misosouper, a shopping blog

Want to be a hero?  Hang this wooden leaf swing from your kid’s ceiling.

Misosouper is home from vacation with a bucketful of shells and good ideas, one of which is to devote an entire week to objects made of or paying homage to the most humble, sculptural, and earthy of materials–wood.

Exhibit one:  this white glazed tree stump with floating acorn.  Ghostly, but way too pure to be creepy.

Slackers, take heed:  these custom-made map cufflinks won’t be ready for two weeks, but if you tell your favorite father that his wrists will sport the exact locations of your childhood summer vacations/the cities where you conceived your kids (we’re talking about different daddies here, obviously), he’ll probably forgive you for being a bit late on your gift.

Aren’t these just gorgeous?  Read the original post over at TheFind.

Heath Ceramics is one of the few artisan ceramic brands that is still in production today. It is founded on the California indoor outdoor lifestyle trend which began to emerge in the 1950s. My mother was and still is an avid reader of “Sunset” magazine and our dinner table was set with Heath ceramics every evening of my childhood. I was grateful to inherit settings for twelve of the Coupe line. As I continue to add to my collection I was thrilled to hear of the current exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California Art. The exhibition, “Edith Heath: Tabletop Modernist” runs thru September 20, 2009. The show presents the life and vision of Edith Heath and her inspiration on California design through pottery.

In 2003 Heath Ceramics was purchased by Robin Petravic and Catherine Bailey. The husband and wife team have a background in industrial design and have revitalized the original designs founded by Edith Heath by adding fresh new color palettes and designs. In addition the Chez Panisse line is the result of the recent collaboration with Dosa designer Christina Kim and Alice Waters created especially for the famed Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, California. I choose for the new Chez Panisse line for my wedding registry (since one can never have too many Heath dishes!) and I love the beautiful milky color of the glaze and the organic lines of the pieces, makes me feel like I’m dining in Chez Panisse at every meal. To continue our family’s tradition with Heath, I’ve given my daughter a set of the children’s plates. She loves the colorful crimson plate and blue cup and will surely be thrilled when I hand down my set of Heath dinnerware to her in about twenty or so years from now.

Thanks to now-ubiquitous navigation systems, you can have a creepy lady-voice direct you to the nearest Starbucks with a few flicks of a button.

But what about those poor people who can’t even nav their way to their parking spot at the mall, or shudder at the idea of making their way to a stadium bathroom, then back to their seat?

Hold your pee no longer:  this Bushnell GPS BackTrack Personal Navigator will be your compass.  Just mark your current and desired locations on the handheld device, and the BackTrack will give you directions and distance from where you are to where you need to be.  No more frantic phone calls from the toilet, or riding with Paul Blart Mall Cop until your find your car.