February Desktop + phone Wallpapers

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We Love Farmgirl Flowers: This Valentine's Send USA-Grown

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The floral business is big business. In 2013, Americans spent over 25.7 billion dollars on flowers! And, did you know when you buy cut flowers from your local shop, they are usually imported from foreign countries? In the US, most of our flowers actually come from Colombia. San Francisco-based Farmgirl Flowers is one of the few flower delivery companies working to change that.

The team at Farmgirl Flowers is bringing American-made, designer-quality flowers to the public with an extremely user-friendly and, dare-we-say, really cool website. No more cheesy plastic planters; their floral arrangements are wrapped in recycled burlap coffee bags from rad coffee roasters in the Bay Area. And not only are they supporting local farmers, they are striving to minimize the environmental impact as well. That's a cause and company we can get behind! So this Valentine’s Day instead of choosing the least-tacky floral arrangement on a generic bouquet-site, get something that is truly unique, beautiful and supports a company that is changing the way we buy flowers. 

 

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

photo courtesy of @ farmgirlflowers

January Desktop + Phone Wallpapers

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Why Staff Retreats ROCK!

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After a very busy and productive 2014, the Unique team went on a much-needed three day staff retreat to Palm Springs! Even though our team is small, six people including full-time and part-time staff, we are mighty and accomplish a lot across three different brands: the Unique USA shopping events, The Unique Space and our creative conference CAMP.  What that means is that, like most small businesses, we all wear many hats and work on different projects. So our founder Sonja Rasula thought it was time we left our normal environment to concentrate on 2015 planning, biz dev and strategy, and to spend time together, bonding away from the workplace... WHAT AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE IT WAS!

Basically what it boils down to is that we invested the time into 'taking time out', which seems like a simple concept yet few small businesses do it. After the experience Sonja is now making it an annual retreat and we accomplished so much in just a few days, both work and play! We brainstormed website redesign, thought of new revenue streams, figured out the new company vision and mission statements; but we also had a great time deepening friendships, doing arts and crafts projects to foster our creative sides, and we had a blast cooking and drinking wine! One night we had planned to go out on the town but every single person opted to stay in to simply play Pictionary, which really shows how much fun we had simply hanging-out and getting to know one another! Whether you're a small business or a big one we think a retreat is crucial, the outcome of our retreat did wonders for us. Here's some of our photos we shared on Instagram using #UniqueStaffRetreat. 

Unique USA Family

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We've been producing Unique USA, the largest Made-in-America market, for 6 years now! We truly feel we've created a community and a family with our vendors, sponsors and attendees. One of our partners-in-crime is Rafael Cruz and his team from Oh! Snap Studios, who have been with us since our very first show! They produce custom built photo booths for special events, and always come up with fun, wacky scenes for our shoppers to get creative together! Taking a free photo booth picture has become part of the tradition of going to Unique USA for a lot of families. Here's one in particular - meet the Remple family. 

They started attending Unique USA when their daughter was a young girl and have attended almost every market since, taking photos at the Oh! Snap Studios photo booth each time. Now, six years later their daughter is a teenager! It's amazing to watch her grow up in the photos from a cute, little girl into a beautiful young person! It's showed us how much we've all grown and how much we value being part of your family and your holiday tradition. 

Thank you for supporting Unique USA since the beginning and thank you for creating memories with us and our partners Oh! Snap Studios! 

#MoreStuffingLessStuff

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Thanksgiving is a time for reflection, love, celebration, laughter... It's about gratitude and community. So we've created #MoreStuffingLessStuff to show our commitment to spending time with loved ones instead of shopping, and we hope you'll spread the above image too! We are so thankful that you have discovered and joined us - you are our community, you are everything! Over the last week, especially with the recent events and mood across America, we'd like to encourage you to spend time with friends, family, loved ones, neighbors throughout the holiday weekend. This Thanksgiving, let's break the ill-suited tradition of being attached to a screen or device of some sort to surf the web for deals or getting up at the break of dawn to wait in line at conglomerate businesses to buy products that are, quite frankly, sh*t. This important holiday is not about shopping at all! We encourage you to revel in the act of cooking and communal eating with people that you love. We hope you will get outdoors and go for a walk or hike in your community and neighborhood. Volunteer or donate money to a local organization that is doing great work.

Do you really need that 85" TV? Or that extra "must-have" trend of the year that will sit in the back of your closet?

Community is important because it's what ties us together despite differences. We may indeed each be unique, but we're all human and the one truth that we share is that we have the same beginning and end. What we do in-between, what we do with our time is the good stuff! Find and engage in community, whether it's through a common interest such as food or mopeds, or within an organization such as volunteering at a seniors home or joining a club at work. Taking part in community and being a strong member of your community is more important than ever! Take the time to get to know your neighbors, your neighborhood and your city. By discovering the people  around you, who live nearby and who share common interests you gain a sense of home and community. Community is about compassion, empathy, understanding. Being part of a community is so important because it brings a sense of purpose, a sense of neighborhood, and you have people that you can talk to and rely on for help.

We hope you will share and spread #MoreStuffingLessStuff on Instagram and Twitter because Thanksgiving is about so much more than saving a few dollars on Black Friday!

Let's put an end to this consumerism madness! It's an endless cycle that does little but produce waste, anxiety and debt. Thanksgiving is about family, friends and spending time with each other. It's about being thankful for the things you have, not wishing for things you don't. So join us, show us what Thanksgiving means to you, how you're celebrating and what you're thankful for this year: share the hashtag #MoreStuffingLessStuff. Let's eat, drink and celebrate what we're thankful for with family, even those awkward cousins and long-winded uncles. But let's not, of all things, waste our hard-earned money and precious time buying cheap, disposable sh*t we don't need. Instead, wait to do your holiday shopping and buy high-quality goods that will last, made here in America with love and care, at our LA Holiday Market Dec 6 & 7, at Renegade Craft Fairs and Northern Grade events around the country, plus visit local stores and "Shop Small".

