the horizon

as the holidays fast approach, we are also gearing up for some exciting new challenges here at o'suz. sometime in november we are planning to launch, with the help of ordertopia of charlottesville, our first online shopping cart!! yes, you who might want to peruse some of our offerings or better yet, order them from us will be able to do just that. we will begin by offering up just a sampling of goods and then expand as we feel our virtual shop needs grow. there will be zents scents and soaps and a few of our best selling archipelago candles. we will be selling a few of our favorite current book titles and paper lines as well as some planners and calendars for 2010.we will also have some things for tots and those hard to buy for menfolk in your life as well as some beautiful goods for the ladies. it will seem like just a drop in the bucket in comparison to all that the shop offers, but it's a start. we will announce when and how to get to the online cart as soon as all the work to get it up and running smoothly is done. stay tuned. we will also plan to email all who have signed our email list with this same link!!!!
xo
suz

Halloween!

Halloween is quickly approaching, and we're feeling pretty festive here at O'Suz...

cuz who doesn't love a holiday that involves sweets AND a sense of humor!

a peak at our window display: Bla blas in their halloween costumes (check out those masks and capes), Bone Soup, and Nikki McClure tee

mcnuuty the squirrel is going as a mummy this year, and hanging out with a big collection of our halloween rubber stamps in the window

More of our rubber stamps, great for diy decorating and card making

Some of our favorite halloween cards (clockwise from top): Dee & LaLa giraffes in costume, Halloween card by Fiddlesticks, Happy Halloween by Papered Together, and Trick or Treat by Claudia Laub

And how can we forget the Cavallini Glittery Halloween Greetings Postcard set



and what halloween post would be complete without some
sort of child infusion. these are of redford, in his bat leggings, last year at this very time, when he was but 10 months. he is such a big boy now....


love that toosh!

for the love of owls....

As anyone who has stepped foot inside the shop has probably noticed, we have a huge love for owls of all shapes and sizes. They have been flocking in from all over as they know they will find a good home at o'suz. they are friendly and useful and beautiful and mysterious and just plain lovely. come see...

brass owls by Two's Company

Roost owl lamp and owl coasters

by studio vertu

          Two's Company pitcher and Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds by Sam Keen

Kotobuki salt and pepper shakers

New Screech Owl Winking Owl card

girl of all work spiral notepad

And just in! Owl Heads Eco Wallet from Fluffy Co.

Holztiger Wooden Animal Friends

soon after redford was born, his auntie jessica brought him a most adorable wooden fox that she picked up on a trip to new york. if it was not reds favorite toy at the time, it sure was mine(mind you, he was only months old). the fox was made by holztiger, a line we now carry and adore! Holztiger is a German company that specializes in handcrafted wooden toys and figures, and we absolutely go nuts over their collection of forest creatures in particular. Each little critter is painted with extreme detail, using only non-toxic water-based paints. Perfect for kids over 3 years and pretty much any adult...

a rabbit with its ears cocked

a cute little hedgie
(needless to say this was our fave)

a wise owl

a skunky

a mischievous raccoon
a sweet fawn (coming soon)


a tiny mole

a perky squirrel


and if the above images do not make your heart pitter patter look at how cute these are!
our sweet friend and customer april sent us these of where their animals now live.
all i can say is that is one inhabited forest and those are some lucky critters!

yardsale at suz's!!!

okay peeps,
i am having another yardsale at my house next saturday and some of you lovely ladies came last time and scored ( and i hope had some fun). please write to the blog or swing by the shop if your interested in coming out. .....purging lots of goodies for the home, accessories and for those of you with babies, here now or down the road, there will be lots of baby things!!

also, the october post may become the november post as we are waiting on some pictures to come from the artist. stay tuned for our calendar/planner post though!!!
xo,
suz

stay tuned for october love it!

hello peeps! stay tuned for our october love it post featuring one of our favorite stationery lines, pearl & marmalade! we're just running a little behind because we've been so BUSY in the store getting big boxes of fall goodies in the door and sending fun gifties out the door with you!

whales...

...are migrating into o'suz. what, whales you ask? well, i'll tell you. when jessica and i were in new york we fell hard for the whales in the jonathan adler booth. we just had to have them...and now we do. they finally came today!!!!

ushering in autumn

as we, at o'suz, usher in autumn, we also seem to be ushering in some new jewelry artisans with it. no better time, as we were ready for some fresh adornments at our counter! here are just 2 of many new lines awaiting your notice.
megan auman resides in Jonestown, Pennsylvania, where she maintains a studio making sculpture and jewelry. Her work explores the floral patterns found in textiles and decorative ironwork. megan employs a torch welding technique to create her steel jewelry and sculpture.

we also have some of her earirngs in the shop!!

pyrrha designs is based in vancouver where all their work is made. they take their name from the myth of pyrrha and deucalion, a story of 2 young lovers who are the sole survivors of a catastrophic flood. each seal expresses symbolic sentiment through the casting of authentic 19th century wax seals.

