Maps for The Young and Clueless

This is what your child sees from the booster in the back seat. 

Here's an unhappy side effect of keeping kids in the backseat forever and never letting them walk anywhere: they have no idea where the hell they are. On top of that, once they turn fifteen or sixteen, they will be allowed to get in the car and drive, even though they've never developed any meaningful navigational skills.

So what?, you might say. They'll just plug in the car's navigation system, or ask Siri for assistance, or even call me for help. Well, I say that's just ridiculous. Personal navigation skills are vital, and can't be taught from the back seat. That's why a kid needs a map of her city, preferably mounted on foam board, hanging in her room. Purchase a good street map (we live in LA, so I chose one with detail but not every single street). Mount it on thicker foam board using rubber cement and a plastic smoothing device found at your local art supply store. Hang it on the wall and break out the push pins. Show your kid where the house is, where the school is, the grocery store, the grandparents' house, the best friend's adode, and anyplace else of interest. Pin these places, and I don't mean Pinterest. Trust me, the kid will study it, learning the lay of their land in an entirely new way.

You can find a vast variety of wall maps (rolled, not folded) at Maps.com. And this gift idea would work for any child, in any city. It's one easy way to teach some very valuable life skills.

Espress Yourself: Even MORE Ways to Drink Espresso

Does this look familiar? It's a sippy cup, sans Dora the Explorer.

We all like to delude ourselves, with our sustainable free trade coffee and fancy machinery, that we are sophisticated adults when it comes to coffee culture. But that's just not true. We're actually big adult babies in the morning (or the afternoon, or midday, or whenever you have that caffeine deprived slump), jonesing for that first cup of joe the same way an infant needs a bottle. It's sad, but maybe it's best to just admit it.

No Slip Til Brooklyn has done just that with its Espress Yourself project. It features five different artists who had just two months to take an espresso cup concept from imagination to completion. That's no small feat, and the results are very pleasing. Naturally, my favorite is the Sip, a grown up take on a kiddy sippy cup. It's also white (all the cup sets are) and lovely in its modern simplicity. I would love to own this cup, if only I could locate my espresso machine from the multitude of boxes stashed on my balcony.

The whole cup collection would make a fabulous wedding gift for some lucky couple. Or, as a housewarming gift (hint). All I know is, we need a lot of coffee around here. When we realized that we hadn't moved with a coffee maker, and we would be exactly one morning without immediate coffee, our daughter said, "Uh oh. I'm not talking to either one of you tomorrow morning." From the mouths of babes, indeed.

Find all the cups at No Slip Til Brooklyn.

The Change Up of the New Toad Abode

This paint job must die.

As I've written before on this blog, we moved to a smaller, modernist space in a much hillier part of town. There's been adjustment (cat pee on Missoni shams, anyone?), but since the nightmarish colossal move (seriously, just throw out everything you own now and save yourself a ton of work) it's been pretty smooth sailing. Except, perhaps, for the ugly factor.

This ugly factor is best illustrated in the pictures of my new living room/loft, which look like the Lakers had a party and left their color scheme behind. I'm convinced that this marigold yellow and deep purple paint job in the main living area is the reason we got such a great deal; literally no one could stand to be in the room for any length of time. Add the bilious green kitchen and bath into the mix, and the house of many colors starts to pulse into your brain (they say that yellow creates anxiety, and now I'm inclined to believe it.

It could be cool... but not yet.

I have the almond bowl. Peanuts work, too.

So, I've decided to follow in the grand tradition of design blogs like Remodelista and Apartment Therapy and post my own "Before and After" series. Is this really gift oriented? Well, you might not think so at first, but have no fear: I'm still editing and scouting and repurposing things, so there's plenty of products to croak about. I've already transformed an Areaware bowl from a purely decorative piece on my old mantel into a beautiful resting place for keys upon entry. Not bad.

So enjoy these heinous "Before" pictures. Be grateful you're not living in my kaleidoscope world. And prepare to be amazed (or at least not disgusted) by the transformation.

There was a disco ball and laser light apparatus too. Party down!

By the way, those are indeed blue lightbulbs burning inside those Ikea paper lanterns in the living room. Just another aspect of the former owner's design sense that makes me ponder, "WTF???"

A New Light from Ylighting

Calm your abduction fears! It's only a Nelson light fixture.

One of the hardest things about moving (especially downsizing, as Ms. Toad and her husband, Mr. Crab, have done), is ruthlessly editing your stuff. Because, even if you're moving to a bigger space, much of your old stuff will simply not work, thus you must dispose of it before the movers haul it all over to the new place.

