Playthings at Fishcake will color your world

Nadine Kam photo
One of my new "toys."

I wasn't thinking about spring brights when I walked into Fishcake before Christmas, but I thought this wwhereit Pikachu bracelet was adorable, so picked it up for $45. Turns out it has all the bright orange, yellow and greens of the coming season.

And, there's a lot more to see. The Kakaako gallery is winding up its "Toy Show," where dozens of minature works by local artists are based on the theme of play. The show features everything from tabletop sculptures to a pirate ship stuffed with handmade plush animals by Mimi Wisnosky.

The show ends Saturday. See it if you can.
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Fishcake is at 307-C Kamani St. in Kakaako. Call 593-1231.

More wwhereit stretch bracelets, including one made with toy cars.

One of Mimi Wisnosky's pirate animals.

DISfunkshion catches eyes on CocoPerez

Hugette Montesinos got a late Christmas gift when her Hawaii-based DISfunkshion magazine got a shout out from Perez Hilton's CocoPerez.com for its January cover featuring actress, singer and fashionista Kat Graham.

"The Vampire Diaries" star was photographed over the summer by Harold Julian in a spread styled by Brett Alan Nelson, winner of MTV's "Styl'd," with the help of wardrobe assistant Tyson Joines, hair by Marc Cornwall and makeup by Christa Wong.

Here's a link to the item: http://cocoperez.com

Color story: Ready to tango?

Pantone
Adrienne Vittadini combines Tangerine Tango and Bellflower in two Spring 2012 ensembles.

By now, shoppers who looked beyond the sales racks may have figured out Spring 2012 is all about bold, bright color. How bright? How about neons and fluorescent brights, for starters? Then, last month, color experts at Pantone proclaimed Tangerine Tango, "a spirited reddish orange," as the color of the year.

Tangerine Tango radiates warmth and cheer and is intended to serve as a recharger and refresher of positive energy after a fretful 2011.

The intense orange orange will likely scare a lot of people, but it's one of my three favorite colors so something I already have in my closet, along with a lot of green, and in the fall, purple.

One day I was wearing green shoes and one of my co-workers said, "You must have a lot of shoes if you're wearing green."

No, I don't have a lot of shoes because my Cinderella feet are too small for any meaningful relationship with footwear. That's the reason you'll find me in black rubber slippers most days. But his thought was that most people would only add green after stocking the basics in such neutral colors as black, navy, cream nude and white.

Instead, my neutral palette comprises orange, green and purple, something that would have blinded my classmates at Waipahu High School, where those colors—individually or together—would have got me run out of class as an F.O.B. (fresh off the boat) outcast. In those days I had to wear blue and brown, though those colors do nothing for me. Talk about the downside of peer pressure.

Nadine Kam photo
A trio of my orange purses, along with new additions of Chanel Spring 2012 Rouge Coco Shine "Flirt" and Benefit Cosmetics "Saucy" Full Finish lipstick.

Even though I'm not afraid of color, I imagine many are. One easy way to introduce color to your life is with a new shade of nail polish, or even subtler, a new lipstick or lipgloss.

Over the holidays, I added two great orange-y hues of lipstick to my makeup wardrobe. They are Chanel Rouge Coco Shine "Flirt," which looks like a sheer pretty, peachy pink when it's worn, and Benefit Cosmetics Full Finish Lipstick in the color "Saucy." Saucy is the stronger color, with a golden tangerine shimmer, which brings out the warmth in a yellow complexion.

Beginning in March, Sephora + Pantone Universe will launch its first "Color of the Year" collaboration. The limited-edition collection will features eye shadows, lipsticks, lip glosses, nail polishes and accessories, to get people thinking about their relationship with color.

In the meantime, while you're shopping the last of the fall season's sales, be on the lookout for color that will carry you into summer.

Here are the other top colors of 2012:

Bellflower: An ornamental purple.
Cabaret: A sensual, intense rosy red.
Solar Power: A sunny, radiant yellow.
Sodalite Blue: A classic maritime hue, bringing order and calmness to mind.
Cockatoo: A tactile blue-green.
Margarita: A piquant yellow-green to lifts spirits with its stimulating glow.|
Sweet Lilac: A pinkish lilac evocative of romance and a garden in bloom.
Driftwood: A blend of beige and gray with a slightly weathered feel.
Starfish: A beige-y summer neutral, complementing all of this season's top colors.

