the studio / for those random bits we'd love to share
icff 2013
This year we exhibited at the National Stationary Show, and were happy to share the Javits Center in NYC with the International Contemporary Furniture Fair! We had a chance to check it out, and couldn’t help but share some of our favorite finds.
Believe it or not, this is a hot tub. Weltevree, the design firm, calls it the “dutch tub”, and it is a portable wood-fired hot tub that weighs only 165 lbs. We loved the audacious and vibrant look of the tub, and left their booth hungry for adventure....and guacamole.
This clever clock by Biegert & Funk speaks for itself. If you’re one of those who struggles with telling time, this clock literally spells it out for you! We loved this modern, unique take on the traditional clock.
Molo is one of our all-time favorite design studios. Everything in their booth is absolutely beautiful, and is so minimal and cloud-like.
These chairs by Ergo Ergo are so playful and fun, they made the booth look like a jungle gym. And they were even more fun in use. Like a yoga ball, you can rock gently to get a workout while sitting.
We’ve always been a huge fan of the Random Lamp by Bertjan Pot. It was super fun to see so many at one time.
juicing
With summer nipping at our heels, we thought we’d get a jump start by making some juice. Using a blender and our produce bags as a strainer, we had fresh juice in minutes. Our favorite was a combo of watermelon and cucumber.
a day in the life
7:32 hit the trails for an early morning run 8:28 pack up snacks for work 8:41 hop on my bike for a glorious commute 12:05 indian take out for lunch 5:30 stock up on groceries 6:27 cleaning up after play-time 6:51 a little game of catch with scruffy 7:15 now necessary load of laundry 7:47 hanging to dry in the evening sun
new wheels
We're loving our new wheels. Eva's Dad runs an art studio next door, and was kind enough to build us our new work table. Best of all, the table is on wheels making it a snap to reconfigure our office. Most of the time, we need the large work table to sort our our active projects, but other times, we just want some open space, and away the table goes. Eva pointed out that we even have enough open space now to do a cartwheel.
picking colors
Picking colors for our latest project. Hmm, Pantone 383C , 382C or maybe 324C? How will we ever pick from so many pretty colors.
product pairings
With the holidays just around the corner, we’re scurrying to put together just the right gifts. This year, we’re doing our best to pair off the shelf products with a handmade element to lend a personal touch. Here are three that are sure to delight while wowing the receiver with your amazing handiwork.
1. felt pod planter + small succulent
Easy and green! Plant a small succulent in a f&t felt pod for a soft and lively gift.
2. hooknook + a pair of mittens
For those of you that are a bit more ambitious, get out your knitting needles for this handcrafted pair that’s sure to keep cold fingers warm this winter.
3. a set of produce bags + favorite recipe
Add a bit of cheer to the weekly grocery trip with a set of produce bags. Couple that with some culinary inspiration from a secret family recipe.
happy halloween
TRICK or TREAT!!! With a little paint and some magic, our pumpkins are dressed up for a fun Halloween.
sf bag ban
We love using re-usable bags to go shopping, bring lunch to work, or carry clothes to the gym. It makes life easier by keeping everything in one tidy place! Bans on plastic bags are sweeping the country and have been implemented in over 49 cities around the nation with our home town of San Francisco joining the movement this month. At the beginning of October, San Francisco instituted a new plastic bag ban on all retailers in San Francisco County, a pretty significant step in taking on its goal of being a zero-waste city by 2020.
With the new plastic bag ban in effect, paper bags are now used in place of plastic bags from grocery stores, restaurants and retailers, big and small, for a charge of $0.10 a bag. Given the water, energy, and natural resources that single use paper bags consume, we’re hoping that consumers will skip the paper too, and move on to reusables.
Based on other bag bans, the outlook is promising. In Portland, the use of reusable bags went up 304% in the first year. To ease the transition here in San Francisco, the city is donating 17,000 reusable bags to residents through their multi-lingual citywide consumer education campaign. Hopefully this new ban will be a success and encourage people to consider their environmental impact while discovering how useful reusables bags can be!
