Soapy Love

Very Cute.  A product from Debbie Chialtas’ glycerin soap design company, Soapy Love.  She got started in glycerin soap design while pregnant with her son and soon after opened a store on Etsy.  Each product is hand crafted in San Diego and is a great idea for a hostess gift or event favour. 

soapy love via lovely room

Emoi Life

store window via btting

store interior via btting

I love product design.  In my past life I must have been a designer.  I take such pleasure in a product’s design, colour, texture and integration of form and function. 

When I was travelling in Hong Kong, around the corner from my hotel in Causewaybay was a store called Emoi Life.  It caught my eye because of its resemblance to the Japanese home/lifestyle store, Muji.  Clean, minimalist aesthetic, Emoi Life products are affordable and fun.  Walking through the store invoked thoughts of if Club Monaco (emoi life uses a lot of black, white and grey), Umbra and Muji got together to produce products, Emoi is what they would look like. It turns out the Emoi Life is a brand from China and they have locations in Shenzhen, Beijing and Hong Kong.  Expand across the Pacific Ocean!  I like your stuff.  They have a blog here if you can read Chinese.

product via btting

A New Domino Replacement

I think more pain was felt in the US than in Canada when Domino magazine closed its doors (thankfully we have House and Home magazine which is a solid alternative!) but a new alternative is here.  I was reading about it on the Ruby PR blog today and after browsing through the pages online, I am happy to report it looks promising.  Check it out here.

via the state of things

via ohellologan

Pillows

via plastolux

These pillows styled by Sweden based, Mikael Beckman made me smile this morning!  More pictures from Mikael here.

Eat Drink and Be Married Print

via orangebeautiful

I love this print from a seller, Orange Beautiful on Etsy.   The pink table with the flowers just pop!

Stamping Bella

Day two of green bachelorette inspiration and product hunt lead me to Stamping Bella in Thornhill.

One of the components of the party is a scrapbook (I hope the bride does not read my blog!) and a friend of mine recommended I check out this three year old business and going concern in the scrap booking world beside my favourite natural health food store, Ambrosia located on Doncaster Avenue.  It is funny how you can go to a place so often yet not notice something.  I shop quite often at Ambrosia and when my friend was recommending the visit to Stamping Bella, I could not place where the store was located, especially when she said it is right next door to Ambrosia in the same plaza.  I could not believe my eyes when I pulled up in my car to find the Stamping Bella sign staring me square in the face.  I had never looked for scrap booking products beside the health food store so my eyes did not register that it was there.  Interesting how visible a business really is to a potential consumer if they are not reminded they need you.  I digress.

Back to my review:  Stamping Bella is owned by Emily from Montreal and she has a collection of scrap booking products and accessories that anyone would go crazy for.  The store also does parties or if you feel like dropping in to nurture your inner scrapbooker, that is okay too.   The colours, the assortment of products, the things you think you don’t need but realize you do; are all there merchandised from floor to ceiling of the small retail shop.  I picked up some cool paper for the creative exercise at the party this week and a heart shaped paper punch. 

Emily and her assistant Deena are both very knowledgeable about paper, design and scrap booking and are a pleasure to speak to.  Emily also maintains a blog which is very “forward thinking” for a small Toronto business.  While the rest of the world has jumped on the web 2.0 train, I still meet people all time who have yet to embrace social media as a means to enhance their brand and business experience be it product oriented or service based and I don’t know what they are thinking.  Good job Emily!