the bee seal says mon ami ("my friend" in french). bees are symbolic of wisdom.

the fidelity seal reads fidele en absence (french for "faithful in absence').

the leaf seal reads e ne change qu'on mourant (french for "i change only in death").

the wings and wheat seal is symbolic of protection (the wings) and the achievement of pnes hopes and dream (the wheat).

the carpe diem seal reads carpe diem which means sieze the day in latin.

lots more seal necklaces in the shop plus some of their stunning bracelets.

super duper supermaggie!!!

you may or may not remember, back in the day, when we carried supermaggie!
no mind, either way, as a new shipment of her wears has just arrived to remind us all of her talent. hot off the presses, these are a few styles we have in the shop, waiting and ready to be snatched up!

there is also a most lovely octopus onesie for wee ones.

september love it...polli!

we discovered australian jewelry designers polli about two years ago, and we continue to be charmed by their amazingly intricate necklaces and earrings. the body of each piece is laser cut in stainless steel, which means it's strong, lightweight, and also stays nice and shiny no matter how much you wear it! (fyi, the hooks and chains are sterling silver.) we were first drawn to the line by their iconic elm necklace, pictured below, and in the past few seasons, they've introduced some more playful designs, like the cute little hoot owl. (you know how we feel about owls!) we love polli products, and not surprisingly, tess and maja are super awesome ladies -- they've increased our australian vocabulary significantly and also send painfully yummy chocolate candies in their shipments.

one of our best sellers, the succulents; new terrace earrings with two different houses, one of which is modeled on the house in which polli was born (see if you can find the tiny dog, alfie); new feather earrings (all en route as we speak!)

this was my first piece of polli, the canopy necklace, which you must come visit in order to see all the detail. after i'd had it for a few weeks i realized there were tiny birds! and what i thought was a curly-tailed monkey! i was later informed by tess that my 'monkey' was actually an australian possum, which as far as i'm concerned, makes this even more awesome. that's one of our favorite things about the designs, that they are so firmly rooted in the visual world around them, and that tess and maja are able to incorporate these tiny details of their environment into the works. speaking of the environment, polli was recently awarded the low CO2 rating by the carbon reduction institute, and they are working hard to be no CO2 by 2010. yay! maja and tess, who will be a new mama very, very soon, agreed to answer our usual questions. enjoy, and see you soon!

interior of polli studio

what were your first jobs and how did you end up working in jewelry design?

Maja and I both worked at Dinosaur Designs at various stages through school and university. It was an inspiring experience as we were exposed to many different facets of a design company who manufactured locally and exported worldwide. We met at university in 1999 studying Industrial Design. After graduating we started working for competing design consultancies and were faced with strict confidentiality on our work. Product design is a slow process with some products taking years in R&D. We yearned to design together again and to design something with a fast turnaround that we would use ourselves. So we started Polli, initially as a hobby, by designing and die cutting polypropylene baskets and bags. We soon recognised regular off cuts from this process and use these plastic discs to make simple jewellery. The jewellery took off and the bags discontinued. Soon we started to work with other materials like stainless steel and aluminium and Polli has grown from a weekend markets stall to an international business with distribution through Australasia, North America, the UK and Scandinavia.

what are your favorite pieces/groups/series in your work?

Everything new is exciting but we’re both big fans of the original mobiles made from Stainless Steel – they’re like a giant necklace hanging in your room and cast beautiful shadows when lit. We’re also thrilled with our new hand stitched collection of jewellery which allow us to add colour and texture to our classic stainless steel jewellery. Being able to experiment with different colour-ways is something that we don’t often get to do and it’s been surprisingly challenging.

polli mood boards

who or what inspires you?

Life, Travel and Nature are our main inspirations. We’ve been fortunate enough to travel to interesting places and to get to travel regularly with our work. The new woven range has drawn inspiration from a tapestry carpet with spans three generations from Maja’s family. This carpet was designed, the wool hand dyed and hand stitched in Denmark by Maja’s grandfather. The final stitch was done in Australia by Maja and her mum, Pia, and the piece hangs proudly in Maja’s Sydney apartment.

maja's three-generation family carpet

what three websites do you visit daily?

Design Sponge, The Sydney Morning Herald, Triple J Radio

describe your ideal sunday.

Tess - Sleeping in, waking to warm Sydney weather, walking my two dogs by the water, enjoying a home cooked meal with friends.

Maja – Start with a good espresso coffee, followed by a bike ride in the sunshine, a long lunch with friends and finish it off with an early night.

what do you see outside your studio windows?

Our studio is part of a converted ginger beer factory (this is a kind of natural soda, I actually think it’s an Australian thing, it was originally made in ceramic bottles). It uses a lot of recycled timber and each studio faces an internal courtyard. The doors / windows are so grand they’re as wide as a our studio and nearly two stories high so you can literarily open the front of the studio! At the rear of the studio we look onto leafy gum trees.

thank you, tess and maja!