Courtesy of: glassybaby

You ask what is glassybaby? It was referenced in my article last week Earth Hour.

Well the company glassybaby, makes a product called a “glassybaby” – hand blown glass votive candle holders that come in a wide variety of stunning colors.

Glassybaby first began in 1998. Back then, Lee Rhodes, who is a mother of three, sadly learned that she had developed lung cancer. Lee purchased for her husband at the time, Emery Rhodes, glassblowing lessons as a stress-reliever.

It didn’t take long for the hobby to begin to proliferate and their garage began to see the beautiful candle holders starting to stack up.

Lee Rhodes began to sell them to her friends. Out of the kindness of her heart, Lee donated the proceeds to charities that supported local cancer patients.

The idea for glassybaby was born, as well as the glassybaby brand: to live in harmony with the earth and goodwill for all.

Lee is now owner of glassybaby, as well as a three time cancer survivor. She started the company with a hope of giving back to cancer charities and also inspire others during their own personal battles.

These colorful votives have definitely touched many people in a very profound way. Lee’s caring heart has allowed her company to donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to cancer and other charities.

As Easter nears, please consider giving a glassybaby to a friend or family member.

They make for a wonderful gift and now come in more than 300 colors. A few of the catchy names include, Easter, Peony, Lavender, Periwinkle, Key Lime, and Sunshine.

For those in the Seattle area, there are three stores to visit. The company also operates one in New York City at 555 Hudson.

You can also purchase them online at: glassybaby

Selling for $40, each glassybaby is lead free and comes in storage- and environmentally-friendly packaging.

Working as a young apprentice in his father’s saddlery business, Alfred Dunhill learned the necessary skills to create exceptional handcrafted leather items.

In 1893, Alfred Dunhill inherited the family business and decided to continue this commitment to excellence. Dunhill used the same traditions, expertise and technical ability of the leather craftsmen, and began creating luxury accessories such as hats, gloves and coats to bespoke motoring trunks and cases.

Now for the for the first time in over 100 years, Dunhill has allowed the general public a preview of the hand crafting process used to create their luxury Tradition leather goods.

The movie showcases the re-mastered Tradition Double Document case being cut from the best quality bridle leather, being hand stitched, and then finished by a highly skilled leather artisan.

Similar processes were originally used by Dunhill’s master craftsmen over 100 years ago.

Today, every custom piece of Dunhill custom leather is made at the Walthamstow leather workshop. The workshop is where a customer’s individual choice of skin, finish, hardware, functionalities and linings are created into a unique, quality leather piece.

The manufacturing process is unique. Just one person is responsible for constructing each individual piece all the way through to the final edge painting and cleaning.

This process ensures individual ownership and pride in each piece that is produced. The end result for the customer  is a leather product built with the highest standards of workmanship.

Lastly to guarantee authenticity, a leather card is stamped with the name of this artisan and inserted into each piece of luggage.

Link To Dunhill Double Document Case:
http://www.dunhill.com/en-gb/shoponline/leathergoods/bytype/briefcases/tradition-double-document-case-lp6060b

Courtesy of: Ventury Paris

Maison Ventury Paris’ Divine Collection has just reached a new level of luxurious comfort. This Winter, the brand’s products include a revamped Divine Collection Millesime 2010 Special Series called “The Carat Line” that includes two new models that sparkles: Golden colored or “24 carat” gold plated and crystals.

Epitomizing luxury, Maison Ventury Paris’ Divine series is bringing an amazing new collection right into your home. The newly revamped Divine Collection Millesime 2010 features a unique mix of rock chic, sophisticated styles, golden touches, vintage spirit, and exquisite couture materials.

One piece in particular will caught über-customer this holiday season. It’s a sparkling lounge chair with 24 carat gold and crystals! Customers are even able to customize their own furniture pieces by selecting the materials and patterns they wish to be used.

Thanks to Ventury, Divine’s premium bespoke engraving service, each chair is numbered and personalized with the name of the owner or its own brand. The 24 carat gold plated & crystals edition is only available upon special order for a price tag of €69,500. The Golden colored limited edition priced at €8,690.

Each Divine chair is hand tailored in France using world class materials and traditional craftsmanship. Using the same traditional methods as many Haute Couture houses in France, our skilled craftsmanters carefully customize each chair by hand, using state of the art tools.

Courtesy of: Ventury Paris

Divine only uses top quality materials. The result is “a beautiful and timeless masterpiece that mixes exclusive style and exquisite design, an ethos we strive for.” says Ventury’s founder, Emmanuel Touraine.

