Danish Bicycle Bell at Mjölk Shop.

Bikes Make Life Better by People for Bikes.

Do it Green! Annual Green Gifts Fair

• Saturday, November 20, 2010 (10am to 5pm)
• Midtown Global Exchange building (2901 Chicago Avenue S)
• FREE entrance and a free transportation offer (see below!)

Do It Green! Minnesota’s one-day Green Gifts Fair takes place tomorrow. Again this year, more than 70 vendors will offer their wares and those who bike, bus, or carpool will receive a free gift at the event. Shoppers are encouraged to bring their own bags and coffee mugs as well as silverware and reusable napkins to reduce waste while dining in the Midtown Global Market. As an added incentive, Do it Green! has teamed up with MetroTransit this year to offer a Go Greener Pass guaranteeing a free bus fare (both ways!!) to anyone attending.

Holiday Shop & Stroll 20% Off Sale at 50th & Xerxes

• Saturday, November 20, 2010 (10 am to 5 pm)
• Sunday, November 21, 2010 (12 to 5 pm)
• Loft Antiques and Hunt&Gather (W 50th Street and Xerxes Avenue S in Minneapolis)

As Loft Antiques announced (appropriately in all caps) in their most recent email, “THE ENTIRE CORNER OF 50TH & XERXES WILL BE ON SALE!!!” this coming weekend. Loft and Hunt&Gather, and the staff of shops along the entire corner team up throughout the year to offer 20% off weekends. The frame shop, City Chic, Gallery 360, and others will also be offering the discount. If you miss this weekend’s sale, know that Hunt&Gather will be offering another “holiday super sale” Friday, December 3 through Sunday, December 5 (the weekend of No Coast, below).

No Coast Craft-o-rama

• Friday, December 3, 2010 (3 pm to 8 pm)
• Saturday, December 4, 2010 (9 am to 5 pm)
• Midtown Global Exchange building (2901 Chicago Avenue S)

The NoCoast Craft-o-rama features a variety of designers, artists, crafters and other talented creators of unique handmade goods. This will be my third year attending the No Coast’s December craft show and I’m excited to see a number of vendors returning: Studio Mela, Too Many Suitors, Fennel Studio, and Midtown Farmers Market‘s own Utile Mud will all be there, in addition to many other MPLS favorites. A complete list of vendors is available at the Crafter’s Local 612 website.

Member Double-Discount Shopping Days at the Walker

• Friday, December 3, 2010 (11am to 9pm)
• Saturday, December 4, 2010 (10am to 9pm)
• Sunday, December 5, 2010 (11am to 6pm)
• Members receive free parking with purchase

It seems there’s a lot going on the first weekend of December in Minneapolis! Walker members save 20% (rather than the usual 10) on all purchases December 3–5 at the Walker—making it a perfect stop to get your holiday shopping going. Details at walkerart.org.

I recently learned that Walker volunteers enjoy a 20% discount year-round, so if you’ve been looking for volunteer opportunities and tend to drool over the shop’s offerings, you might consider a 2011 resolution to give more of your time and save while you’re at it.

Whether or not you plan to buy, if you haven’t been to the shop in a while, consider stopping in soon. In the past month they’ve revamped the shop’s lighting and rearranged the space, adding or removing tables, and things are looking great.

While checking out this NYTime’s Interactive on Wednesday, part of their “Shopping with [fillintheblank]” series in the Home & Garden section, this bike rack really jumped out at me. It’s slim, it’s good looking, and it’s $13 on Amazon. We’ve talked about hanging bikes in small spaces before, but this one takes the cake at 10% of the cost of the Cycloc. You’ll probably need Da Vinci’s back tire tray as well for $6, bringing you another six away from $25 free shipping.

Image, Delta Cycle.

The night before last I was looking for a source for the Alessi juicer by Philippe Starck (below left) after recognizing it in one of the scenes in Food, Inc. The juicer appeared in the kitchen of Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and I was curious about how much it cost (answer, $90). The movie was great for so many reasons. You should see it; I hope it will change the way you think about food. I hope it will change the way you think about a lot of things. Enough with the seriousness, though. This post is here because you should also see this website that I found the juicer on! They have a lot of great stuff. It’s Emmo Home. Emmo is meant to spell out the sound of saying the letters M. and O. M.O. for Modus Operandi (so they say in their FAQ). But that’s not what matters. Check out all of these lovely things!

Juicy Salif Squeezer by Alessi, Kiwi watering can by Alessi, Bread Bag by Stelton, Salad Plant by Black + Blum. Images: http://www.emmohome.com/

p.s. They also carry the Cycloc Bike Rack by IC Design Group (featured here previously).

Living in a city with an IKEA (as opposed to the nearest one being 2 [2006-08] or 6 hours away [2005]) can be dangerous. I may or may not have been there twice in the last 14 days. I didn’t see any of these items when I was there last week… so they must be just coming in to stores. It’s about time they got some new napkin patterns!

Solig paper napkins, $0.99—$1.99

Dyning hammock in assorted colors, $29.99

I’m interested to see what the Dyning hammock is like in person. For its price, it would be lovely if it were light and squished up small so as to be camping-friendly.

And the trays! There are several new trays also part of the Solig line; the price is right too. We have one tray at home with a great black and white striped pattern, a gift from Sarah, that makes for fun food presentation. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad to have a couple more?

Solig trays: Left, $7.99; Right, $4.99 each

Lastly, I almost forgot, there are new bags. I still like my ’05 beach bag best… mostly because it was purchased at IKEA Florence and because it’s just generally awesome, but these are pretty great patterns too. Below are the Solig gardening bags in three colors at $2.49 each and the new Solig beach bags at $1.49 each. This is why IKEA=Love.

All images: http://www.ikea.com/us/en

**Update: If you’d like to see the catalog pages check out AT’s “sneak peek” of the summer line.