New Packaging and Hang Tags!

Our Electric Love rings now arrive in these custom recycled content chipboard matchbooks. Chi-Chi and Sololá have new hang tags too!

Photos from Model Citizens NYC

Here are a few quick pics from the Model Citizens NYC exhibition last weekend. See more on Core77, Inhabitat, Ponoko, Design Glut, Metropolis (added 5/26/10) and on the Model Citizens NYC Facebook Page.

Photos above and below are from Inhabitat's The Best Green Designs from Model Citizens 2010. The above mobiles made from pencils are by Michiel Cornelissen.

Pins and necklaces crafted from bits of cracked ceramic.

The Floor (to Ceiling) Lamp by Jason Neufeld.

Bell jar stands made from scrap wood and glass by Niels Cosman.

Bowls made of colored pencils by Michiel Cornelissen.

The Perch chair designed by Jason Hu for The Guyana Project.

Hanging lamps by design since made from re purposed spools of measuring tape.

We showed our Ty and Ty D.I.Y. Edition shower curtains, Chi-Chi necklaces, and Electric Love rings which you can find for sale in our shop.

Ty D.I.Y. Edition + Mike Perry + Readymade

Check out the June/July issue of Readymade. It features our Ty D.I.Y. Edition customized by one of our favorite illustrators, Mike Perry. We have been anxiously waiting to see what he came up with, and we couldn't be more pleased!

If you like it as much as we do, you can enter to win the one-of-a-kind curtain at Readymade here.

June Real Simple on Newsstands!

We just got our copy of the latest issue of Real Simple featuring Ty D.I.Y. Edition. The editors at Real Simple suggest Ty as a good Grad/Hostess gift. We agree!

Die kleine Kunstlerin!

Our favorite emails to receive here at Grain are from people who have used our products and have really connected with them. They totally make our week!

These photos come from Julia Schenk in Germany. She worked with her Mann and six year old Tochter to customize their Ty D.I.Y. Edition and was kind enough to send us some process shots. Danke Julia!

New Electric Love Colors for Model Citizens!

James knotted up these new Electric Love rings for the Model Citizens NYC store last night. They are all handmade from upcycled electrical wire that we find here in Seattle.

We only have white and pink available in our store so Model Citizens NYC (May 15 - 17) will be the only place to find these new limited colors!

If you are in New York this weekend....

Don't miss the second annual Model Citizens NYC exhibition curated by Mika Braakman at Hosfelt Gallery!

Model Citizens NYC will include new work by 50 independent designers (including Pratt/RISD/Bainbridge friends Mimi Kirmaci, Niels Cosman, Hello, We Are_______., Brandon Perhacs, and Stanley Ruiz) and we will have a few items for sale in the exhibition store.

Our other favorites for Design Week are:

> ICFF booths by Seattle friends Iacoli & McAllister, Urbancase, Kerf, and Greypants.

> Breakable at the Heller Gallery with new glass work by Hello, We Are______., Free Time Industries, Henry Julier, Sergio Silva, and more.

> New work from Portugal and Brazil at INTER-CONNECTED (curated by Zoë Melo) featuring a talk moderated by Frederico Duarte.

> Emily Pilloton's Design Revolution Roadshow (the exhibition's final stop) in the Metropolis Magazine booth at ICFF.

> Work by AREAWARE, Brad Ascalon, DesignGlut, Emily Rothschild, Henry Julier, Kiel Mead, Stanley Ruiz, and more at CITE Goes America.

> The NOHO Design District curated by Sight Unseen.

New Chi-Chi in the shop!

We just added new 3 strand Chi-Chi necklaces to the Grain shop this afternoon. They are available in green (pictured above), blue, orange and pink/red for $36.00.

Chi-Chi is made from 100% cotton by Guatemalan artisans, and like all our products, their sales support our commitment to 1% For The Planet.

Exclusive Ty in UncommonGoods catalog!

We put together an exclusive Ty D.I.Y. Edition kit for the Summer UncommomGooods catalog and it is finally out. The kit includes all three marker colors so you can create designs like the one below. Check out the full catalog here.

Ty D.I.Y. Edition at Urban Outfitters!!!

Yep, get them while they are hot through the Urban Outfitters website!

Grain at the Whitney Museum Store!

We are SO super excited to announce that our Ty D.I.Y. Edition shower curtains, Chi-Chi necklaces, and Electric Love rings will soon be available for purchase at the Whitney Museum Store! Big thanks to our rep Marianne!! Woo-hoo!!

Image above: "Untitled (I shop, therefore I am)" by Barbara Kruger from 1987 from here.