We are really, really excited to see your posts and pictures. Show us what Thanksgiving means to you. We'll repost our favorites via Instagram. Have a Great Thanksgiving Everyone!

xoxo,

Team Unique USA 

The Anatomy of Buying Local

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People often ask us what we mean when we say that buying American-made helps the community, so we decided to make this graphic to help show all the amazing ways that spending your dollars on local-made goods helps. Purchasing items that are made here in the USA helps the economy on both a micro and macro level! Aside from the obvious results that shopping local at UNIQUE USA gives us all (getting a quality product and feeling good about buying from someone in your community), when you buy items made abroad you're helping another country's infrastructure but when you buy things made here at home you're putting money right back into local infrastructure. Here are a few ways your dollars help:

  • Business owner tax dollars (city, state AND federal) go toward public services. That's everything from our public schools and police safety patrols to highway improvements and local parks!
  • As a small business grows they have to outsource, hire freelancers and/or begin to hire employees, helping to create jobs in their community.
  • They also use numerous service providers, who are themselves each small business owners in the neighborhood, such as printers, couriers, manufacturers, accountants, etc. The cycle is continuous!  

So while you may spend a few more dollars on things made in the USA, when you're buying American-made your dollar is going toward much more then a beautiful, locally-produced product. Yay!

November Desktop + Phone Wallpapers are here!

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We're so excited to share with you our November series of desktop and phone wallpapers! We wanted to make a cozy, minimalistic reminder to keep pushing, reaching and generally kicking ass - like a boss, of course. Enjoy and share with your friends! 

For your laptop/desktop: (click image to download)

For your phone: (click image to download)

 
 

OCT PEP RALLY: Geronimo Balloons!

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jihan1.JPG

Holy moly, are you ready for this month's Pep Rally?! We are all high around here (on helium of course...) with excitement because Jihan Zencirli, founder and head balloon trooper of Geronimo Balloons is our guest speaker! Join us at The Unique Space on Thursday evening, October 16, from 6:30 - 8 for a night of inspiration, tales and small biz smack-down. Aside from being one of the coolest people on the earth, Jihan created an entire industry within the wedding/events industry with her balloon creations - spawning thousands of copy-cats around the world! Don't miss this awesome talk, RSVP NOW.

Polite Society Paper!

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We love discovering new brands making super rad Made-in-America products!

POLITE SOCIETY PAPER is a mother + daughter design team based in Los Angeles. We asked the duo to fill us in on their brand and what inspires them every day.

What lead you to start POLITE SOCIETY PAPER? 

POLITE SOCIETY PAPER was formed out of our passion for stationery and the realization that we had a unique esthetic to bring to the market. 

What do you use as inspiration for your line?

Our inspiration comes from a shared love for vintage, clean + minimal style, and our inner tomboys that occasional come out to play. Together we collaborate on every item - brainstorming ideas, sketching + perfecting designs, choosing colors + card stock... and cooking some pretty amazing lunches in our studio! 

Where do you hope to take POLITE SOCIETY PAPER in the future?

We’ve launched POLITE SOCIETY PAPER with a collection of graphic and text, all occasion cards, but plan to take our design approach into other areas of paper + home goods in the near future.

Hashtag Awesomeness

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We love interacting with you and discovering new talent, so we have created three awesome hashtags on Instagram for everyone to use! Tag and share your pics and we will regram our favorites every week... Fun times!

  1. Share your adventure and road-trip photos with us using #uniqueroadtrips
  2. Got great travel spots to share, secret cafes you love, hotel discoveries, packing tips? Share them with us using #uniqueusatravel
  3. Inspired by the great Fourth of July flag photos we saw, we created #uniqueusaflags so you can share fab flag pics with us!

Here are just a few stunning photos that you'll see:

By @igreen97

By @igreen97

By @jillithtay

By @jillithtay

By @evill

By @evill

By @blossomvintage

By @blossomvintage

By @steph_m_collins

By @steph_m_collins

By @sonjarasula

By @sonjarasula

By @brittstreiss

By @brittstreiss

Hats Off to Autumn!

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While we are going to miss catching warm rays on the beach, there is one season we love the most because of the amazing wardrobe options: Autumn! It's Back-to-School time, which means the great new Fall lines and trends have arrived. One of the things we are loving seeing is how many Made in the USA hat designers there are in stores right now! We've rounded-up our favorites for both men and women... Enjoy!

Rockin' Out at First City Festival

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Last week Team Unique packed into a car for an epic road-trip up the California coast to Monterey, for the First City Festival. Every year we partner with the awesome music festival/carnival to create an American-made Marketplace filled with vendors. This year's fest was amazing with Beck, Phantogram, Tanlines, The National, Tokyo Police Club and more. The truly unique thing about the fest is that it's in a beautiful atmosphere by the ocean, so the temperature is perfect day and night, and that admission includes all the carnival rides!!! It's a chill, fun festival. Here's a peek at the good times, photographed by Bryan Dale.

Sonja and Kellie roadside on the way up to the festival.

Sonja and Kellie roadside on the way up to the festival.

Phantogram blew our minds... 

Phantogram blew our minds... 

The National

The National

Beck and his band were AMAZING!

Beck and his band were AMAZING!

The festival includes a carnival and free rides!!!

The festival includes a carnival and free rides!!!

Heads up!

Heads up!