2012: Desperately seeking balance

Nadine Kam photo
Posting photos of animals and hay bales, below, took more time in 2011 than perhaps necessary.

On New Year's Eve, I received a message from MauiShopGirl blogger Tania Ginoza, regarding sharing my New Year's resolutions.

At that point, I hadn't given it much thought beyond not making any resolutions. First, I had the flu going into the new year, and when you're sick, the future is last thing on your mind. There's only the present miserable state.

Second, last new year I was caught up in the rush of the Post A Day movement, joining other bloggers around the world in pledging to post daily. "How hard could it be?" I thought at the time. I was already posting four to five times a week. What's another couple of posts?

Well, my daily posts lasted about a month. Those two last posts, I found, were the difference between what one of my bosses calls "therapy," and stress-inducing obsession. And when it comes to a choice between mental health and insanity, the choice is easy.

Hay bales in Lakeville, CT, July 2010.

I am entering my fifth year of blogging (August 2007), and fifth year on Twitter (May 2007). I take responsibility for turning a whole lot of people on to Twitter over a couple of evangelical years, but in the middle of last year, I cut back on my interactions. While on vacation in New York, then in nothing-going-on Lakeville, CT, I finally figured out how much time I was putting into social networking. With all the time in the world, and nothing going on around me, it was taking four hours a day to simply upload a handful of photos and manage conversations on Twitter, Facebook and Foodspotting. It's a lot of time when you add in regular work hours and even though much of it is fun, it adds a layer of stress when you start feeling it's something you must do at any cost.

I'd already cut back my blogging hours the previous year. When I started, it wasn't unusual to stay up til 3 in the morning blogging and editing video. For us much as we talk about sustainability, those kinds of hours are not sustainable over time.

Now, six months after I cut back, I'm seeing new year stories along the lines of Pico Iyer's "The Joy of Quiet," extolling the joys of or desire to escape the information stream. I think that escape is impossible for anyone who wants to have any kind of career or relevance in the future. That information stream is as much a part of our culture as radio was in the 1930s to '50s, and television from the 1950s through '80s. But, I believe it's possible to occupy physical and online worlds in a way that allows one to be human, not machine. And, so I arrived at my personal buzz word for 2012, which is "balance."

If it ever comes down to a choice, I've always known that I prefer to live life on a human scale rather than the scattershot of bits and bytes.

The card exchange

Some of the cards being offered at Gift Card Granny.

Was Santa good to you?

New kinds of days keep emerging around Christmas season to help retailers move products, but Gift Card Exchange Day is one of the few to help consumers move their unwanted gift cards.

Returns and exchanges once applied to physical goods, but with gift card sales hitting $100 billion, chances are the same qualms apply. While appreciative of the gifts and blessings that come our way, all the good wishes won’t erase the reality that some retailers just don’t suit your style, or maybe you turned vegan in the last year, but your aunt remembers your steakhouse-frequenting past life.

Gift Card Exchange Day is actually the day after Christmas, but if you were too overwhelmed to do anything that day, you can still head to GiftCardGranny.com to get the ball rolling.

At the site, you can enter the merchant name and denomination on the unwanted card to receive cash bids from gift card resellers. The highest rates paid are the day after Christmas. Cards from such popular retailers selling necessities, i.e. gas stations, Target, Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club and Safeway will get you 92 percent of the card’s value. For other retailers, you’ll generally get back 75 percent of the value of the card, so a $50 card is likely to net you about $37.50.

The site also includes links and phone numbers where you can check on the balances of the cards you have.

You can also shop for gift cards at a 6 to 23 percent discount (they even do the math for the math-challenged, so you know where the biggest savings are) off their face value, mostly through eBay auctions that the site can link you to.

If you’re not sure you can trust the average eBayer, here are other sites to check out. The savings may not be as great, but you’ll have peace of mind that the card will arrive at the stated value:

Cardpool.com

GiftCardRescue.com

PlasticJungle.com

Coupontrade.com

For those who frequent just a few favorite stores, buying cards at a discount is one way of making sure you can shop at sale prices through the year, even when there's no sale going on.

Go for the GLO!

GLO Brilliant photos
Dr. Jonathan B. Levine puts whitening power into the hands of consumers with his GLO Brilliant unit, which makes whitening a no-brainer.

