Extraordinique

Iconic Style - Teo Jasmin

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:33:16 -0800

I come from a long line of women who are passionate about art and the artist's vision to create something that never existed before - an interpretation of shapes, designs, textures and color. As a child of the 70s, I think pop art is just in my blood. I have saved every album cover I ever owned. I love working in vintage clothing with a modern flare and when it comes to household design - modern classics are what I adore.

So it was totally serendipitous that I was introduced to Teo Jasmin and their latest collection of amazing cushions, armchairs, wall art and more.

Teo Jasmin offers home decor that combines epic pop art classics with the sophistication and fashion legacy of Brigette Bardot in Paris to the taxi and sky line of the Big Apple.

In learning more about Teo Jasmin's collection, the best way to describe their style is through pictures. If you love sass and sophistication, you gotta love Teo Jasmin's Doggy Queen and vibrant flare of London style. These pieces and their accessories are Extraordinique!
Be sure to check out Teo Jasmin's other items, including fashionable stickers for your correspondence too. I know a few who'd love the Doggy Queen collection, especially this one, entitled King Harry!

Web site | Where to Buy

The Green Garmento - Be Fantastic, Use Less Plastic

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:40:37 -0800

Last weekend, I got the bug to tackle the closets with Spring cleaning in mind. In doing so, I was disheartened to see how many wire hangers and dry cleaning plastic wrappers I had lying on the floor. Struggling to figure out what to do with them I researched that most local recycling plants will accept wire hangers, but these darn plastic garment bags are not as easy to recycle.

With that said, I was thinking there had to be a better way to reduce the amount of plastic used for transport from the dry cleaners to our home, 1 block away. I am happy to find today, the Green Garmento, a reusable dry cleaning bag that works like a hamper and a take home garment bag from your dry cleaners.

This versatile and very smart idea, gets right to the point of what I saw laying on the floor. The Green Garmento says, "Be fantastic and use less plastic!"

Take a look and see what you think.

Website | Where to Buy

Baby Bunches Blooming in Spring

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:24:55 -0800

With Spring in the air and babies on the way, I thought these were the cutest Baby Shower gifts ever for the mom-to-be. Baby Bunch makes the cutest clothing "bouquets" made of 100% cotton and organic cotton clothing in in pink, blue or yellow (original) and blush, apricot and cornflower (organic).

Check out their Organic and Baby Pajama Cupcakes too. They're delicious!

Website | Where to Buy

Dell Goes Hybrid

Thu, 19 Feb 2009 07:31:12 -0800

Get a load of these eco-fabulous little numbers. Dell Computers has a line of energy efficient PCs, called Studio Hybrid. Special thanks to FlipGloss for featuring a collection of Haute Eco, a showcase of very innovative eco products and designers. Extraordinique!

Website

Awh, Sukie, Sukie Now

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:08:02 -0800

Extraordinique means featuring people, products and ideas around the world that look at life and creations in innovative and a new light. In today's economy, there's even more opportunities and challenges with brilliant and creative solutions. Borrowing from old to make new, I've recently absolutely fell in love with Sukie Iron-On prints. Making the plain white T into something all your own. For adults or kids, what a better way to make the standard t-shirt into something fun, fresh, retro-hip and new.

Sukie, a british design studio, has an array of fun and unique prints used for stationary, textiles and other handmade items.

Totally fun, totally Extraordinique!

Website | Where to Buy

Original Juan Brings the Heat

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:50:41 -0800

You know when your bottle of hot sauce says, "Pain is Good" you're about to punish, yet tantalize your taste buds. Creating micro-batches, Original Juan, maker of gourmet sauces, dips and spreads, looks to "sizzle the soul of chile-heads and tantalize the tastebuds of the meek and mild; to pursue the finest, most complex, and richest flavors from the outmost extremes of heat to the sweet and mild."

Their label shows the intense flavor and spice you'll enjoy.

