Hello All!

Well, it’s that time of year, and because I always like it when someone else does my holiday shopping for me, I’m going to do you all a favor and tell you just what to buy. And since time’s a-wastin’, we’d better just get down to it. Here we go, ho ho ho!

1. So, I don’t actually have this book and I actually haven’t even seen in the flesh, but oh boy howdy do I really want it: Flying Eye’s Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space.

It looks BEAUTIFUL. I haven’t gotten it yet because I don’t want my awful children to see it and ruin it and am waiting until they are less inclined to scribble all over it and wrinkle the pages. I imagine us in some beautiful future time, sitting contentedly reading it, fawning over the print quality and amazing science factoids. Someday. Someday!

2. Tom Gauld is one of my favorite comics artists. Dry and witty and clever, with beautiful controlled linework. I’m kind of in love with him.

Which is why his latest book “You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack” is on my wishlist. I’ve gotten to see bits and pieces of it on his tumblr which has just made the anticipation all the greater.

3. Sugru is this crazy repair putty that is the new duct tape. See the video below to see how cool it is, or check out their blog for some cool diy inspiration.

Incidentally, I see that they have a special xmas offer, 4 packs for the price of 3 with coupon code “sugruxmas”. I’m working on a secret project with my sugru and will keep you posted.

4. If you’re the crafty sort, you might want to buy a set of Blank Russian Nesting Dolls and paint them up for a thoughtful Christmas gift. Or, you could leave them blank and give them to your most vividly imaginative friend and tell her to imagine how beautifully you could have painted them if you hadn’t run out of time. I plan on painting a set for each of the kids, but don’t have high hopes for actual completion.

5. Speaking of crafty sorts, if you are at all like me, you will become instantly addicted to JetPens.com. I confess, I get their email newsletter and pore over all the new products that come in. I’m one of the people who makes their click statistics on their email campaigns very gratifying. They don’t just have pens (though oh how I love pens) – they also have lots of cool stuff that is frankly hard to find anywhere else. Like crazy cute masking tape.

These would make great stocking stuffers, for, you know, people who get all excited about masking tape. (I know there are a few of you out there who are going YES!!!!)

5. Okay, since we’re on a JetPens roll, how about these fricking adorable post-it notes?

I actually have a weird fondness for all kinds of office supplies – going back to my youth when I would dreamily browse for hours in our local stationery store. There’s such beauty in utility.

6. Alright, to wrap up the JetPens trend, here are some more great office-supply-type stocking stuffers: paper clips. Yep, you heard me. But have you seen paper clips like these???

And they come in such cute little boxes!! I am literally so in love with these it is impossible for me to say which one I love the most. And if you’re super picky about your office supplies and wire paper clips aren’t for you, how about these ones that are actually made out of paper?

I’ll stop now, in case I’m the only person in the universe who gets so excited about paper clips.

7. This one might sound equally weird to you, but it is something we use every day and love it SOOOOOOOOOO much.

Yep. Honey. Raw Honey. Stakich Raw Honey. Five whole pounds of it in one jar. They have multiple varieties, but I prefer the regular version because, well, I haven’t tried any of the other ones. I like what I got and I just keep ordering it by the five-pound jar.

8. Another kitchen item we can’t do without: the SodaStream seltzer-making machine. I can’t recommend a particular version because it looks like they don’t make the one we have anymore. Matthew drinks seltzer water like there’s no tomorrow, so it’s been totally worth it (no more hauling bottles and bottles of the stuff from the store). I wouldn’t recommend the flavor packs, though. The ones I have tried are kind of horrible. If you want to make something REALLY delicious, mix 1/3 C lemon juice, 1/3 C ginger juice, 1 T of that raw honey up there, give it a stir and fill the rest of your cup up with seltzer water. It is AMAZZZOING.

9. For any artists out there looking for recommendations of nice art supplies, I have to say my set of japanese watercolor pans is my go-to standby. You can often see it in the background of my auction item photos:

What I like about them is that they are much more opaque than your typical watercolor so you get more color bang for your buck, much like gouaches. But they still mix very nicely with other colors like watercolors do. The closest set I could find short of sending you to Tokyu Hands in Japan was this set sold on, you guessed it, JetPens.

And in case you can’t tell from the photo, this set includes gold and silver, which work better than any gold or silver paint I’ve used.