You may not be familiar with his name, but Jonathan B. Levine just may be the Steve Jobs of dentistry. The New York-based aesthetic dentist will be here in Honolulu to show one of his newest inventions, an iPod-looking gadget designed to whiten teeth, but that’s just the beginning. He believes the device will revolutionize oral care as a platform for future at-home uses.

You can see the GLO Brilliant system from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 21 at Sephora Ala Moana, where the doctor will be on hand to answer questions and offer smile evaluations.

GLO Brilliant has been clinically tested to show the device can make teeth five shades lighter in three to five days, a result equal to professional whitening, the doctor said in a phone interview for my story that appears in the paper today.

There was a lot of remedial science going on as he explained how the hydrogen peroxide solution breaks down into water and negative-charged oxygen that oxidizes the stains from teeth. The unit generates heat and light that is channeled through a flexible mouthpiece designed to concentrate heat and light on the gel to accelerate the process.

I told him he must get tired of explaining the science to journalists who probably became journalists because they were no good in science and math, but he said he never gets tired of talking science, and it’s pretty obvious inventing things is his passion. Finding solutions to dental problems is what he thinks about when he’s biking with friends, and Kona has been part of his riding circuit for about 15 years.

Like other technology, you have to charge the unit when you take it out of the box. Then, plug in the mouthpiece, line your teeth with the gel (refrigerate when you get it to preserve its potency), stick the mouthpiece in your mouth, press the button on the unit, and just go about doing your chores while your teeth come clean.

Instructions call for four 8-minute intervals (32 minutes) in a row, for three to five days. The unit turns off after 8 minutes for precise timing. After that, you can maintain your brighter smile with up to four 8-minute sessions a month.

Some will be likely become obsessed with getting the whitest white possible and not stop, but Levine warns that overdoing it will damage the internal structure of the tooth, which may turn gray in the process, and you don’t want that, do you?

The initial purchase is $275 at Sephora, and additional mouthpieces are $79, allowing others in the household to use the device. Additional 10-vial sets of whitening gel are $45.

The mouthpiece glows while you’re whitening, and shuts off after each 8-minute interval. It may be funny-looking, but it works!

Hildgund jewelry hunt begins today

Hildgund Jewelry
This pearl bracelet, valued at $695, is among the 24 pieces of jewelry that will be hidden around town for anyone to find during Hildgund Jewelry's "12 Days of Christmas" holiday hunt.

Today marks the start of what has become the annual "12 Days of Christmas Hildgund Jewelry Hunt," with two jewelry pieces awaiting holiday sleuths daily.

The items, ranging from $100 to $5,300 in value, will be placed in white boxes tied with a gold bow and hidden around town for lucky — and fast — hunters to find, with no strings attached.

Look for daily clues posted at www.facebook.com/HildgundJewelry and www.twitter.com/HildgundJewelry, where you can also follow the action at #HJHUNT.

When I interviewed Hildgund Jewelry president Bruce Bucky for a story last week, he said it's not that easy to hide $20,000 in jewels, and I believe him since I was enlisted over the past two years to hide two of the boxes. It's hard to think of a spot that's out of the way, so the package isn't easily swept up or trampled, yet still public enough for everyone to have access.

The first year, I tried to think of the sort of person I would like to find the package, which would be a humble sort of reader. So I stowed it outside the Liliha Library, took a partial picture of the library for sleuths to figure out, and tweeted it. Well, there were several people looking for it at the right spot but they couldn't find it. I heard later it was found by a homeless man who slept there, who sold it for something like $20. Oh well, at least it made two people happy.

Also to be hidden is this pair of gold and diamond earrings valued at $5,355.

Then, last year I was having lunch at Fresh Cafe, and thought it was a good place for a jewelry drop, so I put it on a shelf near the door. It was pretty obvious if you were looking for it, and certainly easy enough for an employee to have picked up as well, but like Bucky said, how many people really observe their surroundings? It took three days for someone to tweet back that he'd finally found it.

Bucky said others hid them in grocery stacks where they languished for days as well, and it speaks to the fearfulness of the times, that even when found, some people won't pick them up out of fear of a practical joke or worse.

At any rate, it's well-intended, and Bucky also wraps up food gift certificates for direct distribution to the homeless.

Good luck to all who go on the hunt! For more information, call 523-1123 or visit www.hildgund.com.