Worker B
We’re back from the Atlanta Gift show. Thanks to everyone that was able to come by and visit us! One of our favorite things about the shows is talking to other vendors and hearing their stories. At this show, we were lucky enough to have Michael Sedlacek of
Worker B
pay us a visit.
With just 3 employees, Worker B has a really impressive line of bee related skincare. Worker B sources entirely locally through a network of beekeepers. Apparently, Worker B got it’s start when Michael’s business partner Liesa Helfen grew wary of working in the pastry industry, and left to help out at an apiary. While there, Liesa noticed that the beeswax that she handled on a daily basis left her skin supersoft. An idea was born to make use of the local contacts she had now developed. She enlisted the help of Michael, and the duo got their start with bee based skincare.
Here’s a shot of Michael proudly posing in front of his sign.
Worker B has a pretty short list of natural ingredients that make up each of their products. Just 3 ingredients carefully concocted to make up their putty.
And could their t-shirts “bee” any cuter?
After our visit to Michael’s booth, he left us a nice surprise in our hooknooks. Thanks Michael!
almond milk
Just found another handy use for our produce bags. I switched over recently to almond milk, and while I've been relying on those handy cartons, a customer recently mentioned that I could easily make my own. Turns out, it's pretty easy, and our produce bags make a great strainer for separating the pulp from the liquid. Here's a quick rundown of the steps if you want to try it out.
1. Soak a cup of almonds in water for about 8 hours.
2. Strain almonds and place in blender with roughly 2 cups of water. Blend until smooth. Add another 2 cups of water. Blend again until smooth.
3. Using a produce bag or cheesecloth, strain the blended almonds. You'll want to squeeze slowly to fully separate the liquid "milk" from the pulp.
4. Ta Da! You're officially done. I add a couple drops of rose essence at the end, but you could add vanilla, or any other flavoring if you'd like to. And what to do with the pulp? Check out this
website for turning your pulp into other goodies.
earth day
It's almost Earth Day, and this year we're celebrating with a contest to raise money for the
National Park Foundation.
The Park Foundation does some amazing work to help preserve our natural habitat. Put on your wordsmithing hats and head over to our
Facebook
page to check out details.
Spring Cleaning Contest!
We're having a sunny start to spring, and with spring comes spring cleaning! This contest is for those of you who are busting at the seams to show off your tidying skills. Post a pic of your most organized area on our
Facebook contest
to win. Winner gets 3 hooknooks just hankering for a home. You've got a week to snap your shot. We select a lucky winner on Mar 27th. Good luck!
Please note that this contest is limited to the continental US.
v-tines
It's almost v-tines! Our hooknooks are happily hiding little surprises.
favorite things
After the New York Gift tradeshow we just attended, I've got the Sound of Music song rattling around in my head. "These are a few of my favorite things..." Needless to say, we definitely found some new favorites.
I came across COLORS, headed by Masaya Akiyama. They had some neat lego-like blocks made from scrap materials such as green tea, sawdust, or coffee, complete with subtle smells of their make-up. Here's a pile of them just itching to be assembled.
What really caught my eye though was their wood and silk shoes modelled below in their new state by Yu and Shohei.
That was the before pic. I like the after pick even more. Apparently, the owner Masaya had his in pretty good condition for years until he decided to play a game of soccer in them. Love the weathered, earthy, yet sophisticated look of these.
Just a few stalls down from us, Arian from OOTS just introduced these Dutch doll designs. Not your run of the mill soft toys, these have a quirky warmth to them. My personal favorite is the one on the right, but I find them all uber-lovable.
We didn't get a pic of these aim and shoot lamps since we were too busy playing in their booth. Fortunately,
Apartment Therapy
did a really good writup so you can still check it out. The on/off for these lamps with the remote makes a nice crisp "click" sound and the head of the lamp falling over seals the deal making this a ridiculously satisfying experience.
One of our most whimsical finds of the show came from Sarah at Cavern wallpaper. They had a googly-eye paper completed with faces and other critters by passerby's. We couldn't resist adding to the collection.
holiday tree
We got our tree up at f&t! It's a wee one and we decked it out in pompoms this year. We're thinking way ahead and looking for ideas for dressing it up next year. Sign up on our Facebook page page to enter your suggestion. On Dec 16th, we'll pick our favorite and send a red f&t bag out to the winner!
one more!
