bunnyshop shopping fashion blog

The Bunnyshop Gift Guide: Design-y Media, All Under $25

They're everywhere! Where do people get the money to buy houses, we wonder. We're going to have to hope for a pot of gold buried in our backyard (er, the neighbor's backyard) because we seem to have done a Carrie Bradshaw and spent all of our money on plane tickets.

Anyhoo! This is for gifts for other people—in this case, our friend who is obsessed with his new apartment. He is a composite, we will admit, and not even a very good one, since we actually don't know any house-obsessed guys. Moving forward: our list continues.

Above: The Home Book from House Beautiful. Cheaper than an actual house, pleasantly, and with lots of swatch-y paint pages. We swear, we'd be happy as a clam staying in this New Year's painting our walls. And, we will add, running the 5K in Prospect Park. Who's up for a little group run? The Home Book, $23.97

This is about the only thing we can afford from Design Within Reach. Honestly, we're not even sure what we think about the concept of "lifestyle notebooks"—our lifestyle should be able to get by without one, we think—but: adorable! And conveniently thematic for anyone looking for a present for a movie-friend, travel-friend, etc. Lifestyle notebooks, $25

So this New Year's, when we're skipping all the parties to paint our walls, we're also going to be stocking our new and amazing home office with all this stuff from Muji, and it's going to be triply amazing because it's all going to cost like under $50. For all of it. We are notebook fanatics and we can honestly say this one is tops: Note adorable and handy see-through plastic envelope! Is that what that's called, an envelope? No idea. But you know what we mean. Muji notebook, $20

IDEO guidebooks are like the only acceptable guidebooks for design-o-philes. Very fancy and smart, if that's what you're going for. We're not saying anyone should be going for that; only that it's an option. An option these guidebooks are up for. Eh, trust us, they're really cute inside, even if we haven't been able to persuasively convey that thought in words yet. IDEO Eyes Open New York, $22.95

We swear, the last time we lost our Moleskine notebook we almost put our hand through a glass window (as opposed, apparently, to a wooden window) because we were so incensed. We have since lost two more, and so begins our epic self-loathing. This, in any case, is the Moleskine we'll buy if we can ever get through three months without losing one of the basic ones. Moleskine New York notebook, $16.95

Ork Posters: Bunnyshop Hearts

Of all the billions of things we want to buy online, there are very, very, very few we see and then purchase within seconds—"seconds" as defined as the amount of time it took us to find our credit card. This is one! How could love this more? Actually, we can answer that: We'd love it more if the designer was like, 'fuck you, other cities,' etc., but apparently there are versions for San Francisco, Chicago, and others. Still. We're working on being less partisan.

This gets the five-star Bunnyshop recommendation! Ork Posters Brooklyn poster, $22

Cool Wedding Invitations: Apparently, They Exist

Say it was literally your job to find trendy wedding invitations. (This is, as it happens, a true story.) And you looked and you looked, and there was plenty of the regular letterpress stuff (which, don't get us wrong, we totally love), but then you found Oslo Press, and their printed on wood veneer wedding invitations. This one is "printed" (engraved?) on maple. Something new! We love it.

Prices are all on request.

Fred Flare's Next Big Thing and Good On Paper

We are so entering Fred Flare's Next Big Thing contest—the ultra-exciting design contest formerly entered by Jay McCarroll and Amy Sedaris.

From their site:

What is THE NEXT BIG THING?
The NEXT BIG THING is an annual design competition at fredflare.com where we invite our customers to present their creations for possible sale on our website. This year we’re selecting 27 of our favorite items to be featured in an exclusive online boutique that will also include designer bios.

Entries are due May 2. We are just putting the word out. But we will add here that one of the past winners is one of our super favorite designers: Lisa Wong of Good on Paper.

There are loads of things to buy \ love but this is, at the moment, our fave. Bunny notecards, $16 for six

Today's Contest Semi-Finalist Entry

Today's entry to the contest: Winner takes home some lovely Embittermints, an excellent Madewell t-shirt, and some of our favorite ManGlaze nail polish. Everybody votes on Friday.

From A.:

1. I am addicted to the new Doctor Who tv show (being shown on BBC America and some PBS stations). The old show was campy and cheesy and I never watched it but this one is super well-written and hilarious in my favorite British way. Also, the Doctor is sexxay. Watch it and you'll see.

