Cheers

Best wishes for this holiday season.

Picking Up

On my way to The Mac Store at 5th Ave to pick up my laptop (fixed at last!) I walked through Rockefeller Center where for me the real star is not the tree but just to the North of it.
Penny Lane or the Penny Harvest Field at Rockefeller Center covers the pedestrian walkway between 50th and 51st Streets.
Measuring 165 feet long and 30 feet wide, with pennies stacked 8 inches deep, it is an impressive testament to the saying 'every little bit counts'.
Last year, students from 750 schools collected $650,000 in pennies. The small change translated into 1,460 cash grants to 850 community organizations, including homeless shelters, animal rescue organizations, community gardens and senior centers. My kids have participated in past years and found it empowering to be part of something big and surprised at how pennies CAN add up.

Learn more about Common Cents, creators of the Penny Harvest here. Learn more about the Penny Field here.

Think you know how many pennies are in the field? Submit your guess here to qualify for a 'great prize'.
Penny Field: Open free to the public every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., through Dec. 31.

Dropping Off

One good thing (the only good thing?) about dropping off my laptop for repair at the 5th Avenue Mac store (open 24/7 365) was the opportunity to see the Bergdorf Goodman Holiday Windows. They are really wonderful at extra sparkly when viewed in the evening (or after 4:30 when it starts getting dark - grumble, grumble).
Bergdorf Goodman's windows are a tribute to the famous designer Tony Duquette.

Duquette was a protégé of Elsie de Wolfe, from her Lady Mendl days when she spent much of her time in Hollywood. He designed jewelry, interiors, film and stage sets, costumes, and just about anything you could think of, for such clients as de Wolfe, the Duchess of Windsor, and Greta Garbo. He evolved a kind of Hollywood rococo style, sensuous, colorful, gilded, layered, and — the phrase pops up whenever anyone writes about Duquette — over the top. In other words, it is a perfect inspiration for Bergdorf's windows. - Francis Morrone - The Sun, November 19, 2007

The theme is "The Elements." Each of the windows in chuck full of grand stokes - a floating gold elephant - and little details - monkeys and mermaids. The smaller windows in between the large ones are just as scrumptious and worth pausing for.
Just the thing to get my mind off my now empty laptop case.
Bergdorf Goodman: west side of 5th Ave btwn 57/58th St

Mantra...

Yep, that's the mantra around here right now.
Keeping up with the holiday orders and missing my laptop which has been at the mac store all week for repair.
Just keep calm and carry on...
(check out keepcalmandcarryon.com for more 'calm' stuff)

Craftacular Spectacular

A belated post about Bust's Craftacular held last Sat at the Metropolitan Pavilion "featuring over 200 crafters, DJs, drinks, and dancing." Didn't see any dancing but maybe that's because it was PACKED. I went in the afternoon and waited in a quick moving line. There were lots of familiar faces from the Renegade - not a bad thing. Among my favorites were:




Clockwise: Ceramist Kim Westad, deer jewelry by figs and ginger, Jewelry by Imogene and prints by Etui
Also Mr Poncho an ipod case with a do-hicky for your ear phones that keeps them stored and untangled. Jewelweeds: eco-friendly handcrafted products. Beautiful cards (below) by Screech Owl Designs - (currently unavailable online - contact gs@screechowldesigns.com for more details. And one more: mouse pads (also below) from My Favorite Mirror.

Cheers!

GOOD December Pop Up Community Center

Good Magazine has popped up in NOLITA with a Community Center on 201 Mulberry St. (map) at the Openhouse Gallery. The center is organized around the themes of Media, Environment, Technology, Design, Education, Culture, Business & Money, and Health.

Yesterday I worked on setting up part of the space and didn't have the time to investigate the displays, but there's plenty of interesting products and ideas to merit a return visit for a closer look. There's lots of opportunity for hands on exploration and interaction.

Etsy will be holding screenprinting and fusing plastic bag workshops on December 8th and 9th from 11am to 5pm.
The space will be open to the public daily from 11am-6pm December 6th through 23rd.

Barneys New York Green Holiday Windows

Barneys holiday windows are always topical and fun. This years Green Holiday windows artful recycled bottle caps, cans, metro cards, plastic bottles, gift boxes and more.

The 12 Green Days of Christmas (according to Barneys) include:

12 Tons of Tofu
11 Solar Panels
10 New Age Gurus
9 Organic Carob Bars
8 Tickets to Burning Man
7 Sustainable Ostrich Farms
6 Compost Toilets
5 Rolls of Recycled Gift Wrap
4 Fair Trade Futons
3 Free Range Sustainably Farmed Organic Hens
2 Vegan Chefs

and a Pirus in a Pear Tree!