boobs

Those crazy kids over at Egg Press just came out with this good luck card in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month. They even came up with a list of suggested recipients (number 6 is my favorite):

Top ten occasions to send a Good Luck with Your Boobs card
1. breast cancer
2. suspicious breast lump
3. birth of a child / nursing mom
4. breast augmentation
5. breast reduction
6. pre-puberty
7. birthday / aging
8. wearing a strapless gown
9. running a marathon
10. European beach vacation

green gulch

I ate dinner and visited the grounds of Green Gulch this week. Located in Marin county, the zen center serves as a Buddhist practice center as well as a working farm. Although it was pretty overcast, I really enjoyed the beauty of the gardens.

the uniform project

The proprietress of The Uniform Project pledges to wear the same dress for one year (she does have seven of them) in order to raise money for uniforms for schoolchildren in India. Her exercise in sustainable fashion is documented daily.

op shop

Sometime last summer I decided to stop buying new things, or things made new. The idea was to cut down on the amount of stuff in the world, and therefore not encourage, support or contribute to the creation of disposable merchandise (think Ikea furniture, Forever 21, new cell phones every few months). If I want something, I try to find it used or vintage, and most of the time, I find that I didn't really need it in the first place. It's surprisingly easy (well, for someone who likes thrift stores and flea markets anyway) and I'm not a hundred percent strict about it (underwear, yarn and gifts seem to be my major weeknesses).

Through Lobster and Swan, I found KatieCrackernuts, an Australian journalist who has taken a pledge to only wear secondhand clothing for two weeks to possibly win a new Prius. Although I wish the time frame was a little more substantial, I totally get behind the idea of op shopping, as she calls it. Here in the bay area, there are some fantastic thrift, vintage, used and consignment stores where you have a bevy of great options that fit the bill of op shopping. Besides, the flea is this weekend!

cute vintage shoes

I am trying my best not to buy anything new these days. The idea is to purchase used and vintage in an effort to avoid buying and throwing away crappily produced items. I'm certainly not buying used underwear or toothbrushes, but I like to shop and I was feeling a little guilty about it. In any case, I'm struggling a bit with the shoe situation. I have to run for the train a lot (yes, it is cute), and that's just not possible in heels (or not in my case, anyhow). The point is, vintage shoes are cute, but I'm still rather hesitant to buy them when there is no LRP (liberal return policy). If I were a little braver, I might go for the following:

From here.

From here.

From here.

From here.

From here.

From here.

From here.

before and after: yarn

In my ongoing effort to not buy new items, I've been doing a fair amount of reusing - like unraveling some of the less successful knitting projects of the past in order to reuse the yarn for something else.
For example, the circa-2003 poncho (I swear, they were very cool at the time):

...is now a fabulous short scarf:

black star surf shop

It's not so often that you can say "my friends own a surf shop in Ghana." Well, my friends started the one and only surf shop in Ghana, Black Star Surf Shop. As of recent, the one and only surf shop in Ghana now sports an online store (forgive the blatant plug, but you are supporting a really good cause. Black Star supports local artisans and is involved in several community projects to generate local income, as well as improve the quality of life of those living in the Busua area). T-shirts, bags, hats and more are all available online with five different logos, although I prefer the one at top the best. For more information on Black Star, please click here.