10. If you’re looking for something pretty, a dear friend of ours has opened a shop selling beautiful tumbled glass jewelry. The pieces of glass are from vintage glassware and are tumbled in holy water, and they’re really quite beautiful. I have two already myself (double proof that I’m not a vampire!).

11. I got this Question and Answer a Day book last year and love the idea. But, as with most things like this, I’m not so great on the follow-through. But, I’d still like to recommend it. Basically, it poses a question for you to answer each day of the year. When the year is over, you start over again, and it goes on for five years. If you actually do it, you can see on each page how your answers change as the years pass. Now that I think of it, maybe that’s totally depressing.

Also, it probably helps if you have better answers than I do.

12. Oh, in case you didn’t read the post yesterday, there’s also Playing With Sketches by Whitney Sherman. Aside from there being a brief mention of our five-minute drawings and Matthew Draws in it, it also happens to be chock full of really interesting and inspiring ideas for jump-starting your creative juices. For example, drawing a continuous mobius strip drawing:

It’s a beautifully designed book and we’re proud to be included.

13. Another beautiful book to recommend is Danny Gregory’s A Kiss Before You Go. I first discovered Danny Gregory through his book Everyday Matters – which is equally wonderful. A Kiss Before You Go is about his grief following the tragic loss of his wife, and it will cut straight to your heart. Both memoirs illustrated in sketchbook form – they are insightful, wise, and terribly heartbreaking, all wrapped up in a beautiful package.

14. To counteract the heartache, you would be wise to purchase Kate Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant. Clever, deftly penned and hilarious, she examines such unexamined subjects as 1980s businesswomen wearing big shoulderpads and Jules Verne and H.G. Wells’s fisticuffs. Beyond the great comics (you can also get a sampling online HERE) she often includes commentary that is equally hilarious.

One of my favorites is when she reinterprets Nancy Drew stories just based on their covers and titles:

Oh my they crack me up.

15. Okay, another weird one, but some people like getting appliances for Christmas, right? And rice? Maybe? Well, might I recommend the top-o-the-line Zojirushi Rice Cooker and its natural companion, Kokuho Rose Japanese Rice?

If you are even only mildly japanese (as I am) you obviously already have these things and use them every day, but if you are not, well then GET ON IT. Always having a warm pot of rice at the ready is worth a million lunchtimes. I prefer the single button style shown here rather than the newfangled digital deals. Somehow with the digital one, I often think I’m setting it and it turns out I didn’t. The one button style is great because you click it down to cook, and it pops up when it’s done and keeps the rice inside warm till you’re ready to eat. And yeah, I linked you to a 5-lb bag of rice, but we buy that shit in 20-lb bulk.

16. And, if you’re still not sure what to get, perhaps you should just purchase the Cool Tools catalog, based on the Cool Tools website put together by Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired. It is chock chock chock chock chock full of really, well, cool tools.

It is also gigantic, which I particularly love.

Though I can’t say that it offers better searchability than the site, I have to say I’ve become engrossed in flipping through the pages quite a few times since it arrived in the mail last week. The inside looks kind of like an old mail-order catalog, but includes useful things like links and QR codes.

And look at that. I promise, it wasn’t on purpose, but it looks like I’m on the office supplies/post-it-note page. Anyway, it’s a fantastic and fun compendium of all things cool.

17. And of course, finally, we couldn’t possibly forget our very own Ten Thousand Stories! If you order from us (HERE) we will be more than happy to sign and/or dedicate your copy – just let us know. And, in case you’re worried we might run out – don’t worry. We have PLENTY to spare.

And, for those of you who have patiently suffered through this long in-depth list, here’s the short version:

1. Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space
2. Tom Gauld’s “You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack”
3. Sugru
4. Blank Russian Nesting Dolls
5. Post-it notes
6. Super cute paper clips and other equally super cute paper clips
7. Stakich Raw Honey
8. The SodaStream seltzer-making machine
9. Japanese Watercolor Set
10. Beautiful tumbled glass jewelry
11. Question and Answer a Day
12. Playing With Sketches
13. A Kiss Before You Go and/or Everyday Matters by Danny Gregory
14. Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
15. Zojirushi Rice Cooker and Kokuho Rose Rice
16. Cool Tools catalog
17. Ten Thousand Stories

And for those of you looking for ideas for kids, have a look over at the Bobbledy Blog for another list of more shit to buy! (One of which is to purchase a Bobbledy Club Membership and get $5 off with coupon code HOLIDAY).

Good luck and a ho, ho ho!! We’re still working on decorating the tree while you do your shopping.