On a recent walk down Lincoln Road mall in Miami Beach, I was interested to see the newest developed area with these awesome modern looking water features.  A great use of open space, and certainly more unusual than just patches of grass that always dies.  These water gardens featured islands with trees, whole portions of aquatic plants, water falls, integrated with areas for people to sit and enjoy the scenery. 

The exquisite hand-crafted leather key chain figures from Vanca Craft are great to behold. A photo just does not do these pieces justice, considering the level of detail and craftsmanship that goes into each one. They’re made with the finest genuine cowhide organically tanned with eco-friendly materials. After 120+ years of operation, you can expect a certain level of perfection. Click here to see our collection.

It’s not quite barbeque weather for everyone yet, but I couldn’t pass up a chance to show off the VULCAN All-in-One BBQ Set. You won’t have an excuse to stay home with everything you need in one (relatively) small backpack, plus it’s a great way to keep all your essential items in one place so you don’t forget anything.

In honor of the recently completed Winter Games, here’s an invention created in the Great White North herself, the ”Ravi” instant wine chiller. What amounts to a weapon suppressor for wine bottles, you charge this in your freezer for 6 hours, and then it’s “designed to cool a full bottle of wine served within one hour.” Ok, so maybe the time frames don’t line up perfectly. Perhaps one day you can charge it for 1 hour and then use it for 6? But until then, they also have a really nifty decanter that disassembles for easy cleaning. It’s truly a great time to be a lush!

After yesterday’s bootleg underground product photo, I decided to show off some proper snaps of a Joseph Joseph product that’s actually way more useful than that fancy condiment grinder… it’s the Quicksnap Ice Block Tray! It’s a great solution that should be available soon - which is astonishing considering this market. Summed up best via Gizmodo: “we have access to the world’s knowledge with the touch of a button, but we still can’t pop out one ice cube at a time”.

For a good read, check out CNN’s gallery of ultra luxury watches including this Greubel Forsey Quadruple Tourbillon priced at $690,000!

You can see the entire slideshow with 20 watches [ HERE ]

My favorite kitchen gadget from the latest NYIGF was Joseph Joseph’s Y-Grinder, but it’s been totally MIA online. Well, not anymore - a big thanks to the Walker Art Center’s Off Center blog for this sneaky product shot from the shelves of the gift fair. It combines Salt + Pepper into a single Y-shaped grinder; maybe not the first product to do so, but I know the dual grinders and Y-shape would certainly have me endlessly seasoning every meal.

While you can find an interesting selection of contemporary watch designs from Projects Watches, they also feature some wristwatches designed by Daniel Will-Harris with some amazing “reveal” mechanisms for displaying time. The face of the Twilight Watch (pictured left) actually changes from light to dark every 20 seconds; other watches such as the Iridium or Reveal display only the necessary numerals. Hopefully these will be showing up on Pure Modern before too long....

Because everyone knows the fun in birdhousing comes from folding up your very own (??) and hanging it from a tree. With that in mind, Tweet Tweet Home has a fun array of 100% recyclable plastic designs that ship flat. A nice gift idea - surely you can interest a friend or relative in birding with a little DIY aviary construction.

We saw a great selection of magnets at the recent NYIGF from Greggo Magnets. Learn everything from brail to biology, brush up on some presidential spousage or just pick up a good old fashioned magnetic Santa Claus you can dress up!

Because you can never really see too many great wall decal designs, Blik features a myriad of designers and styles to select from. Usually a bold design choice, there’s really something for any setting there. From more “traditional” decal stickers like those from boodalee to the unique and whimsical collection of community-created designs from Threadless.



Also catching a few eyes is their collection of ultra-modern minimalist “headboards” (seen below). They’ve always been a fairly superfluous piece of furniture, so save the space and pick a headboard you can easily switch out when your mood changes.

The “W” Hotel & Residences now ready for occupants!

We’ve just learned that the fantastic “W” mixed use condo / hotel project is ready for buyers.  Reportedly selling for $2000/square foot - it’ll be interesting to see how fast they’re able to close out the building. 

Having been fortunate enough to have lived in a mixed use Hotel / Condo building for the past 5 years - I know how exciting the energy is to live in an ever changing environment and meeting all sorts of great people.  I can only imagine that this project will take that experience to an extreme.  I’m just SLIGHTLY jealous…

Check out their marketing site :  [ HERE ]

Here’s an incredible gift idea from Gift Republic - personalized classic novels! Could there really be anything less interesting than a story about some random people named Romeo & Juliet? Just who exactly are they supposed to be? Well now you can plug in your own name, along with your friends, relatives or even celebrities for a much more personal (and memorable) adventure. After all, who could forget the iconic Shakespeare line “Wherefore art thou *Ted*?”

Don’t think of it as throwing money away, you’re brightening up your trash can! Although Suck UK features a nice collection of fun and interesting gadgets, it’s hard to find a great use for the ”Christmas Pudding” and ”Pet Goldfish” bags. They seem to harken back to the days of the giant orange pumpkin face leaf bags you would see around Autumn.

We love to hear from our customers how they discover new trends, products, and ideas.  So we thought it may be interesting to have a few people participate in our blog “Perspective On Design”! 

Are you interested?

Read More Here!

Here are just a few things we’ll ask of you:

1) Clearly, have good writing skills. 
2) Have a style that fits the feel of our company.  Our style is unusual in the way we present our posts from a personal experience to a very bland “look what we found” perspective.  Sometimes we’re bitchy, sometimes we’re giddy over new products.  Other times… we’re just bizarre.
3) Know your stuff.  Know when a product or company is unique, new, fresh and exciting.  We’re not looking for people to just share what they see on a million other blogs or publications.  Truly step out and post the unusual.
4) You can be affiliated with another blog or company.  That’s just fine.  If you are a blogger that works across multiple blogs, feel free to plug your own blog when appropriate.  Just keep it professional and not overdone.  We’ll even help by linking to your blog from ours ... as a form of recognition and thanks for your efforts.

You may ask “what do I get out of this?!”. 

Well, It’s a great way to share your finds with our readers.  It’s fun.  It’s a good way to kill time when you should be doing something else.  And if you’re a beginner in the world of blogs, it’s great to get some exposure.

What we can tell you is - we’ll provide any guest bloggers with incentives on occasion (freebies, discounts, advance notice of super specials), etc.  If we discover a wildly successful product through your efforts, we’ll even say thanks by sending you one! *

If this sounds at all entertaining, feel free to contact us here… using the subject ”I want to blog!”

[ CONTACT US HERE ]

It would help us in evaluating if you’re a good fit by:

a) provide us a blog entry you’ve done in the past
b) send a sample of what you would write about and what you think is a good idea with a link to the product
c) send a writing sample of any other type that shows your writing style

We’ll get back to every person as soon as possible.  We’re limiting the number of guest bloggers initially until we see how this will fly.  So don’t be grumpy if we just can’t accommodate every interested person.  We’ll sure try though!

Thanks!

PJ - The PureModern IT guy, stuck in a closet somewhere on planet earth (last time I checked).

[ CONTACT US HERE ]

* While we hope to provide incentives to a blogger who may turn us on to a good idea, it’s not always feasible.  This form of “thanks” is at our discretion and is not guaranteed.