things i heart: unnatural history

"things i heart" is my friday series on the blog.  hope you enjoy! 

i first have to thank bri of design love fest for posting about this last week, because i am totally in love.  with what?  you ask, losing patience.  ok, sorry!  it's called the museum of unnatural history, located in washington, d.c., and it's basically a shop filled with whimsical and fantastical products that leave me in awe of others' creativity.  

 

 

but i haven't told you the best part yet: the museum is just the retail front for 826DC, the d.c. branch of a non-profit children's writing center founded by bestselling author david eggers.  the center offers after-school tutoring, field trips, and evening and weekend writing workshops.  as someone who deeply values childhood imagination through reading (and might harbor a secret wish to some day be a writer herself), i am head-over-heels for this concept.  read more about the center here.  

and now for the unnatural items (read the labels carefully!):

 

if you're not in d.c. like me, they have some of their products online.  but next time i'm in our nation's capital?  you can bet you'll find me here!

the idea behind the museum is “to show that the world is as strange as we imagine it to be…

we want to get the kids asking questions.” 

- deputy director joe callahan

i sure hope that applies to "grown-up" kids as well!

xo. di.

p.s. there are 8 chapters of 826 around the country, some with their own unique storefront attached, see if there's one by you!

*for more on the museum, read this great article.

*images via olivermunday