Zero Waste: Sold Out!

Last summer we designed Zero Waste (in collaboration with our dear friend Mika Carmichael) in response to American Design Club's call for concepts for Areaware's Design To Go.

They were looking for products that encompassed the idea of travel. We thought a bag would be a great response to that - especially one that you could add your own designs to over time. We envisioned people adding notes, maps, and other info that they collected in their everyday travel.

The final pattern for Zero Waste was made to utilize a single sheet of HDPE (leftovers from our Ty and Ty D.I.Y. Edition shower curtains) and allows for zero cutting waste, hence the name.

We didn't put much effort into spreading the word on the bag after Design To Go, but the word definitely got out and as of today we are totally sold out! Thanks so much to Commerce With A Conscience, NOTCOT, Better Living Through Design, What The Cool, Visual Therapy, and Green By Design for the recent posts.

And YES, we are working on Zero Waste 2.0!

Project H Seattle Happy Hour Benefit

If you are in Seattle, we hope to see you at the Project H happy hour benefit on May 19th at 5:30 pm at Red Door in Fremont!

Project H is a national organization that connects the power of design to the people who need it most. It is a team of volunteer designers and builders engaging locally to improve the quality of life for the socially overlooked.

Curious? This will be your chance to learn more about Project H and what the Seattle Chapter has been up since it formed last summer!

Grain Summer Workshops at Open Satellite!

Do you know any Seattle-area teens curious about design?

Grain is leading two two-week design workshops for teens (12 - 15 years old) at Bellevue's Open Satellite residency space this summer and we are looking participants!

Teens will walk away with a design process tool kit that includes concept development, learning how to refine ideas, creating prototypes, and developing presentation skills. The hands-on workshop will culminate in a weekend public showcase of teen prototypes and products that will coincide with the Bellevue Arts Museum's Art Fair.

The workshops will run June 28th - July 10th and July 12th - July 23rd with the special weekend exhibition at Open Satellite July 24th - 25th.

For more info, please contact Open Satellite Public Programs Manager, Laura O'Quin at laura [at] opensatellite.org or at 425.454.7355.

Ty in Better Homes and Gardens!

Better Homes and Gardens contacted us a while back about an article that they were putting together on indoor air quality. The article was inspired by a recent study that found US homes often have higher levels of air pollutants than found outdoors. This is due to off-gassing building materials, paints, and products as well as mold and dust.

We are proud to have Ty and Ty D.I.Y. Edition suggested as safe alternatives to traditional off-gassing products in May's issue (see above and below). Check out the full article Breathe Easy on pages 213 - 218.

Below is a detail showing the Ty recommendation:

Target's Red Hot Shop

For the whole month of April, Target and Daily Candy are celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day with 10 products that help support a more sustainable lifestyle in Target's Red Hot Shop. We are thrilled to have Ty D.I.Y. Edition included in the mix!

Free shipping through April!

Happy spring! We are offering free shipping on everything in the shop (besides furniture) for the entire month of April.

Ty D.I.Y. Edition in Pregnancy & Newborn!

We just found out that Ty D.I.Y. Edition will be featured in Pregnancy & Newborn's April issue! Above and below is a sneak peak.

Chi-Chi and Sololá in the blogosphere

We are super excited by all the great posts on Chi-Chi and Sololá that keep popping up. Above is a post by Jennifer from yesterday on Ecouterre (Jasmin wrote about Sololá in January). Check out more on Design Milk, Notcouture, and Frizzi Frizzi.

Thanks to everyone who has placed orders through our shop. We just received new shipments from Guatemala so look forward to more images soon.

UPDATE 04/02/10: Check out Laura Cassidy's post on her Wear What When blog at Seattle Metropolitan.

Ty featured on Oprah.com!!

Huge thanks to Simran Sethi for the great post on our Ty recyclable shower curtain in the second part of her article The New Loo on Oprah.com, in which Simran greens her bathroom.

Simran notes the 108 volatile organic compounds that make typical vinyl shower curtains so dangerous, and writes about Grain:

"Their Ty shower curtain is one of my most cherished bathroom items. It moves and breathes like a natural fiber, resists mold and mildew and is made from HDPE, a commonly recycled plastic."

This post was part of a yearlong project in which Simran (known as the "green messenger" by Vanity Fair) will be greening her first home, a 1925 historic two-story house in Lawrence, Kansas. Read more of Simran's posts on Oprah.com here or on her own website here.

To celebrate this post, we are offering a 15% discount on our Ty and Ty D.I.Y. Edition recyclable shower curtains now until the end of March. Just enter "OPRAH" at checkout to receive the discount!