Divine doesn’t only stand out from its competitors because of its 24 carat accents, but the line is also “cruelty-free , meaning no animals were harmed during the production of any of the products.

Each piece will be presented with a beautiful Certificate of Authenticity. The document not only verifies the materials in use, but indicates that each piece is handled intricately by our expert craftsmanster in France.

But it will only be a tiny, exclusive group of people who can become the proud owners of these gold (colored or gold plated) chairs. That’s because only few will ever be made, all numbered.

Allegedly, the waiting list for a Divine is over 3 months. In practice, however, many stores have a “call list” and an “order list”, both usually consisting of clients who have in one way or another become “regulars” or have formed a relationship with a particular Sales Associate.

To ensure potential buyers the greatest possible degree of discretion, these gold chairs are delivered to the buyer personally using a White Glove Service, in a specially designed packaging.

The first chairs in the series has already been sold to customers in Moscow, Doha and Beijing.

How will you dress your Divine?

The already iconic Divine lounge chair from Maison Ventury redefined ultra luxurious furniture. But Maison Ventury Paris is definitely not stopping at that.

For this season, they have reinvented their Divine Series. The new revamped series, the Divine Collection Millesime 2010 features 45 new models through nine new lines: Carat, Crystal, Palace, Glam Rock, Punk Chic, Prestige, Grand prix, Racing, Original… and price starts at €1,800 and can reach 5-digit prices.

The new designs and trends of this series promise to take luxury furniture to a whole new level. Buyers even have the choice of customizing their own furniture pieces by choosing the materials and patterns to be used.

Backgammon has long been a favorite board game. Now here is a chance for all Backgammon fanatics to buy an amazing 2071.48ct Backgammon Set with black, white, and yellow diamonds.

Backgammon is said to be the oldest game in recorded history. Its origin stems from a version of this board game that was first played about 5,000 years ago. Today, Backgammon is still a very popular board game.

Now you can own this luxurious 2071.48ct diamond Backgammon Set which is truly a piece of art. The set was designed by the renowned artist Bernard Maquin, and the backgammon set speaks the language of the exotic east through the tones of ancient damascene ornaments.

Traditionally, Backgammon was believed to have originated in ancient Mesopotamian (present-day Iraqi), the artist took us into the world of “The Thousand and One Nights” by retrieving his inspiration and muse from geometric patterns of eastern art and architecture, especially created for “The Charles Hollander Collection”.

In order to obtain the dazzling effect, we used 61,082 black, white, and yellow diamonds. The game is set with a total of 2071.48 carats diamonds. To bring this exquisite set to completion, the checkers were also set with 2960 white diamonds.

The diamonds, together with over 6.77kg yellow gold, 150 gram silver and more than 10,000 hours of labor, resulting into this modern magnificent piece of art.

Several months ago, a record was set at the auction of French designer Yves St. Laurent’s art collection. His “Dragon Chair” sold for a record $28 million.

Oddly, the buyer of the Dragon Chair was the same dealer who sold it to Yves St. Laurent in the early 1970’s.

The auction was held in Paris France. It included about 150 lots offered up for the highest bidder, in the five-hour decorative-arts session.

The so-called “dragons” leather armchair was originally made by French designer Eileen Gray, around 1917 to 1919.

If you think the winning bid is hard to comprehend, it is. The $28M is the most for a work of 20th-century design at any auction.

Courtesy of: Hastens

Hastens has been a well renowned name in the luxury bed market. 30 years ago, Hastens first began offering its signature color scheme, including the introduction of the classic, Hastens blue check.

Few people could have imagined the incredible success Hastens has experienced nor the remarkable imprint the blue check would leave on the bed industry.

Today, the Hastens blue check is the quintessential symbol of high quality.

Hastens is celebrating the 30 year anniversary of the popular Hastens Blue Check by honoring this landmark occasion with its first ever sale pricing.

They are offering special edition Continental and Excel beds in blue check at a reduced price. An example of the unbelievable Hastens sale, they now have Queen Size beds available for as little as $5,490.

CLICK HERE to go to the Hastens web site.

The Sonos Multi-Room Music System is truly music to your ears.

This luxury music system is quickly appearing in homes all over the world. The Sonos Multi-Room Music System is the latest in digital music technology.

LuxLife.com recently reported that music super-star Justin Timberlake, added Sonos to his home, along with other celebs.

Sonos allows homeowners to have music playing in up to 32 separate rooms – from the kitchen to the backyard to the bedroom – all at the same time and all by the palm of their hand.

With this state-of-the-art system, users can now listen to different music in different rooms, either at the same time or the same music everywhere on ‘Party mode’.

