Is your gut bugging you? Sometimes that can be a good thing, especially when it comes to the heathful bacteria that lives in your digestive system and helps you to digest food. There are about 300 – 1000 different species of guts bugs living in your large intestine, some good, some bad. Recently you may have noticed that probiotics are all the rage, sneaking into all kinds of food, from yogurt to cereal. Last weekend I came across the pictured sticker in a promotion for phd, a new probio beverage on the market, check out their gut bug blog for more info.
Archive for November, 2009
Gut Lovin’ Bugs
Posted: Monday, November 16th, 2009Happy Gutsmas!
Posted: Monday, November 16th, 2009
The holiday season is nearly here, and that means we here at I Heart Guts will take our organ show on the road. First up, Unique Los Angeles will help local artisans, crafters and weirdos sell alternative wares to the mall-weary public. We will be there Dec 5-6, at the California Market Center downtown, and we think admission includes some kind of limited-edition tote designed by Shepherd Fairey’s design studio. Super boss, right? Next, we’ll be at the Bust Craftacular at the Echoplex in Echo Park Dec 12th only — gift bags for the first 200 folks there! (If you’re in San Francisco that weekend, hit up Bazaar Bizarre on Dec. 12-13 — we won’t be there, but other awesome stuff will be). Then we’re off to Norcal for the first Renegade San Francisco Holiday show, up at Fort Mason Dec 19-20th. Should be fun, and we’d love to see you at any and all of these fabulous events. We’d like to take a moment to mourn the loss of Felt Club, certainly the best and coolest craft show around Los Angeles. This was especially sad after also losing Bazaar Bizarre LA a few years back. We’s also like to add that we generally sell our stuff at 10-15% off our regular prices, plus you’ll save on shipping, so come on down!
Livers vs. Breasts
Posted: Friday, November 13th, 2009
November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, but hold on, that’s not all. This month also marks lung cancer, pulmonary hypertension awareness and gastroesophageal reflux disease awareness. January is Thyroid month, February is Heart Disease Awareness, March is Kidney Awareness Month… September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Perhaps last month you noticed a tide of pink products in stores marking National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which has got to win the prize as the best-known affliction — pink ribbons, pink knives, pink cereal boxes are all supposed to raise money for breast cancer research. Or is it just great marketing? You decide. Woe is October, which brings awareness not just to breasts, but also to liver cancer, diabetes, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, and squirrels.
Digestive Aid
Posted: Friday, November 13th, 2009
Gorgeous veggie body poster by the International Vegetarian Union. Love them cauliflower lungs! Reminds us of illustrator Kyle Bean’s work, in the same vein of bodily vegetables, or Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Created by JWT Kuwait. {via Boing Boing. Thanks, Russ!}
Sleeping in Guts
Posted: Friday, November 13th, 2009
Snuggling down into a pile of intestines doesn’t sound appealing until you see this fabulous tauntaun sleeping bag from Think Geek. Pretend to be Luke as he warms up inside this poor slain snow lizard on Hoth. The bag also comes equipped with a light saber zipper pull so you can also pretend to be the sexy Han Solo. Better to keep the thing alive for future Rebel patrol missions, we think.
Visceral Dressing
Posted: Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Visions of wearing our insides out, as imagined by wildly imaginative Indian fashion designer Manish Arora, crafty seamstress Rachel Wright, and a Craft magazine skeleton cardigan sweater pattern by Mary Weaver. All from Make Zine.
Menses in the House
Posted: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
Well, it’s the time of the month when we have menstrual cycle posters up for sale in the I Heart Guts shop. Special thanks to Dr. Catherine Leclair, Dr. Juliana Hansen, Dr. Jody Steinauer, and Paavi Davidson, who all helped straighten me out on a few key facts, and thanks also to everyone who wrote in with comments and corrections. You’ll see the above final version includes a blastocyst, missing before, plus some clarification on the corpus luteum. The hormones are also drinking during the hormone party, which we though apropos for that pre-ovulatory time of the month. We hope this poster helps ya get through those progesterone drops and wacky hormonal hell, or at least livens up your walls. Ova and out.
Eating Guts
Posted: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
I tried to make an alphabetical guts placemat for my two-year-old son, hoping to include every organ and gland we have around here. I got stuck after a while, though, once it dawned on me that spleen, sebaceous, stomach, sweat gland and salivary glands were going to make it very difficult to place all those guts. So I just made a placemat of of all the guts, alphabet be damned. I’ll letcha know how much information he actually absorbs as he flings food all over it.
More Pockets, Please
Posted: Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
A lack of pockets is a problem every lady faces. Aside from finding the occasional chic dress with pockets, most of us drag our stuff around in handbags and make the best of it. But what about if you need to haul tons of equipment on your person while on the job? For example, if you’re a nurse. Enter the Pocket Skirt, a super handy garment designed especially for nurses that adds eight more pockets to one’s clothing arsenal. More feminine than a fanny pack, and more practical than a handbag, we can see these sweeping the hospital scene.
The Wait Is Ova
Posted: Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Some students from University of New Mexico’s School of Medicine wrote to us about designing a fundraising shirt for their local Medical Students for Choice organization. We are always happy to slap a uterus up on a shirt, so we agreed on the “Ova Achiever” slogan (seems appropriate for you butt-kicking med school types) and they got them printed up. They just sent these fun photos — we always love seeing a man in a uterus tee.
