Loquat Tree

The loquat tree or Eriobotrya japonica is flowering right now. We have two trees right next to each other. The fruits are usually ripe by early spring. Squirrels go away!

Find us on Abbot Kinney!

By the way did we mention our signature hanging UPO planters and mini vessels are for sale at Ilan Dei Studio in Venice, CA?  If you are local you can pick one up at their store or order one here and here

Hello Gardenista!

Oooh lovely post by Gardenista.  Thank you Izabella :) Article here.

Endeavour over HP

Thank goodness, the heat wave is over!  Welcome fall!  And just washed my car - which means only one thing of course - it rained today!

Oh, we also didn't get to post this major historical moment that happened a couple of weeks ago:

Endeavour Shuttle flyby...over Highland Park!  Oh man, so so cool.

Another Hot Day

Clearly, it's the only thing to do when the temperature hits 105F.

Spring Roll Friday

Cynthia was asking me the other day if I knew how to make spring rolls. I've never tried, because why make it when your filpino mom makes it so much better. Anyhow, this how-to video looks promising.

Happy weekend everyone:)

New Inventory in Etsy shop

We are making some more mini vessels today.  These vessels are one of our popular items.  

It's hard to tell what people are going to end up liking. We think one thing and then we are totally surprised by what ends up happening. We love that unpredictability.

So while were a bit slow on the blog front, we were at least busy making pots! More stuff in our Etsy Shop! Check them out here.

Introducing the Kaldera Series

This vessel is part of our new line in the Kaldera Series. In our shop now.

End of Summer Melt

In LA, it is hot. And humid too. Can you tell?

Favorite Bowl

I love this bowl. It's the one I look in the cabinet for when I want a bowl of cereal, oatmeal, soup, rice, fruit, ice cream. And there's nothing really special with it but just a happy accident with a couple of glazes (glossy white and Vegas red and black oxide.  And it got glazed fired twice (because I didn't like it the first time).

It's an imperfect bowl just like its owner.

Vampiro

Sorry, we had a brief hiatus with the blog. We got busy with the summer and all that it brings - heat, summer school, going out, staying in, barbqs, short getaways, having fun, etc.  OK and we got a little lazy too. Sometimes the best solution for uninspiredness is stepping away. So that's what we did. And now we're back!

Here's a pic of what I drank yesterday.  I was picking up some pizza from the Folliero's in Highland Park and passed by a juice shop, La Palapa.  I ordered the "Vampiro". Now I know why it's named that. It's orange juice, carrot juice and beet juice.  Warning: do not wear anything white when you drink this.  And don't be surprised when you go to the bathroom! I had a brief moment of "what the...?!#! 

Oh yes, the beet juice.

It was a delicious drink, sweet, sour, salty.  Next time I'm going for "Diablito" which is juice, mango ice cream, chili, melons and a chili stick.  Now that's a drink.

Pie Fact

After a busy week, we deserved a treat.  All better now.

Happy weekend :)

Bartering is Not Dead

Just some of the stuff we came home with from the Unique LA show. We bartered one of our planted pots with our neighbor vendor, COATT, in exchange for two of her sweet morse code silk necklaces.  Above is COEUR, french for heart and the bottom one is FINE. 

Happy weekend :)

Scenes from Unique LA Summer Show

The Academy

Peddler's Creamery

My Little Pony and PUTIKMADE

Ice cream from the Coolhaus Truck

Booth in action

Hey, that's our hanging upo in the LA Weekly!

Craziness at the photo booth

Massage!

More photos of the show at Unique LA's flickr site here

Unique LA Afterglow

Our Unique LA Summer Show is over but our heads are still spinning days after.  Doing the show is an intense experience. Add up the dizzying acts of setting up and taking down, being surrounded by thousands of people over two days, the loud non stop thump of dj music, to meeting very many people. 


We made some cool new friends over at our neighboring booths, COATT, Tiny Whales,The Academy, and We Are All Smith just to name a few. Such awesome vendors who chatted with us, gave us encouragement and thoughtful tips on how, we, the newbies at the show, could make our booth a success.


We played around with the layout of our booth after we started noticing the traffic patterns. 10' x 10' seems like a big enough space but once you get all your furniture in, it becomes a design challenge.  Fortunately, we had a corner space (score!) so we were able to spread out more than those squeezed in between two booths.


