Christmas Shopping, 2011 Edition

So I spent "Small Business Saturday" slodging through chain stores buying stuff for myself. Completely against the spirit of the thing. But hey, I've been eating local vegetables all summer, that's got to count for something?

To atone for my sins against independent merchants, I will pimp a few of my recent discoveries.

Out Of Print Clothing 
http://outofprintclothing.com/

Wizard of Oz kids' tee
at Out Of Print Clothing

I discovered these shirts while shopping at another fabulous independent merchant, Island Bookstore in Corolla, NC (which is actually a dream shop, everything you'd want in a bookstore all at once - too bad it's 400 miles from my house). But that's another post.

Out Of Print Clothing uses classic book cover art to make shirts, tote bags, note cards, and other fun things. (Edgar Alan Poe phone case anyone?) The images are all actually licensed, and they're pretty awesome. The shirts are soft and cozy. I have a Hound of the Baskervilles tee - I ended up with a men's small because none of the women's shirts really spoke to me, but it's stretchy and fits great.

If you need another excuse to shop here (or put one of these on your wish list), the company has partnered with Books for Africa to send a book to a needy community for every product purchased.

ARTECO
www.arteco.com

Closer to home, I've been seeing some cool jewelry and accessories from ARTECO. E-waste has never looked so good.

Spectra Cable Belt
from ARTECO

I picked up one of these cable belts at a recent Three Rivers Arts Festival - according to the card, it's a communication cable called Spectra that was popular around 1970. (I don't actually remember it but I've seen things like it.)

At this year's A Fair in the Park I looked through cards and cards of pendants, earrings, and pins trying to guess what they were in a former life. Luckily, the provenance is described on the packaging. The ARTECO website says "It's not only about what it is, but what it was." Turns out processor chips are sometimes really pretty!

Heat Sink Earrings
from ARTECO

A lot of the components are relatively unadorned, which I like. They're just fascinating to look at.

Come on, one of your techie forbears would really appreciate an 8-bit Intel processor tie tack.

ARTECO Intel 80186
Processor Pin