We had 5 lucky winners who figured out that we’re launching hooknooks, a fun new hook and storage device. Just 8 days left and we’re launching these along with one other mystery product! To roll out this next one, we’re doing another guessing contest. Here’s a clue above. Like in the pic shown, the product is food related, but we’ve taken the product out of context to make it a bit more fun.
Give us your best guess as to what the product does, and a lucky first five winners to guess correctly will win one (again, consumers only). Goto our Facebook page and signup to enter a guess.
guess again
It’s a bird, it’s a plane .. it’s a new f&t product! They’re almost here, 2 new flip & tumble products will be available in 2 weeks. As we get ready to launch, we’re running another guessing game. This time, guess what product we’re rolling out. We’ve taken a pic above to give you a clue. We’ve abstracted the product a bit to keep you on your toes. To enter a guess, sign up on our Facebook page.
The first five people to guess right will win one (consumers only, for all you stores that have had a sneak peek already, mum’s the word on this one). Good luck!
guessing game
We're ringing in the fall season with a giveaway! We're enjoying the leaves, the crisp air, and the pumpkins,
both big and little. Hope you are too :)
Whether you're in the spirit or not, come join us for a fall inspired
guessing game. Give us your best guess for how many flip & tumble bags we've got in the container above. We're
not limiting this one. Everyone who gets it right wins 3 flip & tumble 24-7 bags. To enter sign up on our Facebook page
and leave a comment. Guess before Monday October 10th, and we'll announce the count and winners then. Happy
guessing!
new friends, cool products!
We’ve been exhibiting at the New York International Gift Fair for several years now and one of most fun parts is taking a stroll to check out great stuff by fellow entrepreneurs.
d-torsohad my all time favorite, I would love to have, product. Yup, it’s a life size cardboard cow. Not sure exactly what I’d do with it, but I really, really want one! They had a giant giraffe too, and smaller versions of everything from penguins to pigs. After showing off the line, Ayaka swung by our booth with her cat in hand.
I love home products, but furniture has a special place in my heart, and these wireframe chairs by bend
definitely didn't dissapoint. The clean little graphics on the card make me want to collect them all.
And a just a little more of the furniture related. It’s cubo by cerno
, a sconce and a reading lamp, depending on how you position the arm. As if the gorgeous form along weren’t enough, this little light-up is powered by LED. Beautiful and green. I also couldn’t help snapping up a couple of Cerno’s wood and concrete business cards. There’s something wonderfully tactile about these as compared to the standard paper ones.
hug a tree
Hug a tree, save a forest. It's simple, from now till midnight PST on April 22nd 2011, snap a pic of you hugging your favorite tree. Post your shot on our Facebook page, and for every hug we'll donate a $1 to the Rainforest Foundation. We'll also be picking 5 lucky winners who will each receive 3 flip & tumble bags. Limit one entry per person. Get hugging!
hangtag home
With spring underway, we decided to tackle a mini spring cleaning project to swap out our deteriorating hangtag holder. Our old solution, cobbled together with paper and a few staples, was busting at its stapled seems. Our new furry felt holder with colorful tabs holds a lot more and makes it a joy to put each tag in its rightful home.
whoo hoo!
Our little 24-7 bags made it into NYMOMA. We slogged through the sleet to pay them a little visit during our recent trip out for the NY Gift Show. Like proud mamas, we couldn't help but snap a few quick pics to share.
sunny day!
The sun has finally poked its head out to visit us! With so many cold rainy days in the past few weeks we were delighted to get outside and play.
holiday tree
With all the rainy weather, we decided to take some time out to focus on some holiday merriment. Somehow gathering around to decorate a tree just warms the cockles of our hearts. Rather than embrace the traditional ornamentation, we kept it simple and decked out our wee little tree with pom poms. We like how they give the office a snowy winter wonderland feel. Our felt owl ornament keeps watch.
littlest friends
Carry pouches: The perfect sleeping bag for your smallest friends.
it’s a mini!