2. SO hard to pick a favorite book, right now I am re-reading the Lord of The Rings series and wallowing in how good it is. So I'm a sucker for well-written British stuff. Sue me.

3. I know Eleanor Grosch is old news now that she's designing for Keds and Urban Outfitters but I fell in love with her screenprints on her website. And now she has t-shirts too! I want about six of these posters as soon as I find room (and $$) for all of them.

Eleanor Grosch's Black Swan poster, $30

Independent Designer of the Day: Morris & Essex

We also love that these are made in the artist's studio in Buenos Aires. We are sooooo going to Buenos Aires, and as soon as possible.

Morris & Essex set of nine silkscreened cards, $28

BS Hearts: Diana Fayt

Calendars! So useful. At least for those first two weeks in January. At which point we're all, "Whatev" and go back to writing shit down on pieces of paper we lose immediately. Until then, though! Hope springs eternal, along with the (soon-to-be-shortlived) sense that anything is possibly, including us remaining faithful to one calendar for twelve months. It won't happen, but we can dream.

This is our favorite of everything we've seen. Diana Fayt calendar, $30

Sentiments Best Expressed in Boxed Card Form

Oooh, we always forget to say thank you. 'Please,' too, while we're at it, but we're thinking about thank you today. (Amazingly, this is not a post left over from pre-Thanksgiving that we forgot to put up.)

First, we want to say: holiday gift cards purchased in boxes. So much easier than making them ourselves. (Even though that it is exactly what we're going to do. Hopefully, we will improve on our tally from last year, which topped out at three.) Usually we look to our ever-favorites Snow & Graham, but today we're punishing them for not having finished their website by now. (We wait. And we wait.) So in honor of our last week in San Francisco, at least for a while, we head instead to Paper Source. Mmm, maybe they are not quite as cute as the ones we will make (er, so we say, anyway), but they are quite cute. Actually, we'd like them a lot better without that text ("Merry Wonderland" to us is just like saying, "I was going to say 'Christmas,' but then I got all freaked out about it") but still, pretty design, no?

Merry Wonderland cards, $14

And then, for all those presents we are about to get:

Like, hmm. So we will say thank you to Lil' Bunny, for taking care of all our shit. She rocks!

Paper Source thank you cards, $15.50

The Gift For Someone Who Has Everything

We have only been in Smythson of Bond Street once. We were floored by the sheer luxury of this place. We were with someone who was thinking of getting business cards embossed with a gold (like actual gold) bee. 100 cards would've only cost 200 pounds. So, say, $400. For 100 cards. We kept our hands in our pockets and stood very, very still so as not to dirty anything.

We then got a request from someone in our family for a Smythson journal for Christmas. We, as a general rule, cannot say no to this person despite how outlandish the request. We called up Smythson, ordered a journal, and had it sent. We are fairly sure it's still in its box, in a closet.

Either way, we recommend them for extravagant gifts for the person who has everything.

We are fairly sure if we kept our passport in the pink passport cover, we would have  a hard time misplacing it. We are just saying, though. They also have a pet passport cover, and we are entirely unsure if it is a joke or not.

Crown passport cover, from $180

-LB

The Small Object

We had never heard of The Small Object until, one day at our former job, our boss put a tiny wood bottle on our desk. It was not filled with alcohol (or Diet Coke) - or anything, actually. It had a little cap.  But we had no idea what it was for. Next to it sat a little stamp of a guy who kind of reminded us of the men you used to make using your thumb print. We did not see our then-boss leave these for us, so we were unsure what they were, where they came from, or what they were supposed to DO, exactly.

Our then-boss came back from wherever she was and cleared up the mystery. She'd ordered some things from The Small Object and gotten us presents! Ooh, how we love presents.

Anyway. We love this stuff. We had so much fun we stamped everything with our little man. When we quit that job, we made goodbye cards and CDs and stamped the little man on it. We think we may even get a bro tattoo with a friend of ours involving these little men and the word 'patience'. If you knew our friend, it would make much more sense. We don't know WHY we love these guys so much - we know if we met them in human form, we would probably look at them with a strong look of disgust. But in stamp form, they're a-ok. Plus, who wouldn't love panda snowmen on tags? Or anything, really?

Saw See Sew Needle Case - $6

Snowman Panda Gift Tags - 10/$5

And what better way to profess your love than with these fabric valentines? And at $5 a pop, it'll make you choo-choo-choose your favorite, not a whole harem of favorites!

The Everyday Valentine - $5

-LIL BUNNY