Want the cheapest airfare in town? Pilot your own plane
When I was a girl, I told my mother I wanted to be a flight attendant (stewardess back then), and without batting an eye she replied, “Hmm, what about something else?” I thought about it for a second, knowing what she was getting at, and said, [...]

Five thousand one reasons to open your wallet at 5001

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Despite being home to a number of major retailers—like the Body Shop/Banana Republic/Gap trifecta, where, I’m not too proud to admit, I worshiped as a teen—as well as more than a few choice boutiques (Blue Windows, Body O Soul), Second Street can often [...]

Out of the Closet does not smell like grandma’s house

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Thrift stores are essentially condensed department stores—the difference being department stores sell lots of new junk you don’t need, while thrift stores sell lots of used stuff you don’t need. This theory is nearly always accurate, which explains my confusion each time I [...]

Spread the word with Richele Silva’s custom paper designs

Evites and mass text messages might work just fine when it comes to notices of housewarmings and the casual dinner party, but computer screens and minute BlackBerry fonts don’t ever quite match up to old-fashioned paper correspondence. And that’s precisely what makes Richele Silva’s custom-designed invitations, greeting [...]

A Flower Girl’s Dream doesn’t just tiptoe through the tulips

PHOTO by JEFF GOULD
It’s not uncommon to find Sheri Cervantes running around her store in a wetsuit, sopping wet with sand still dripping from her hair, rattling off plant facts while putting together the most perfect, colorful bouquet of flowers you’ve ever seen.
“This is the only [...]

Don’t keep it in. Say it with socks
I’m not one for expressing emotions. Telling the rest of the world what I’m feeling just doesn’t ever seem to make the top of my daily to-do list. That’s why I write. It’s much easier to put something down on paper than to speak up about an issue [...]

The frightening beauty of Six Foot Owl’s ‘Closing Thoughts’ tees

Most of Six Foot Owl’s hand-painted T-shirts and jackets verge on being a bit too romantic for my tastes. The “clothing art company,” founded by high school friends Brianne Cirel and Johnie Thornton, plays with images both sorta cute (piano keys, telephone poles, ants tracking down [...]

From pink slip to playful kitsch at Bungalow Marcasso

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
Getting laid off blows, but when your severance check covers two years of unemployment with enough scratch left over to open a business (and be your own boss), the pink slip doesn’t sound so terrible. Just ask Mark Sutherland, owner of Bungalow Marcasso.
The 47-year-old [...]

There’s something about Greenspan’s

PHOTO by ROSHEILA ROBLES
No one mistakes South Gate for the epicenter of the fashion world, but an exception is Greenspan’s—“Serving the Lowrider Community Since 1928.” The historic clothing store’s clientèle includes James Brown, most of N.W.A, John Lee Hooker, Cypress Hill, House of Pain and Rancid (as well as the wardrobe departments [...]

Be healed, woman!

Much like, say, a bagel slicer (or a boyfriend), a heating pad is something a woman can usually do without until she needs it—now. Like when you’ve run out of Motrin, kicked a bottle of Glen Ellen cab (tough times), and find yourself sitting in a lukewarm bath that’s feeling increasingly more like [...]