Mini-cupcakes, mini-skirts, mini-m&m’s. Some things are just more fun, and definitely a lot cuter in their scaled down mini form.
We’ve taken all the same features of our regular 24-7 bag and scaled them down to come up with this mini-taskic tote.
We love it for lunch. Once you’ve gobbled up all your lunchtime goodies, it scrunches down to a wee little wonder small enough to stash out of your way.
p.s. - Thanks to Emily at our factory for sharing the pic on the right. Multiple minis most certainly make for more merriment.
AmDC
We were pretty excited to come across the
American Design Club
at the NY Gift Show this summer. The AMDC is pretty different in that they’re a collective of individual designers each bringing their own designs to market.
Aside from their mission to help heighten awareness for emerging designers, we had to love that they’re a “Club”. Brings back memories of building treehouses, and secret initiations. Their stuff definitely lives up to the fun memories they invoke.
We spied bright poppy jewelry pieces, a neat blobby photo holder, and my personal favorite, simple, clever “yes/no” books.
foodie photo winner
We’ve got our foodie photo winner! It’s Julie Thompson with her curly pops fresh from the freezer and packed full of summer goodness. There’s nothing like an ice cold pop to bring back those memories of lazy hot summer afternoons as kid.
We also want to thank everyone else who sent in their summer foodie finds!
foodie photo contest
Ah, sweet melons, juicy nectarines, and succulent strawberries. Got to love summer’s bounty.
We’ve got a little incentive to make sure you’re taking the time to enjoy all the goodness that summer has to offer by giving you a chance to win some free flip & tumble bags.
1. You dish up your favorite summer food delight 2. Snap a pic of the dish in it’s full sunlit glory 3. Send it into us at foodie@flipandtumble.com by Aug 20th, 2010
Best pic wins and receives three 24-7 bags to match your meal. Make it pretty and eat well!
ahhh space.
We've left our old digs for good! This weekend we moved into our very own studio space with a view of the Berkeley hills, and lots more space. Some of our favorite new things�
Thanks Eva's dad for our mitered cedar wall. We know it's just a wall, but we can't help but caress it every time we walk by.
Our handmade housewarming present from Emily at our factory reminds us to smile everyday.
Scrounged up from the as-is section of our favorite Swedish furniture retailer, our worktable gives us plenty of room to spread our mess.
Squircles are fun, squircle lights are funner.
A bright skylit window for the succulents.
uber green
We're painting our latest project green. Check back soon to see what it is!
Earth Day Giveaway!
Earth Day is just around the corner and it's the perfect opportunity to look around and assess what we're using and what we're not. Turns out, we've been sitting on a pretty decent sized pile of bags that's not getting used. Shame on us, but you can be a lucky beneficiary since we're running a contest to divvy up the stash between 5 winners. Just email us a quick hello along with your address information to contest@flipandtumble.com before the 22nd. We'll notify the winners on Earth Day, and get a nice little package on its way!
Sunny shopper
Since spring is in the air, we're taking this as an opportunity to take our newest bag out and about. It's the perfect excuse for soaking in the good weather, warm sunlight, and fresh grass underfoot.
corrugated cases
Just finished gluing up our spiffy new corrugated laptop cases, just in time for our trip to Chicago.
cute as a cupcake
With Valentine's Day coming up, we couldn't resist. We found the perfect little home for an f&t ball nestled in with these delectable delights.
Flora Grubb
We visited Flora Grubb this weekend ogling over all their unique arid plants and beautifully designed displays. As you might already know we here at flip & tumble are just a little obsessed with felt so we were pretty excited when we came across these massive felt planters. They're fuzzy sides looked they were about to burst!
Best of all tucked in the back of this place is a little gem, Ritual Roasters coffee shop. With cups of perfectly brewed coffee in hand we took a seat on their patio and bathed in the sun while taking in the view of their vertical succulent wall. This is one of our favorite places to go; it's so serene and peaceful, like a mini vacation every time we visit.
