Chemistry or Botany?

I really should have failed Chemistry class but the teacher took pity on me and gave me a passing grade. I think the only thing I took away from that class were some moments of laughter when everyone put on their safety goggles, and a love for all those glass beakers.

Years later, I found a Pyrex boiling flask at a tag sale in North Carolina and it has been a great bud vase ever since.

Experiment: Take 1 small flower & add H2O.

Want your own bud vase? Please follow this link: 

Put your napkin in your lap.

One thing I do every night is set a nice table. The candles are lit and we always use cloth napkins. Years ago, a friend of mine brought us a gift when she was invited to our house for dinner - initial napkin rings. Since that time, our alphabetic needs have expanded. 

http://www.dinner-ware.com/

Table manners are strictly enforced here. No texting at the table.
And dog sits patiently for a drop-portunity.

Please pass the bread.

My Mother always told me "When in doubt, buy a gift for someone that you would like to have yourself."

My friend Melissa bought us a wedding gift she didn't like at all. We had registered at Simon Pearce for a cherry wood bread board. She said, as she handed us the box, "I bought you that slab of wood for your wedding. Why would anyone want something like that?"

When we eat bread (yes we eat carbs and wheat) I think of Missy.

And it gets better with age. That's how great gifts (and friends) go sometimes.

http://www.simonpearce.com/prdSell.aspx?Name=SellEdCherry

Hello, Deer

This cardboard deer was hanging above my Mother's fireplace at her house in the Berkshires last Christmas.

My daughter at age seven had assembled it and they had proudly hung it up together. It totally fits into my Mother's salt box barn in the country. So I bought one for our white cottage in Los Angeles. Why not? Every time I pass by it on the my way to the kitchen, it makes me smile. It's charming and handsome so of course, he fits in anywhere.

http://www.cardboardsafari.com/

SHE schleps

When I shop for my clients I end up schlepping a lot of bags.

Something caught my eye the other day. More of a gag gift I thought. So of course I bought it and tried it out.

It's called the One-Trip Grip. It's bright orange and it's really kind of brilliant.

I can't tell you how much I wish I had owned of these when I lived in New York City in my youth, for that seemingly endless walk with my Mother up East 35th Street from the D'Agostinos on Third to our apartment on Park. But that's a whole other Mother story.

Want your own One-Trip-Grip? Please follow this link:

Form & Function

The coffee world is serious business. There are instructional videos for cappuccino makers and classes in latte art.

Like cooking ingredients, I work best with 5 steps or less, which is what is so great about the Chemex coffee maker.

It was designed in 1939 by Peter Schlumbohm, a German-born chemist and avid coffee drinker. It is part of the permanent collections at MOMA, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Hecht-Edwards kitchen collection.

Simple and beautiful.

Magic Bars

I'm afraid I'm a creature of habit, and when I like something (in the edible category) I can go overboard. The magic bars at Clementine are such a thing. Seriously yummy. They call them Coconut Chews (I'm sorry, it's LA and they just don't know any better.) They are a perfect ending to the good selection of salads they serve.

1751 Ensley Ave. Los Angeles, CA. 90024

http://www.clementineonline.com/

Just be sure your hands are clean before you pop next door to Sugar Paper to buy a beautiful card.
http://sugarpaper.com/ourshops.php

Let There be Light

Quite often when I am shopping for a client, I do an extensive presentation of ideas. A sort of a private boutique if you will. When it is a success, we can cross several people off our gift list and move on. Sometimes, I come across an item that has no particular recipient in mind, I just like the object and throw it into the mix. This Stelton lamp is one of them. I just love it. I want one. And then I wouldn't mind having the boat it should sit in.

http://www.fitzsu.com/stelton-ship39s-lamp-large-p-3604.html

Paper or Plastic?

I have to admit, I love my Mac laptop and texting on my cell phone, but when it comes to my calendar, I am a pen-to-paper kind of girl. After years of loving my Filofax and then moving on to the Kate Spade version, I now use my Mom Agenda. It even comes in orange. My friend Wendy drew this picture of me and titled it "Shell's Blackberry." There is also a non-Mom version, and the calendar runs for 18 months. Genius. 
http://www.momagenda.com/

"Braver Hund" [Good Dog]

We have a very dopey and sweet dog that we love named Lucky Eleven. She is a Lab rescue we adopted on 7/7/07. We found her through a great pet adoption group called Fetching Companions.

http://www.fetchingcompanions.org/index.html

The dog arrived with the coordinator from the rescue group, the foster mother, and a fantastic dog behavior specialist named Teka.

Talk about great customer service...for the dog.