Website | Where to Buy

CleanWell

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:14:10 -0800

We love our readers who continue to send us fantastic ideas and recommendations for features on Extraordinique. This week, we received an email that says it all about a company and a product she uses and loves. I wanted to share with you her exact email:

Dear Extraordinique:
I found a little gem that I really like and thought I'd share it with Extraordinique. I was at Target the other day looking for an antibacterial gel for the kids. Though it's something I hate using because I personally think it feels icky, dries out my hands and leaves a yucky residue, it's a necessary evil in my life with kids...especially after playing in a public place. So I found a new little product that I just adore called Clean Well. Its non-alcoholic, has a nice scent and it doesn't leave any yucky residue on your hands, which I worry for the kids as they eat their sandwich, grab their fruit or touch their face. CleanWell is plant based and environment friendly. I don't question as much what my kids are ingesting after they've used it. Plus, I use their spray so it's far more convenient than gels and lasts longer.

Anyway, they sell CleanWell on Amazon as well as Target. I'm totally in love with it. I need to stock one in my car and every bag I own. :)

Being somewhat of an admitted "germaphobe," finding something that fights germs in a responsible way is really important to me. Reading up on Clean Well, I'm touched by their story and impressed with their approach looking to nature to find the remedy. That's Extraordinique!

Website | Where to Buy

Happy Holidays!

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:14:26 -0800

Excitement. Hope. Gratitude.
These are the three sentiments we share at this time for the holidays. We are thrilled to have found so many extraordinary and unique finds this year. We are hopeful in the new year that we will continue to delight you. We are grateful for your visits and the feedback you send us on our favorite finds!

Happy Holidays from all of us @Extraordinique!

Have Some Fun with ABCs, 123 & #@$:*)

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:44:39 -0800

It's often the question of the day for the "chef" of the house - What's for dinner? It's also the familiar quest to do something fun and unique at the next dinner party. Preparing meals during the busy week, having some fun on the weekends entertaining or just having a quiet Sunday to relax is only limited now by your imagination. What if you could freeze, mold, even bake with familiar characters and shapes everyone will be talking about.

Kick Up Your Mimosas Recently celebrating our one year anniversary @Extraordinique, our friend and photographer, Calvina, suggested Tyler Florence's fantastic recipe for Orange Cream Mimosas. What was the most fun was using Sillycone's Symbol Ice Trays to toss in frozen @ symbols for our toast! Cheers!

Try Buckwheat Pancakes with Vanilla & Cinnamon Butter
Enjoying the smell of sizzling bacon and pancakes on the griddle makes for the perfect weekend morning, but how about kicking it up a notch by making your own infused butter cubes. We used Sillycone Letter Trays and made a mixture of vanilla and cinnamon in softened butter. Poured into the molds and wrapped in freezer wrap, not only were we able to take out what we needed, but we have some left over in the freezer to keep for the next pancake splurge. Yum!

Celebrate Colorfully

For a special birthday celebration, I have always wanted to experiment with fondant. The Sillycone trays made shaping the fondant easy and fun to decorate our three layer chocolate decadence cake. Make a wish!

Reverse Your Thinking
Mold to your hearts content, but also think outside the mold. Serendiptously, we found that we could also have some fun with Sillycone's Number Trays and Letter Ice Trays in reverse order. Placing the trays in glass pie tins, we put the trays in shallow water then in the freezer. Pulling the trays out once frozen, we found the perfect imprints of numbers and letters. Add a little food coloring to each letter and voila! - we had a very interesting mold with all sorts of applications to add to your punch bowl or just hours of creative fun for the kids!

What's amazing about Sillycone Trays is that you can literally do anything with them. They are highly flexible and can be used safely from freezing to baking. Sillycone even suggests some other creative ideas like making your own sidewalk chalk, pouring concrete numbers, molding your own soap, candles, and crayons, too. With the holiday season coming up, there are all kinds of applications for homemade fun. They also make for a perfect stocking stuffer under $20. :)

Website | Where to Buy

Special thanks to Calvina Photography who helped tell the story through her photography, exclusively for Extraordinique.

A Cup of Joe Brought to You By Family Farmers

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 15:10:36 -0800

Not too long ago, my nose led me to a very aromatic booth where coffee beans were being canned at our local Farmer's Market. There was a substantial line to find out more and I was intrigued by some shoppers who actually were handing back their coffee tins for more. Once I got to the front of the line, I learned all about Pachamama Cofee Co-Op, a very unique farmers-owned co-op that was incorporated in Davis, California in 2001 and spans from Ethiopia to Peru.

Choosing a French Roast Premium blend to try, the sales team also told me about their "refill" tin program, which reduces the number of tins wasted and encourages customers to bring back the specially designed steel can to preserve freshness.