Our customers.  They're the best!  We love chatting with you and love to hear your ideas on what you'll be using the pots for. An illustrator based in Eagle Rock bought 3 hanging pots to decorate the front of his home and had some ideas to snip his neighbor's overgrown succulents.  We love it.


And at the very last minute, Sonja Rasula, creator of the Unique Shows, came to our booth and bought a mini vessel from us!  How freakin' cool is that?! By the way, this was the best event to people watch! Being a part of the largest independent design show in the country is awesome.

3, 2, 1....Taking off at Barker Hangar!

We prepped onsite at the Barker Hangar for the Unique LA Summer Show today. What a cool place! It's literally right by the runway so you see planes taking off every so often - yeah, it's loud too!

We've had some improvements on our booth since our first show. New signage and the addition of some display cubes. The only issue we ran into were ideas on the background to use (instead of settling for the drab pipe and drape that is already there) but none of them really blew our minds. Then late today Cynthia came up with an awesome idea. And its eco-friendly and totally recyclable and reusable. We've never seen this done before so we're excited! Always interesting how great ideas come at the 11th hour. So we'll be working like busy bees right before the show to get it up. We'll post pics next week. Hope to see you at the show!

Happy weekend:)

Unique LA Show Prep

Getting ready for our big Unique LA weekend at The Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. They estimate between 10,000 to 12,000 attendees showing up. Whew - that's a sizable crowd looking for handmade goods!

Hopefully, there will be some people looking for some handmade pottery love. We'll be in booth #201. 

Dwelling on Design

As we prep for the Unique LA show happening this weekend we are looking at images, materials and drawings for our booth design. A few weeks have passed since the Dwell on Design show in LA and we wanted to share some of the pieces we found to be most inspirational. We were scouting out forms, textures, building materials and furniture that had a variety of applications. 

This wire and cord sculpture titled Screenplay designed by Oyler Wu Collaborative is stunning and we were immediately attracted to its shapes and patterns. 

 

The children in our group loved this furniture designed by Bespoke Creative and so did we. Colorful and elegant simple forms.

We want this lounge chair in our garden and deck. The Cord Collection by Ilan Dei Studio is perfectly minimalist, comfortable and made locally here in Los Angeles. Look out for the opening of their new store in Venice.

                                                     

We had a lot of ideas of what we could do with this biodegradable material by ECOR. We loved it!

The students from Southern California Institute of Architecture (sci-arc) had a display of project plans and studies. We loved this one because it was interactive. We didn't get the name of the designer, but if you know it please post it.

Unique LA - Vendor Talk

We attended the vendor meeting for Unique LA summer show in downtown LA over the weekend and creator Sonja Rasula had a slide presentation and talk.  Some slides that made us smile:

http://stateofunique.com/2012/04/inspiring-presentation-images/ 

http://stateofunique.com/2012/04/inspiring-presentation-images/

PUTIKMADE is so honored to be featured on Unique LA's summer show promotional postcards! That's so cool:)

Which brings us to announcing PUTIKMADE will have a booth at the 2nd Annual Unique LA Summer Show. 150+ local designers and artists will be selling their lovely wares!

Unique LA - Summer Show
July 14 +15 11 am to 6 pm (both days)
The Barker Hangar, Santa Monica

Urban Rancho - Noches! Roundup

We were at the Urban Rancho - Noches on Friday evening. It was a community event filled with farm animals, crafts, food, music, art and garden workshops, and incredibly nice people. We stuffed our faces with fry bread and chili and cupcakes and chips and salsa, and lemonade. In between stuffing our faces, we worked a little bit, too.  

Special thanks to Katherine Parra and the rest of the UR organizers for the fun filled event!

It's Cool to be Nice

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Proof-Bakery/209020055804290

Our sentiments exactly! Street art sign that popped up in front of Proof Bakery, Atwater Village.

We'll be at Urban Rancho - Noches! in Highland Park tonight. Hope to see you there. Happy weekend everyone:)

Urban Rancho - A Sustainable Garden Party

PUTIKMADE will be at the Urban Rancho - A Sustainable Garden Party in Highland Park next Friday! 

June 22, 5 to 9 pm

 Sycamore Grove Park 

4701 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles