Searching for chemical free and eco-friendly toys

For the last several days I’ve been searching for soft baby blocks that are made of either BPA free plastic or fabric made in the USA. Do you know what an impossible task this is? IMPOSSIBLE. I searched for “made in USA toys” on Amazon and I get a few pages of results, but half of the “toys” are really just bottles or teethers, and the few toys they’ve listed we either have or something like it. I just want some lead free, BPA free blocks that a small baby can play with easily (and not wood). Is that asking too much?

During my search it came to my attention that several of the toys that were gifted to Elise are likely not BPA free, like her favorite monkey with a mirrored tummy. Crap. When I realized this, I decided to do a little more research to see which toys might be BPA free and discovered that Sassy brand toys actually has a BPA free listing of their toys. This got me thinking that all toy companies should have such a section on their site—assuming they have some BPA free toys in their collection, which frankly at this point in the game, everyone should. This is a hot concern for parents right now, so why are toy companies not looking into making their toys a) safer for kids b) eco-friendly?

Fisher-Price, Lamaze Toys, Skip Hop, Carter’s: I’m looking at you. Take all your creative toy and game ideas and start wrapping them in a layer of responsibility. When you do, do yourself and your customers a favor and let them sort your toys by categories that are of likely interest to them (eco-friendly, BPA free, lead free!). When you do, I’ll come back as a customer.

p.s. Even the blocks distributed by Parents Magazine don’t appear to be BPA free. This is the same magazine that often writes articles about how to keep your family safe from toxic chemicals.

This post is part of a month long blogging exercise inspired by Seth Godin.

Doing your customers a favor

A few weeks ago I was heading out of the house with our five month old daughter, Elise. I wanted to take her out in her carrier rather than the stroller as I was running errands around town and it’s easier to get in and out of Brooklyn stores without a giant stroller in tow. I decided to see if Elise weighed enough now to sit in her carrier facing forward (there’s often a weight minimum for facing forward in many carriers), so I did a quick google search for “Cybex Carrier” only to find that the carrier we’ve been carrying our baby around in for the last five months had been recalled! Something to do with faulty buckles. Awesome!

I’m annoyed with Cybex for designing a faulty product, especially when it’s one that people are trusting to carry their baby around in—and let’s not forget Cybex had their share of recalls this year. However, I’m more annoyed with Giggle, the store where the carrier was purchased.

See, we didn’t just walk in and purchase the carrier one day with cash and leave no trace of the purchase—we registered for the item, so there’s a digital history of us receiving this carrier. Knowing that this item was purchased for us and knowing my email from initially registering at the store, why would Giggle not do their customers a favor and email them news about the recall? I wouldn’t blame Giggle for carrying the broken carrier, but I do blame them for not taking the extra step to send an email to customers who may have received this carrier. It would make me believe they truly have the best interest of their customers’ families in mind—specifically the babies for whom all their merchandise is intended. Trusting a brand would certainly encourage me to return to their store in the future.

Small actions can really make an impact on a brand—either negatively (in this case by ignoring this recall and not alerting customers) or positively (by letting your customers know about the hazard). Next time you’re equipped with the information to do your customers a favor, I’d suggest making the extra effort; when you do, you’ll find your customers will be more likely to return to you in the future.

This post is part of a month long blogging exercise inspired by Seth Godin.

An Exercise: Finding inspiration instead of it finding you

Seth Godin recently posted on his blog a great exercise for people looking to find inspiration:

“…start a blog and post once a day on how your favorite company can improve its products or its service. Do it every day for a month, one new, actionable idea each and every day. Within a few weeks, you’ll notice the change in the way you find, process and ship ideas.

I’m not currently looking for inspiration, but I think this is a great exercise for a UX designer. It offers designers a chance to look into the details of an experience and think about how it could be improved.

In two weeks I head back to work after a six month maternity leave. I’m excited to head back to work, but it’s been a few months since I’ve been in the weeds thinking about some of these things. So, for the new few weeks, I am going to give this exercise a try as a way of getting back into UX shape. Stay tuned!

Very Cute Totes and Hobo Bags

I don’t even remember how I came across these tote bags today, as I never shop at Land’s End, but somehow I was directed to their site today and found they have a few really cute tote and hobo bags. Many of them are on sale now to boot!

The Ragtop Snap Tote reminds me so much of the Jack Spade dipped totes which are almost 8 times the price of this one!

Lands’ End Route 63 Snap Tote

Route 63 Canvas Leather Trim Bucket Tote

Women’s Large Suede Snap Tote

I love me a Leather Hobo Bag especially in classic brown. This style also comes in fun colors in the suede version too.

This Suede Bucket Tote comes in a beautiful blue color too, which would be great for fall.

Urban Gardens

We’re doing some work to our garden over the next few weeks that I have been wanting to do since we moved in to our apartment three years ago. Specifically, remove these very strange, out of place, yews that belong more in South Hampton than they do in our Brooklyn garden. They are so healthy and lovely, but they take up so much room in what is an otherwise small yard. Space in Brooklyn is hard to come by and I don’t think we need to hand it over to some very mature, yews that need lots of trimming.

I’ve been researching other urban garden ideas from various landscape architects for inspiration and have come across some great stuff. Here are some spaces I am really loving and trying to find the common denominator in:

from Brook Landscape:

I love this yard, and realized that when I looked at Door Sixteen’s post the other day, that this is the same garden she posted but from a different angle:

From Chicago Gardens:

I love these solar lights in this Pocket Park posted on Mloco a few years ago:

A Cup of Joe posted this lovely garden:

An old favorite belonging to designers Carin Goldberg and Jim Biber:

I’m drooling over all the photos from this townhouse garden round-up on Remodelista. Here are several that really stand out:

And then a ton of inspiration sets on flickr for outdoor rooms. Here’s a good one:

I think what I learned from this collection of photos is that I love modular garden designs with large spaces of green and simple color pooping around the space. Once our garden is sorted out in the next several weeks, I’ll post some photos!

How Sweet is Technology?

I literally cried in happiness when I watched this 8 month old deaf baby’s reaction to his cochlear implant being activated. It’s so, so awesome and makes me wish I had taken an assistive technology class when I was at ITP. (via reddit and Ted Roden).

If that’s Jonathan’s Mom in the video, I don’t know how on earth she kept such composure. I would be sobbing, but then again, I cry easily (as noted earlier ).

New Type York

I am really liking James Patrick Gibson’s blog New Type York. It’s a daily photoblog of typographic artifacts found all around New York City. Living in NYC makes it easy to find wonderful typography all over this wonderful town. Gibson posts images of type found on signs, directions, architecture, etc.

My favorite part about this blog is that he doesn’t just leave the typography to speak for itself, he gives it some context. In some cases, it’s based on location or an establishment’s reputation, while other times it may have some fact related to it’s seasonal nature.

Here are a few recent entries:

Beautiful Prints and Paintings by Kristiana Pärn

Alex and I were very particular about the artwork we picked out for Elise’s room. It’s not very baby like at all. In fact, it’s probably more our style than a child’s, but all the artwork has a subject that a kid would likely enjoy: animals, robots, letters, etc.

While walking around our neighborhood one day, we came across a store called Urban Alchemist. All the items in the store are designed by Brooklyn artists. One of my favorite finds at this design collective was this watercolor/illustration print by Kristiana Pärn. I love the watercolor on wood texture and the whimsical style of the marshmallow trees and sleepy bears.

We liked this one because it went with the style of Elise’s room and who doesn’t love Polar Bears? However, there were so many great prints to choose from, it was a hard choice. Here are a few of my favorites.

If you like Kristiana’s work, check it out at Urban Alchemist in Park Slope, Brooklyn or at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer’s Market on Saturdays where she has recently been setting up a table of her artwork (some even mounted on wood, which looks amazing) or online at Etsy.

Writing on the Walls

After reading The Last Lecture by the late Randy Pausch (a great book if you haven’t read it yet), where Pausch writes about how his parents letting him paint on his bedroom walls made a great impact on how he approached ideas, Alex and I talked about allowing our (then future) children to draw on the walls of their bedrooms as they like. We liked the idea that it would inspire creativity and why not use your walls as your canvas–as long as it stays within their own rooms?

Join the Dots wallpaper allows kids to do exactly that without mucking up the walls, which some parents might not love. It’s interesting in that it has a grid of dots for kids to connect and create designs. While it’s not a blank canvas exactly, it does offer children the opportunity to create something with a little structure. This might be perfect for the budding interaction designer or architect (Hi, Elise!)!

However, I still think it might be easier to repaint a wall repeatedly to create a clean look than it would be to paste and later remove wallpaper.

DIY Eames Hang-It-All Tutorial

As a big fan of the Eames Hang-It-All, I am so, so impressed with Danielle Thompson’s DIY Tutorial to make your own (via Ohdeedoh). It’s fantastic and it doesn’t cost $179, as it does everywhere else.

The original

The DIY version

I tend to shy away from DIY projects that include a drill and spray paint, but I am tempted by this project. If I give it a shot, I’ll definitely post the results here.