We spend weeks literally throwing unwanted possessions out the front door. We Craigslisted, My Favorite Thinged, and Good Willed a damn moving van full of stuff. And yet, we still have too much of some things and are pitifully short on others. Take the lighting, for instance. Our old lighting matched, more or less, our old spanish house. This means that in our new smaller modernist house the lighting is ridiculous (it doesn't help anything that the previous owner had a penchant for Ikea paper lanterns filled with blue lightbulbs. Groovy).

Enter Ylighting, a modernist lighting site with a comprehensive selection, super reasonable prices and fast shipping. As a fan of Nelson lights (they look insubstantial, but last forever and resemble UFOs), I discovered Ylighting has a vast selection. While I could hop over to Modernica on Beverly Blvd. and buy them, I only possess a Mini, so transport is a huge issue (for those of you with SUVs, please do shop your Nelson locally). Ylighting has solved this dilemma for me. Hooray!

Check out the amazing assortment of lights (Artemide, Flos, and Kartell, among many others) at Ylighting.com. It'll shine a lovely light on your decorating dilemmas.

Revamp with All Modern

Behold: one expensive trash can.

After a relocation, The Toad is back, and is obsessed with all things modernist. While modernism was always an interest, the change from a spanish home to a stylish modern hill house has really spurred me on to shop modern in a big way. And, although Los Angeles is full of modernist wares, there's really no better place to look than online.

Thus, the All Modern web site. It's stuffed with offerings large and small, from Alessi accessories to Grohe faucets. In one full swoop, I purchased a spare, simple medicine cabinet, a toilet paper holder and towel holder, and it really wasn't that pricey. Shipping on many items is free and efficient. And the prices are good (ok, the VIPP trashcan at right isn't necessarily a great example of savings, but doesn't your trash deserve a lovely spot to temporarily rest?).

While I realize that this doesn't seem like a gift site, I beg to differ. There are gift ideas aplenty available at All Modern for the clean lined obsessed. And for home improvement, I'd say it beats the hell out of The Home Despot. Go to All Modern and see what I'm blabbing about.

YSL Perfects the Lip Stain

French fashion you can actually afford!

So, I'm in the process of moving. Actually, I'm in the process of packing, which isn't so much moving as it is frantically throwing paper and cardboard around while I have an anxiety attack. One look at the rooms I've lived in for the past 13 years and I get overwhelmed and just want to lie down. Needless to say, this panic hasn't done much for my appearance; I'm pallid, dusty, and generally disgusted.

No amount of makeup will really help, of course, but I have found one new product that I'd recommend even if you're not moving and a total disaster. The new YSL glossy stain is a genius product. I'm a gloss girl, not a lipstick woman, but recently I've discovered that I'm just mouth breathing and eating my gloss off. This fascinating product daubs on like a gloss, but it's thin and intensely pigmented. Do a layer and leave it for moist, juicy lips that happen to be goo free. I even ventured out of my normal neutral comfort zone and purchased a bright red (which of course I try to blot to take down the intensity). This stuff works, lasting much of the day without that dried up haggy feeling lipstick gives one.

I recommend this product, but perhaps not the YSL product counter reps; I had one try to shame me into buying a $200 eye serum for non existent laugh lines. Even my ten year old daughter was appalled ("I see no difference," she said to the rep). It's not cheap at $32, but it should last you all summer and beyond. At Sephora.

The Toad Gets Hitched and Discovers the Wonders of Lost Crates

Wedding site: The Silver Lake Meadow

So, the Toad went and got herself married last weekend. It went swimmingly and was very easy. I credit our great friend Sue Ann Jewers (who does fantastic hair in L.A.) for doing all the hair, officiating the ceremony, making the huge paper flower I carried, designing and crafting the veils, and just being incredibly supportive. It wasn't conventional, but it sure was fun.

And speaking of fun, I happened upon an excellent wedding gift idea: Lost Crates. Lost Crates is a subscription service of one crate monthly filled with choices from categories like Housewares, or Design, or even stationery. It's a brilliant concept because it gives the happy couple a lovely little surprise for a few months. It's also an excellent way to support artists and small businesses. And it beats the hell out of Williams Sonoma; don't you have enough marinade and frying pans by now?

Take a look at Lost Crates, and enjoy the wedding pic. Read more about Sue Ann (including contact info) here.