Maybe you know a Brooklynite in absentia (they’ll be back, don’t worry) or maybe you’re a recent arrival yourself and want to show all the folks back home just how ironic and cityslickery you’ve become. Or better still, you know someone whose job it is to concoct kooky moneymaking schemes. In that case, BROOKLYNrehab’s “NYC Souvenir” is perfect inspiration because, well, look at it: it’s a test tube (plastic!), a cork, a piece of cleverly printed oaktag and a damn pigeon feather picked off the cobblestones and it’s selling it for $14. It’s actually pretty cool, but then so is most of the stuff from BROOKLYNrehab’s Alyssa Zygmunt, a fashion designer by day who Etsies at night.

Order a pigeon feather in a test tube here, and if you’re a merchant, local craftsperson or a reader with a great find for this daily post, please send photos and descriptions to faye [at] brokelyn [dot] com. And check the site every day through Christmas for our latest additions.

If you have a design-y friend who’s been big into those mod, one-dimensional takes on fussy classics (chandelier decals on walls, picture frame stickers and the like) these “boudoir” mirrors from A & G Merch are a natural next step. Delicately gracing a dressing table or hung on the wall for last-minute spot checks, they’re ideal for that 19th-century damsel living in a Boerum Hill brownstone. Mirrors are sold in store for $10 a piece, or on the web, five for $49.

A&G Merch is in Williamsburg at 111 N. 6th St.  (718) 388-1779. If you’re a merchant, local craftsperson or a reader with a great find for this daily post, please send photos and descriptions to faye [at] brokelyn [dot] com. And check the site every day through Christmas for our latest additions.

Considering that LEGOs have spawned a whole sculptural movement, with some masterpieces to rival just about anything the ancient Greeks put forth, why shouldn’t the little colored blocks play music from your iPod too? At $25, the Toy Block iPod Dock is a tiny, ultra-portable dock that’ll fit with your iPod into any nook or cranny of your studio-sized kitchen. The sound’s not quite BOSE-quality, but considering the thing’s the size of a pack of gum, it blasts away with surprising oomph. Great for camping trips too! Insound, the online store for all things audio, is opening a pop-up store in Williamsburg (303 Grand St.) on Dec. 17, and they’ll have these dockss in stock then, including a few other colors (some of which are only $20, but we like the silver).

Plants can be burdensome and Chia-pets are soooo nineties.  I, Grobot is the perfect little planter that fits into a 3-x-3-inch square on the edge of a desk. It’s shorter than a coffee cup (without the grass) and comes in a tiny red box with everything you need to turn a workspace into an instant conversation starter—ceramic body, legs, grass seeds and two soil pellets. (The water’s on you.) It’s a festive stocking stuffer to help cubicle dwellers get a little more green into their fluorescent-lit lives, and it’s just the right degree of impersonal to give to someone who you don’t want to send any mixed messages to. Also, we love movie puns.

I, Grobot is $10 at the Clay Pot in Park Slope at 162 7th Avenue, (718) 788-6564. (more…)

Photo by iStock.

It’s called Turkey Day for a reason, pilgrims, and this year you want an organic one. First of all, you know how much better they taste (it’s true). Second, it’s Thanksgiving, and it just seems right to eat a bird that saw sunlight and walked outside like they did in 1621, not pumped with hormones and antibiotics by someone not wearing flannel.

What exactly is an organic turkey? To settle the free-range vs. organic question, which wasn’t easy, here’s a helpful document explaining the USDA’s rules, which say that in addition to not being fed drugs, plastic pellets, hormones, manure, etc., livestock must be raised with “access to the outdoors, shade, shelter, exercise areas, fresh air and direct sunlight suitable to the species, its stage of production, the climate and the environment.” Michael Pollan says poultry farmers have all kinds of ways of getting around USDA regs, one reason why more people are opting for free-livin’ heritage turkeys, which can cost up to $14.99/pound. (Brooklyn Based has a list here.) For the purposes of our research, we kept it simple: called a whole bunch of markets and a few online vendors to get prices on a 13-pound organic bird, which serves eight to 10 people. (more…)