Archives

The Uncommon Life

Top 5 Bike Haikus

June 20, 2014

Bike Haikus | UncommonGoods This Spring we hosted a contest advertised in our catalog for our most talented customers. The contest was a call for a haiku about a bike in celebration of our new Bike Tote.

To announce the winner, and since it was so hard to decide on one, we wanted to share our favorite entries with you!

5. Click, hum. Roll quiet / across town and back again. / Pollution-­‐free ride.
– David, Tennessee

4. O the dreaded hill, / you seemed so small from afar. / I have conquered you.
– Renee, California

3. Suspended in the rafters, / my bike hangs like a bat. / Lately I grow fat.
– Scott, New Jersey

2. When I tell you, “Ride,” / I mean let the wheels take you / where you least expect.
– Maya, New Jersey

1. Two-wheeled beloved, / time machine on which I am / always young, flying.
– Erica, New York Our winner!!

Thanks to everyone who participated by crafting a 5-7-5 masterpiece. To find out about our future contest, check out our catalog or follow us on Facebook.

Gift Guides

Gift Lab: Breakfast For Your Face

June 19, 2014

Gift Lab: Breakfast for Your Face | UncommonGoods
Product: Breakfast For Your Face, a set of three all-natural powders for concocting different face masks.

Research:
I have a confession: I am a beauty product junkie. For the past 9 months I have been addicted to BirchBox (they just emailed me to remind me of our anniversary) which means a bounty of new cosmetics every month, and numerous orders in between. I was the kind of kid who would rather spend her Saturday night perfecting a smokey eye or dumping a bottle of Sun-In on her hair than go out with friends. As an adult I approach finding the best eye cream and dumping my paycheck at the Dry Bar with the same enthusiasm.

I am going home to spend a weekend with my cousin Annie in New Jersey. Annie is 14 and has Down’s Syndrome–we’ve been best friends pretty much since she was born. Although she is a veritable mini-me and loves everything I love, I’m not completely sure if she will enjoy slathering something strange on her face.

Annie chose the Cafe Mocha mask | Breakfast For Your Face | UncommonGoodsHypothesis:
There are two parts to this hypothesis–how the experience will go over with Annie and what I will think of the product itself. I knew selling this idea to Annie will be a test of my marketing skills. I should tell her we were going to have a girly sleepover with music, movies, snacks, and face masks. Special needs children can be fussy and I anticipate she might not be down with something strange on her face, so I hope the tactile experience of picking her mask and mixing it herself would make it less strange when we apply it.

When it comes to me, I am hesitant about the mask itself. I have had reactions to masks in the past–the worst resulting in a huge burn on my face the night before my first modeling shoot (I have one of those moms). However I have learned a lot about my skin at recent facials and think I am better at making decisions on what my dry skin can handle. Also, this kit is all natural–I can literally see all the ingredients–which makes me trust it even more.

Gift Lab: Breakfast For Your Face | UncommonGoods
Experiment:
I pull out the almond milk, honey, coconut oil, and yogurt from the kitchen as these seemed to be the ingredients we will be using to mix our masks. Each mask has suggestions for how to mix the mask for different skin types–normal, oily, and dry. I already prepare to mix whatever Annie picks for normal since her skin tends to be very reactive, and the ingredients for dry skin for myself. I let Annie chose which mask she wants to make–not surprisingly she chooses the Cafe Mocha (it looks and smells delicious!). This leaves Yogurt and Oatbrasion for me. Since I am in the midst of an oil-pulling detox (told you I had an addiction) and my face is broken out, I choose the Oatbrasion mask which is exfoliating and can offer me a fresh layer of skin.

I pour Annie a tablespoon of Cafe Mocha and some almond milk and tell her to mix. The bottle didn’t tell me how much almond milk to use and it turns out I poured too much. I add more powder but the mixture is never anything but runny. I clean out her bowl and add yogurt this time which works out a lot better and I imagine it will have the same hydrating properties of milk.

Annie mixing her mask | Breakfast For Your Face | UncommonGoodsIn my bowl, I pour a tablespoon of Oatbrasion, a teaspoon of coconut oil, and a glob of honey (I have a bad habit of not measuring honey when I bake so I figured why start now). Mixing this reminds me a lot of the all-natural face scrubs my mom used to make when I was a kid. It smells amazing and although I give most pleasant-smelling concoctions a taste test (like these in a sample meeting, which was a mistake) I refrain since the bottle is one step ahead of me and suggests that it not be eaten. Okay, bossy bottle, you win this time.

Now for the fun part–slathering this all over our faces. I apply the mask on Annie’s face since I foresee lots of messes if I leave it to her. She giggles incessantly at how cold the yogurt is and steals glances in the mirror to see her face transform into a mud monster. I’m barely done when she runs away to show her brother her face. My mask is a lot less noticeable–there are some clumps of oat bran but overall it’s a really clear mixture. I was feeling a little lazy, and proud of my blow-drying skills, so I didn’t pull my bangs back to apply the mask onto my forehead.

Silly faces | Breakfast For Your Face | UncommonGoodsWe wait for ten minutes while the masks do their thang. In case you were wondering how to measure ten minutes–it is approximately 7 selfies, or four “Let It Go”s.

Some selfies | Breakfast For Your Face | UncommonGoodsAfter our ten minutes is up, we go upstairs to the bathroom to wash our faces. I clean my face first to show Annie how it’s done. The mask comes off very easily, but I scrub a bit to take advantage of the exfoliating properties of the mask. Annie’s is a lot tougher to remove since it dried a lot more on her face than mine did. I help her with a washcloth but the coffee grounds in the mask are kind of a pain to get off her face.

Breakfast For Your Face | UncommonGoodsWe head back downstairs for the rest of our sleepover activities–strawberries and cream, Monsters University, and texting boys (well, only I do that last thing). Uncontrollable giggles commence once she realizes I am texting a boy, and I can’t help but wonder if her energy is at all caused by the tablespoon of coffee that just soaked into her face.

Conclusion:
Breakfast For Your Face definitely created a successful girls night. We had a project and a beauty treatment all in one. Mixing was easy and fun for Annie which makes me believe girls of all ages, and developments, would really enjoy doing this too.

Fresh-faced after Breakfast For Your Face | UncommonGoodsI loved the way my face felt after I removed the mask. It was smooth and fresh. I totally wish I had pulled back my bangs because I could feel how different my forehead felt (umm, gross)–I got them wet anyway. My worries were for naught–no terrible reaction to my mask. However, I wouldn’t consider the Oatbrasion mix a mask, it definitely is more of a scrub. My aunt loved the way Annie’s skin felt after the mask, which was a relief, so I left the Cafe Mocha and Yogurt mixes for them to enjoy.

This product gets my two gel-manicured thumbs up!

Maker Resources

Videos from How To Make It: Pricing Your Designs

June 16, 2014

Videos from How To Make It: Pricing Your Designs for Retail | UncommonGoodsLast month we hosted another How To Make It design panel event at Brooklyn’s Union Hall where Seth Walter from our Purchasing Team and Jason Feinberg, the CEO & Creative Director of FCTRY, discussed the decisions you should make while pricing your designs for retail. We got a little off-topic as the guests in our audience had really great questions, but we think you might get some great advice from our answers. Check out clips from the event and the conversation it its entirety below!

How much should you pay yourself for a handmade design?

MAP (Minimum Advertised Price)

Should a wholesale price be fixed?

How to price a collection of designs.

Is scaling up always the best idea?

How does UncommonGoods find new artists?

Two common mistakes made in pricing handmade designs.

FULL VIDEO COMING SOON!

The Uncommon Life

June 13, 2014

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

Design

May 6, 2014

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Maker Stories

Inside the Artist’s Studio with Jeff Davis

May 6, 2014

Inside the Artist's Studio with Jeff Davis | UncommonGoods
I had been cruising around Philly listening to XPN for a couple days. Lou Reed had just passed away. It was a very appropriate time to visit Jeff Davis in the Vinylux studio, a business created in celebration of everyone’s favorite music.

Jeff began collecting vintage records in 2002 to re-purpose into home decor and fashion accessories, the production of which looks similar to most of what I have seen in other studios: work tables, hand-tools, storage space. However, over time, Jeff realized there were machines and tools he required for his designs that did not exist — a vacuum to clean vinyl splinters, a machine to melt a record into a smooth bowl in a matter of seconds — so he took to creating them himself. Most artists show off their finished products, but in Jeff’s case some of his most impressive designs are his machines.

It wasn’t a surprise that a trip to Jeff’s studio would be incredibly exciting for me — all that vinyl and someone to talk to about my favorite albums — but it was a surprise to learn about the business savvy of one of our oldest vendors, to meet an entrepreneur who cares deeply for the safety of his employees, and see such an exciting company sprouting from a city I called home for so many years. Meet Jeff Davis, small business owner, expert at reincarnating old vinyl, and, in my opinion, example of what it means to be living the dream.

Continue Reading…

The Uncommon Life

Four Elements Mood Board: Fire

April 29, 2014

Four Elements Mood Boards | UncommonGoods

Astrology Locket / Convex Starburst Pencil Mirror / Mountains II by Meirav Gebler / Astral Wall Hangings / Gold Leaf Upcycled Beer Bottle Tumblers / Agate Coasters



For the last installment of this series of nature-inspired mood boards, we’re going out with a bang. Literally.

Fire is that fascinating element that can create as well as destroy. Ancient cultures have marveled in it for centuries–to the Greeks it was symbol of energy and passion, and the Hindu God Agni represented fire as well as lightning and the sun.

This collection was a little harder to put together as the choices were a lot less obvious than the other boards, so I did some research and got creative. I pulled items that celebrated the shapes and power of celestial orbs; materials made from volcanic activity; and a piece from an artist who incorporates gunpowder and fire in her watercolors.

Enjoy, and check out our other collections inspired by Earth, Air, and Water.

Gift Guides

Four Elements Mood Board: Water

April 22, 2014

Four Elements Mood Board: Water | Gift Guide | UncommonGoods

Porcelain Barnacle Vase / Make Waves Yarn Bowl / Glasscape Bowl / Ceramic Fish Bones / Under the Sea Pillow / Jellies III by Karen Chan / Jellyfish Earrings / Shattered Glass Bib Necklace



I was most excited to put together this collection of jewelry and home decor that reminded me of water. Having grown up on a small island, three blocks from the ocean and one from the bay, water is the element with which I am most comfortable and most familiar. In putting this all together, it became very clear to me that so many of our artists share the same affection for the deep blue as me.

Inspired by the peaceful hues of the ocean and the unique colors and shapes of its many creatures, this is a collection of goods that will evoke the spirit of this element that is as placid as it is exciting.

Check out the gift guides for Earth and Air that we launched, and check back next week for our last installment of this series, Fire!