They spent several hours with us to make sure we were the right family for their client. She is everything she is supposed to be except she is a Labrador Retriever that doesn't like water. Oh well...

Teka Ludovico

http://www.k9toddlers.com/

Why "Customer Service"?

I really like efficiency and those of you who know me well know I am not always very patient. When I am shopping, I am all about good customer service. I don't want the salesperson who gushes to tell me that something looks great on me when it really doesn't. Rather, I appreciate the one who tells me that for instance, the backpack I am about to order is so large it will engulf my child's small frame.

This blog will not be the Complaint Department. That would be easy.

"Customer Service" will highlight great products and unique finds, exceptional businesses and the people behind them, those who are passionate about providing excellence in their particular niche. And of course, whatever else I feel like writing about... because it's my blog.

I got another compliment on my red clogs today.

When I was in third grade, I used to take ballet classes at The Joffrey Ballet Studio on Sixth Avenue and 10th Street in the West Village in New York. I wasn't very good and I had a very strict Russian instructor. One day, I was daydreaming in class because my Dad was going to pick me up and take me across the street to buy my first pair of Olaf Daughter clogs. I had decided I was going to buy the brown leather ones with the braid across. I was reprimanded sharply and I didn't care that day because I was going to get my clogs!

Thirty years later, I bought my second pair of clogs - fitted just for me in cherry red. They make far less clunk on a hardwood floor (a noise I loved to make as a kid) but I still get a couple of inches height without toddling around on high heels. Olaf Daughters is long gone from NYC, but the great people at Clog Master are terrific. I still love my clogs and I do still daydream about them. My hippie Dad owns a pair too.

http://www.clogmaster.com/

http://www.joffreyballetschool.com/

I Love Good Smells

I love good smells. It is my keenest sense memory - my Mother's Givenchy III perfume, my high school boyfriend's sweatshirts washed in Tide, my friend Deb's Patchouli from Kiehls.

Knowing my love for scents, my Aunt bought me something great for Christmas - Agraria 'Bitter Orange' fragrance sheets. They are scented 5 x7 card stock paper, in handsome packaging I may add.

One immediately went into my car. Now the back seat no longer smells like the dog. There's a very good reason they don't make "wet hound" scented candles.

http://www.agrariahome.com/fragrance-sheets

Must I?

Okay here's the second post: Went to see "A Single Man" today. The film directed by former Gucci designer, Tom Ford. Great production design - Mr. Ford cleverly hired Dan Bishop who designs "Mad Men." It was hard not to drool over every stick of furniture.

Came home afterwards to the husband who has worked all day on my SHE Shops website. I was ordered to "blog." Feeling pressured to write about a brilliant shopping find - I decided to procrastinate by looking at my new J. Crew catalog. Saw the Sperry Topsiders. But I want the originals in navy which Sperry only sells for men starting at size 7...

I guess I will just have to live with my LL Bean Blucher mocs circa 1982, which I do still love.

So, keep posted. I'll try to get more focused...

Zappos: http://www.zappos.com/sperry-top-sider-authentic-original-navy

LL Bean: http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?categoryId=23773&storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&from=SR&feat=sr

I was born to shop.

As the story goes, I made my first solo credit purchase at the age of three. Okay, the reality is I purchased a Popsicle on Fire Island using my parent’s house account at the local grocery store, but you get the picture - when it comes to shopping, I pay attention.

With a fashion designer mother, an actor father, and a painter stepfather, I grew up as a curious Manhattan kid surrounded by visual arts and high style. Exposure to fashion, art, Broadway, fine food, and design has given me an eye for exceptional beauty.

I attended New York’s School of Visual Arts for photography. I worked as a window dresser in a toy store before getting my first job in the film industry as a shopper in the costume department. Eventually, I became a feature film Production Coordinator and Supervisor. During my fifteen years in the business I have had the opportunity to work for top-level talent and directors (Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Rob Reiner, Barry Sonnenfeld, to name drop a few.)

After moving to Los Angeles in 2002, with my husband and our daughter, I was able to combine my creative and production experience to create SHESHOPS, a high end discreet personal gift shopping service for busy professionals in the film and television industry.

When it comes to giving presents, my philosophy is that the gift doesn’t need to be expensive; it needs to be right for the person receiving it. My clients include Fortune 500 families, talent agents, producers, and film & television executives.

With a self-diagnosed allergy to gift-baskets, I strive to combine the perfect elements of unique, simple and elegant; of course, always beautifully presented.

I live in Los Angeles with my husband, two daughters and a menagerie of rescued animals.

http://www.popsicle.com/The-Popsicle-Story.aspx