The Sonos Multi-Room Music System is eco-friendly and the high quality wireless system provides access to millions of songs. Sonos allows people to listen to their music in style and gear up for the ultimate in entertaining with the ultimate in digital music.

Here are more reasons why owning a Sonus is a must:
· Free Music service with Pandora and Last.FM, so there’s music right out of the box.
· Play music from many personal music services like Rhapsody, Napster, and others or use the music collections already on the computer.
· Use the iPhone or iPod Touch to work as the controller to navigate the music.

You can buy each system component a la carte, but it’s much easier to purchase a bundle, where you get everything you need for two rooms. To add additional rooms, just purchase individual compontnet pieces as needed.

The current price of the system is $999 for a two room bundle.

To purchase, go directly to  www.sonos.com or many major retail stores. You can also call 877.80.SONOS.

If you are looking for newest, most indulgent and luxurious advanced sleep system yet …. here it is.

The Elite Bed from Hollandia International is made with one thing in mind: luxury.

This advanced sleep system comes with a state-of-the-art theater system that contains a retractable 32” Flat Panel HDTV, a DVD/CD Changer, Five Speaker Surround Sound System, Subwoofer and i-Pod Docking Station.

Furthermore, the footboard can be heightened or lowered according to customer request. The soft, smooth upholstered frame that is available in a variety of fabric and colors.

The Elite bed includes a superior Vita Talalay latex mattress, which offers the highest quality material to assure point-to-point support and plush comfort.

Another luxury feature is the Flexible Shoulder Zone. This helps accommodate side sleepers by adjusting the bed to improve blood flow. The benefit is it eliminates the common numbing and tingling sensation, caused by other inferior bed systems.

You also get customizable designer styling in a wide choice of fabric and colors.

For information go to: Hollandia International

Photo by: Spiral Cellars

As a sophisticated wine connoisseur, are you looking for luxury but live in a modern house …. without a wine cellar? Well a Spiral Cellar may be what you need.

A Spiral Cellar enables you to keep up to hundreds of bottles in an ideal condition, for as long as you want.

So what is it? It’s a watertight, modular cylindrical system that’s built under your home. It can be located anywhere, from kitchen to living room, den to garage.

Relying on the insulation power of the surrounding ground, the temperature can be easily maintained. The best part is it’s free.

In 1978, Frenchman Georges Harnois, developed The Spiral Cellar system. He realized that very few modern houses had cellars, but people still desired a place to store their wine. The design has been optimized by Spiral Cellars Ltd., a UK company. They are now making their grand presence in the U.S.

The Spiral Cellar is quite the innovative and cost effective way of building a wine cellar for your own home.

For more information, go to: Spiral Cellars

Offered by Artnova, Athena is a multimedia upholstered sofa that features an integrated computer into it’s cool design.

Athena is a highly advanced and out-of-the-box sofa set. It includes an integrated computer, an iPod/iPhone dock, MP3 player with a wireless connection over the 2.4 Ghz radio signal, an 8 inch subwoofer and series of loudspeakers

The P.C. functions as a home computer workstation and can be used to read email messages, browse the internet and can even be setup to interface with your home multimedia system.

This looks like a comfy sofa but trendy designs such as this do come at a steep price. In this case, it will set you back about $15,436.

The design is unique and cutting-edge. Now you can enjoy the simple pleasures of laptop computing from the comforts of your sofa as the lapdesk provides a low cost alternative.

For more info, Click Here

It seems that model Kate Moss appears to be a more than just a modern day fashion icon. Kate has made her way to goddess status.

Back in August, there was a public preview of a solid gold statue of Kate worth a shocking $2.7 million. The statue weighs quadruple what the rail thin super model weighs herself.

British artist Marc Quinn’s “Siren” will be on display at the Nereid Gallery of the British Museum surrounded by, whom else, but goddesses like Venus the goddess of Love.

Marc Quinn says the supermodel is very thrilled. The Kate Moss look-alike statue is said to be the world’s largest gold statue made since the days of Ancient Egypt. That in itself is amazing.

Since the artistic piece was unveiled at the British Museum in London, it has drawn huge crowds.

“When I showed Kate the statue, she told me she loved it,” Quinn says of the piece, entitled Siren. “She modeled for me for a day or so – but she didn’t pose for me like that.” Noting that Siren is about “trying to live up to impossible dreams or immortality,” something Moss apparently contends with on a daily basis, he says, “For Kate, she thinks it lifts her into a mythic level. I think she very much loved it because she appreciates the difference between her image and herself.”