I love this adorable Rocket Music Box. The rocket ship and astronaut spin around when the music plays. It is from a website called Funky Moose but they are in the UK and don’t ship to the US. Does anyone know where I can find a cute rocket/space/robot themed music box in the USA?

funkymoose.co.uk 18.99

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas from Grassrootsmodern!
Pictured to the left is our tall scraggly crooked Christmas tree that we love. It stands almost 12 feet tall and was hand picked and cut by my little family. We got all the red decorations from Ikea in the “as is” section [...]

Look no further than the blinkdecor vendor list for that something special to put under your diva’s tree.
Area ID has a fabulous shearling throw blanket through to snuggle with on a cold winter’s eve.
Madeline Weinrib has a perfectly stunning bench if your someone special has been hankering for some furnishings but can’t put there finger [...]

We have been doing a lot of shopping at Ikea lately thanks to our 20% cash back sofa credit. We bought two KNAPPA pendant lights for our front room, and last night I put one together and hung it. It comes with a plug end, but I cut the cord and hard wired [...]

I saw these terrific chandeliers on a blog we frequent often called Design Milk. They would add tremendous color and sparkle to a room. The Fiorella Suspension lamp and the Petronila round in orange or light blue can be purchased through y lighting.

Be-fezzed mad scientist, Uncle Pete, and his Lucha-masked sidekick, El Vato, bring you a World of Twisted and Absurd Audiovisual Oddities and The Forgotten Children of the Silver Screen in every online episode of The Dark Vault of Public Domain [Link]. They get mega-bonus points for playing a clip from my favorite Japanese New Wave band, The Plastics [Link].

Watching these clips reminded me of my own foray into public-access horror-hosting back in the early ’90s, Chester’s Chillers [Link]. I’ll have to check into getting some episodes up on YouScrewed.

We like the festive look of pinecones, but gave up collecting the natural kind a long time ago. As kiddies, we used to load the Suburban with sap-coated beauties from Tahoe (what a mess). Years later, we graduated to the store-bought kind (call it a twisted family tradition). We’ve since developed better taste and love [...]

With our construction updates settling down some of you may be feeling a absence of affordable modern construction conversation. Luckily Grassrootsmodern isn’t the only site out there determined to build an affordable modern home. The folks over at 100khouse.com are determined to build a house in Philly for under 100k. Sounds ambitious, [...]

We love all the new versions of Philippe Starck’s Mademoiselle chair, “dressed” by some of today’s most stylish fashion designers. From Missoni’s playful cotton stripes, to Dolce & Gabbana’s silk leopard print, to Burberry’s classic plaid, these fabrics cleverly customize the chair’s mod transparent frame.

Click images to embiggen
Well, I suppose it’s time to bring everyone up to date on my recent Tiki- and Cocktail-related acquisitions. At the top of the page is the Trader Vic’s Honi Honi mug that my buddette Kathryn [Link] scored for me at this year’s San Francisco Tiki Crawl. The mug is adorned with mildly risqué scenes of Polynesian islanders doin’ the pre-Nasty, so we’ve dubbed it the Tiki Pr0n Mug. Thanks, K!

On the bottom left is an early Christmas present for me that just arrived from Reggae Treats [Link] in Jamaica: a bottle of Wray & Nephew’s Berry Hill Pimento Liqueur. In case you didn’t know, pimentos are not those red things they stuff in the middle of olives, they’re Allspice berries, and Pimento liqueur is a essential ingredient in several classic cocktails such as Don the Beachcomber’s Nui Nui, and the Trader Vic’s Navy Grog. As a matter of fact, I’m enjoying a delicious, fattening (and drunkening) Nui Nui even as I’m typing this. It’s even good straight up.

Finally, you can see the meager fruits of my scouring more than 25 thrift and antique stores in the Denver and Colorado Springs area last month: one measly Tiki oil lamp. It was a lot of work finding that baby, but I must say it does cast a nice, warm glow down in the Hai’deaway during these cold, Midwestern winter evenings.

Alohaderci!