2009 eco-thrift gift guide
We've been busy in the studio checking in with our favorite designers for their top eco thrift gift ideas. We've got everything from gifts you grow to fluffies you sew, and we're excited to finally launch all the top ideas that made the cut in our official
2009 eco-thrift gift guide.
Check it out and also look out for how you can score some
free f&t shopping bags.
SF open studios
Just had a chance to check out ArtSpan's Open Studio tour in SF. Seeing the artist's work was great, but more than that I loved seeing other peoples creative spaces sprinkled with little tidbits of inspiration, ideas, and other personal treasures. Seeing all these paints made us want to add just a few hundred more colors to our bag palette. ArtSpan's tour is going on for just one more weekend, so check it out if you're in SF.
gobble, gobble, gobble
No, it's not Thanksgiving yet, but this pic reminds me of Pac Man. Keep your produce bag ready for action by scrunching one along with your 24-7 bag.
fun theory
A theory we love and hope will spread. Something all of us could use more of.
wrap it!
Start saving paper, scraps of cloth, bottle caps and other odds end ends as the holidays approach. Many of the things we throw away can be used for some creative and unique wrapping jobs come December.
sunny seattle
Just got back from a great time in Seattle! We visited Post alley to check out the wall of gum, it was kind of gross but a really cool texture.
SAM had a great exhibit, Target Practice, about artists who have literally attacked their canvases to escape from more traditional painting methods. There was a neat piece by Yoko Ono,
Painting to Hammer a Nail, where visitors were invited to hammer nails into a canvas. A few short weeks later visitors began to hang up little notes and other daily objects, basically transforming the piece from cold and harsh to a more personable show of community. It's always interesting to see what the public creates when given the chance.
woody
flip & tumble has a new furry friend over at bagsy it, our new UK distributor. Check out Woody's
post on their blog!
ooh! designer prints
If you've been poking around the f&t website lately, you may have noticed a couple new prints. We like to think we're pretty good with the design thing, but we can't take the credit for these. We were lucky enough to pair up with some great designers who helped us out. Marty-May Masek's a local, from right here in Northern California that is. The inspiration for the bike print came from the birds that flew overhead as Marty peddled away on her bike. We like her print because it reminds us that just taking a relaxing ride in the fresh summer air is totally productive.
Our second designer, Karoly, hails all the way from Hungary. Karoly is a whiz at somehow taking the free flowing, creative side of graffiti, and blending it with the structure and clean lines of typography. We love how it all comes out fun, a bit abstract, and completely modern.
just in!
The produce bags are here! We've been on the road at tradeshows so we haven't a chance to give them a whirl at the market, but we did find them to be the perfect little totables for all the business cards we collected. For more pics, check out the shop page.
loose lemons
Wondering what we've been working on lately? We've been busy reigning in those loose lemons. We felt pretty silly taking plastic produce bags, or trying to juggle a dozen pluots on our way to the checkout. Poor bruised pluots. Coming soon, we're coming out with a set of reusable produce bags perfect for keeping all those fruits and veggies together and tidy. Here we come, pluots, lemons, pears, broccoli, and all you succulent little pieces of produce!
expandos
We're pretty lucky that you can squish, squeeze, drop, and smush our bags and they'll still keep tumbling along good as new, but for those products that need a little cushioning when they're being shipped, we think these Expandos provide a pretty clever packing solution. Made from flat sheets of cardboard, these little doodads go through a
special machine
to take on their nifty 3-d forms.
super mini!
Off to tradeshows we go! flip & tumble is heading to Altanta, LA, SF, and Seattle. Designing the booth is the perfect excuse for making little furniture and reliving dollhouse fun.
lazy on a budget
Chock full of green tips that are both easy and affordable, we're definitely digging Josh's new book,
The Lazy Environmentalist on a Budget.
We love it because'
1) we're all about being lazy, especially when we can be green and lazy at the same time.
2) love the green lazyboy logo
3) Josh likes our bags, and maybe it's the vanity in us, but we like people who like our bags.
square + circle = squircle
Wondering what we've been up to? Well all work and no play makes for boring f&t'ers, so we've been playing with fun, colorful shapes transforming them into bold, modern prints for the bags. Lookout for a limited release soon.
sweet!
