(organization)
Hello
Greetings, last week I was telling you about Trends you can read it here.
Don't you love the new google logo.. it's so simple yet perfectly on trend. Like a gift, you know it's right when you see it.
One of the strongest trends right now is for natural wooden products. At AW wisdom we have lots. Just visit our evergreen Woodware Dept to root out the bargains.
But.. one has to be slightly careful with wood - because some hardwoods are not harvested ethically and stocks are been used faster than they grow.
There is one wood that is hugely versatile, grows so quick it will never be a problem of overuse. Bamboo is the word. Certain species of bamboo can grow at a rate of 3 cm/h. They come out of the ground at the fully formed diameter and grow upwards rapidly typically in three or four months.
Bamboo is the future. I was watching this amazing Ted Talk. Elora Hardy in Bali and realised that this amazing Bamboo House is close to our warehouse in Bali.
Bamboo is amazingly versatile, used for food, medicine, scaffolding, furniture and decoration. But in Bali bamboo is used for a host of giftware products.
So there are Bamboo Ducks made from the roots of tall bamboo. Bamboo wind-chimes (ours are the nicest chiming you can find - just saying), Bamboo candles, bamboo boxes, baskets, soap-dishes, dragons, bamboo blooming thing. And to top it all we have a range of Bamboo shop displays, that are tough and foldable so they can fit in your car for those craft fairs.
Bamboo is as ethical and green as it gets providing much needed employment in precisely the regions that need it.
Last time I was in Bali, we went looking for Bamboo farmers to buy bamboo direct, for our wind chimes mostly but for other purposes. Wind chimes are a bit of a art, because the farmers know how to cut the bamboo in the right sizes with a slight variety of widths so a set of six chimes sounds perfect. It's hard and not every bamboo farmer making this can do it well. There is a whole terminology for the parts of the windchime, the paddles the donger, top can be coconut or various decorations. They sell bundles of tubes ready to constructed and finished by the artisans who decorate them add everything from carved dragons to owls to bird houses.
Here are bundles of bamboo drying in the sun, and this guy is showing how the tubes have to harmonise.