Pachamama Coffee Co-op is very impressive on so many levels - the family farmers and their stories, the 100% organic farming practices, the unique coffee beans themselves, and their mission to provide customers with premium coffee in the most direct manner possible and, in doing so, improve the lives of small-scale farmers and their families.

This cooperative is democratically-controlled and owned by its members, producer-groups of representing small-scale coffee farmers around the world.

Pachamama's member-owners ship their finest, organic single-origin coffee to the USA from Ethiopia, Guatemala, Peru, Nicaragua and Mexico. Pachamama Coffee Co-op hand-roasts in small batches in California and ship direct to customers.

Extraordinique!
Website | Where to Buy

Come Clean & Vote

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:00:00 -0800

Couldn't pass up the Vote soap for our U.S. readers. "Take a shower with this soap -- it's good for you -- so is your vote -- so do both!"

Website | Where to Buy

Gotta Have Your Wits About Ya - Halloween by Baby Wit

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:05:44 -0800

Baby Wit has a great "get it" factor when it comes to moms who want to dress their kids in everything and anything other than cute, fuzzy teddy bears or "equally uninteresting creatures."

Baby Wit has a great collection of quirky, eclectic, urban-to-suburban chic, including the largest collection of comic infant toddler t's online.

What I loved is their clothing picked to get into the Halloween spirit and thought these skull and cross bones kicks were awesome and this red infinity skulls shift dress was rockin' too!

Baby Wit also carries organic baby gifts and even cool accessories for the other "good boy" in your life, the pup! Woof!

Website | Where to Buy

Capogiro Gelato - 354 Flavors & Counting

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:15:52 -0800

Gelato has to be one of those desserts that makes everyone "melt" year-round. As founders of Capogiro Gelato Artisans, John and Stephanie Reitano understand this. Capogiro offers flavors of the season, which reflect local harvests from nearby farms around the great city of Philadelphia. Capogiro strives to impress with both classic and unique flavors that will have you paying $60.00 for six pints shipped to your door. Today's flavors of the day include:

Ananas Con Menta
Golden Pineapple with Lancaster County Meadow Mint
Fior Di Latte
Milk gelato. Milk from an Amish family's single herd of hormone free, grass fed in Lancaster County. Crazy good.
Quince
Lancaster County Quince Poached in Lemon and Ginger
Rosemary Honey Goat Milk
Lancaster County goat's milk infused with Lansdale rosemary sweetened by New Jersey buckwheat honey

Website | Where to Buy

Fitbit Tracks, Inspires & Motivates You

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:54:58 -0800

Last year, I was using several services to track my physical activity throughout the day for weight loss. I had to enter in my workouts and my caloric intake. Then I added the Nike Plus, which tracked my mileage and the pace of my runs, and then allowed me to upload my workout to my Nike Plus dashboard.

Available early next year, I am really looking forward to utilizing the Fitbit Tracker an advanced monitor to track my activity throughout the day and even the quality of my sleep. Fitbit is the all-in-one fitness and sleep monitor (using motion sensing technology) to help track your level of activity throughout the day...and night. The small bluetooth device fits to your clothing worn throughout the day. The data collected is wirelessy uploaded to your own Fitbit dashboard where you can monitor and measure your progress.

FitBit seems to simplify and aggregate all of the necessary information into one health and wellness dashboard to log food, activities and track weight. The Fitbit device then does all of the rest, showing how many calories burned for the day and other personal stats.

To learn more about Fitbit, read more on the Fitbit launch at this year's TechCrunch50.

Website | Pre-Order

For Dogs & Cats, It's Before Grain

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:02:04 -0800

As a result of the pet food scare and recall earlier this year, we have been on a quest to find pet foods that eliminates much of the elements unnatural to our cat and dog's diet. This summer, we came across Merrick Pet Foods new line of pet food for dogs and cats called B.G. - Before Grain. It is by far the best canned food and kibble we have given our pets. We have seen significant results in their digestion and their coat and nails. We've even seen an improvement in one of our dogs allergic sensitivities, which always seemed to rise after meals.

With two indoor cats now reaching 16 years old and two 90-lb eating machines, B&G is a product we spend a little more money on, but know they are getting the best nutrition, which keeps them healthy and us happy!

Learn more about "New School Pyramid" based upon old school nutrition for your pets.

Website | Where to Buy | Buy Online