25lbs, an f&t bag and Martha Stewart! Check out the
clip to see.
meet our new friend!
We just discovered toddland and we're in love! A pretty impressive feat considering that it�s a men's clothing store and flip & tumble's mancount is zero. But how can you not love them? toddland's got rainbows, burros, kittens, and all things good. They've got a great
website
that we just couldn't get enough of, so we made them answer some more questions for us. Here are the highlights.
---------------------------
1. What's your favorite piece of Toddland clothing and why?
- well its kind of like kids. you can't pick a favorite (even though its totally the jumpsuit)
---------------------------
2. Is there any piece of clothing you would love to sell on Toddland, but is just a little too out there?
- nothing is too out there. even as we speak we are booking tickets to Holland to get some wooden clog rollerskates made. we are also in development on gloves that look like sandwiches. that way you can wear them and someone will go, "hey, put down that sandwich." and you'll "go, i can't" and they'll go "why?" and you'll go "cuz these are attached to my hands." sandwich gloves. they're the next piano key necktie.
---------------------------
3. Who's your hero?
- there's a couple...
- 1. you (or whoever is reading this answer)
- 2. jerry mitchell from the movie three o'clock high. microwaves his laundry AND a poptart.
- 3. charles. he's always in charge. unlike that low life lembeck.....
- 4. the two old guys in the muppet show balcony.
---------------------------
bot-mobile
Felt, 'bots, and recycled materials. Can't get much better than that. When we discovered that Joann's carries a felt made from recycled bottles, we had to put this soft, fun, felty goodness to work.
This one's getting gifted to Eva's new little niece Milo, but Eva was kind enough to share her
how to's.
colors are here!
whoo hoo! lots of new colors.
d.school...new space
We're superlate on this posting, but we couldn't resist posting it anyway.
We went back to check out the new
d.school
space, and spied some pretty nifty personal statements.
---Lauren Milroy setup 30 jars smushed with random everyday objects. Lesson learned, wasabe in a jar, not so appetizing.
---Nifty furnishings by Peter Russo made out of the free stuff on craigslist.
---A night sky light beam installation by Joe Mellin. Pretty spectacular on this misty night.
our story
There we were once again at the checkout surrounded by the comforting yellow and blue of good old IKEA. We were quickly jolted out of our stupor when we spotted those .59 cent blue bags and had another one of those, 'oh !@#$ I forgot my reusable shopping bag' moments.
Sure the upside of being designers is that we're good at sporting fun new kicks and usually we can pull off those weird thick black eyeglass frames, but the downside is that little things that don't quite seem to work rattle around our in heads bugging us for a solution.
Was the whole IKEA situation just a matter of shoppers getting distracted with thoughts of KLIPPAN couches and TINDRA tealights? Were we really the only ones forgetting our bags?
We started asking friends/family/random strangers more about their reusable shopping bag habits. We got some strange looks, but ended up learning that most people in our area owned reusable bags, but they just weren't getting used. They were too difficult to remember. There were too many unplanned shopping trips. Overall, it was just too hard.
Armed with a sticky problem, we felt that a simple solution would be to have a bag that you could keep with you all the time. For us, that meant that it had to be super-stashable for a messenger bag or purse, and it had to be stylish enough that you wouldn't feel like a dork if you were heading out for a night of tapas and tango with friends.
The design also needed to be supereasy to compact. We like our origami, but we didn't want to be folding any cranes after a long day of shopping. We played with all kinds of ways of compacting something big into something little, but ultimately took our cue from sockballs, those balls formed from rolling your socks and stretching the end over. Our final design uses a stretchy pouch that's attached to the bag and works pretty much the same way.
who are we?
At heart, we're designers. We like taking those pesky, annoying problems, and finding clever, simple, and joyful solutions. We (Hetal & Eva) met while attending
Stanford University's Product Design
graduate program where we created everything from kites that flew in the clear blue sky, to pumpkins that cast a scary glow on Halloween night. We graduated and quickly figured out that the standard 9-5 hohum wasn't working for us, so we took the leap and started flip & tumble.
