have to be extra obvious. But, maybe not. Either way, art issue or not, it still turned out great and there was a huge turn out at the event.

It took place at the art gallery on State St. The setting was perfect because of the display set up at the time.  It was a ton of work from U of M art students. All really neat stuff, extra vibrant and colorful and concepts way left field.

Here's what one of the shoots looked like. I think it may have been my favorite shoot. It was called paper dolls:

It was hard to get good photos of a lot of the works because of the massive crowd of people but here are some display pieces I liked:

Fun times!

-doe