Why design safety reflectors in the shape of musical notes and clefs? Because we love music and musical notation is fascinating! But we also want to help musicians and music lovers get home safely after concerts. Our reflectors are stylish and easy to hang on jackets, bags and instrument cases. In other words: perfect gifts for musicians and music lovers! We know how often rehearsals and concerts take place late in the evening. Especially at this time of year, that means coming and going in the dark.
Ready for the evening rehearsal: music bag with quaver reflective tag. …
The funflector treble and bass clef safety reflectors are perfect stocking stuffers for musicians and music lovers who already have “everything”. Urban areas are magnets for concerts and theater performances and with that comes restaurants, bars and coffee shops. What can be better than combining a great performance with seeing dear friends and enjoying good food? Wether you arrive by car or public transportation, you will likely walk between the performance venue and your favorite restaurant. You might not think much about it, but you will most likely also cross a few streets with traffic during the course of the evening. And that is when safety reflectors come in handy. We know you probably cringe and think neon yellow when you hear “safety reflector” but with funflector you get a nice looking charm, that doubles as a safety reflector – even the black ones!
Treble clef safety reflectors are available in a number of colors in our webshop. Matching bass clef reflectors in most colors.
✅ Tickets. Check. ✅ Restaurant reservation. Check. ✅ Good Friends. Check ✅ Phone, money and house keys. Check ✅ Good looking safety reflectors. Check?
For our fellow science nerds around the world, we teamed up with The Particle Zoo and designed an ultra-reflective slap bracelet with elementary particles related to the Nobel Prize in physics. Order it in here webshop, or in our German webshop. In our previous blog post, we discussed the significance of the Photon (1921), the Neutron (1935) and the Electron magnetic moment (1955). That means we are up to the antiproton!
Two difference views of the reflective slap bracelet with the Particle Zoo Nobel Prize collection of elementary particles.
1959 – The Antiproton
Emilio Gino Segrè and Owen Chamberlain “for their discovery of the antiproton”. An antiparticle is a “mirror image twin” of the particle and Paul Dirac’s theory predicted every particle has its antiparticle. The positron, the antiparticle of the electron, had been discovered in 1932 but the creation of the antiproton, required a more powerful machine followed by new techniques to detect and measure the result. They announced the discovery of the antiproton in 1955. Read more here> and here>.
Walter Bärthel, 1914
One hundred years ago, my grandfather Walter Bärthel was on the western front, fighting for his homeland, Germany. During his time both in the trenches and behind the front lines, he kept writing and drawing in his diary. He was only 17 years old, just a boy and had not yet completed high school, when he was caught up in the euphoria and propaganda, and joined the army. Those four diaries are an amazing story about his experiences and thoughts from the front and later from his hospital bed. On December 19th, 2014, Walter sketched the landscape near Arras in France covered in barbed wire. Arras, France, December 19th, 2014 by my grandfather Walter Bärthel.
There has been a lot of talk in the media lately about the Christmas truce of 1914, when soldiers on both sides sang Christmas songs together and maybe played soccer. On December 24th, 2014, my grandfather wrote the following:
“Donnerstag, 24. Dez.
Heiliger Abend! Abends und nachts sangen Leute von uns auf Horchposten (Weihnachtslieder), daß es die Franzosen hörten! Nach einiger Zeit sang ein Franzose. Während jedes Gesanges war alles still. Danach fingen die Horchposten wieder zu schießen an. – Ich hatte einen kleinen Weihnachtsbaum in meiner Höhle, mit Lichtern, Nüssen, den die Eltern geschickt hatten. Auch mein Kamerad besaß einen solchen. – Wie werden die Eltern zu Hause das Weihnachtsfest feiern?” Thursday, Dec. 24th Holy Night! Evening and night, our people on “listening post” sang Christmas carols, so the French could hear it! After a while, a Frenchman sang too. During each song everything was quiet. Afterwards, the “listening post” went back to shooting. I had a small Christmas tree in my dugout, with lights and nuts, which my parents had sent me. My friend also had one like it. – How will the parents celebrate Christmas back home?Translation by Personal Past.
Walter’s story is one of four in the German-French graphic novel “Tagebuch 14-18 – Vier Geschichten aus Deutschland und Frankreich” / “Carnets 14-18 – Quatre histoires de France et d’Allemagne” (“Diary 14-18 – Four stories from Germany and France“)
American folk singer John McCutcheon captured a similar story in “Christmas in the Trenches“.
This is a tricky one: Stocking stuffers for physicists and science buffs, especially those geared towards cosmology and subatomic (particle) physics. What do you do when your geek friends don’t want any more science kits and own all the cool/fun/silly T-shirts, tea mugs and mousepads from red bubble, cafepress or sazzle?
Particle Zoo funflector safety reflectors are ideal stocking stuffers for physicists, astronomers and cosmologists.
Particle Zoo Stocking Stuffers for Physicists
Fortunately, graphic designer Julie Peasley combined her interest for cosmology, the quantum world and theoretical physics with her design talent and created the line of Particle Zoo plushies. The felt creatures reflect the personalities of the various particles in a fun and educational way and are as much fun on the distinguished professor’s desk as in the class room. The Particle Zoo line has since expanded to magnets (who would not want to play with Feynman diagrams on their fridge door???), pencil pouches, buttons, greeting cards and reflectors! The reflectors, you can of course buy in the funflector webshop. They are perfect gifts and stocking stuffers for hard working students, grad students, engineers, teachers and professors who get home from work after sunset. For everything else, go to the Particle Zoo website. Just don’t forget to say hi from the funflector team!
Pencil or makeup pouches from ParticleZoo, $15.
Relativity Watch
Although a bit over budget, we could not resist this cool Einstein Relativity Watch for $43 at 3B Scientific! What do you think, will those who use it be on time or not? And if so, where?
Tired of your friends being late? Give them an Einstein relativity watch and they might be on time – or not!
Three middle school kids can result in a flurry of activities. Weekends are filled with soccer and little league baseball games. Week nights are busy with choir, band and orchestra rehearsals and performances. Last weekend, we had the pleasure to be blown away by the Highland Middle School musical “Hello Dolly” and “The Sound of Music” at the Chicago Lyric Opera. It’s also a season when it’s time to come up with fun, clever and personal gifts for dedicated teachers and hard working graduates.
Awesome Gifts for Music Teachers and Musicians
We’ve collected a few gifts for music teachers, music graduates and music directors. The treble clef safety reflector is something all music lovers need as concerts and rehearsals often end long after sunset. Pair that with the most perfect thank you note and you are all set.
Treble clef funflector® safety reflector – thoughtful gift for musicians, music teachers and music lovers!
Heavy Metal Rock Band
How fun isn’t this heavy metal rock band, and we love that it is made with reused pieces!
Heavy metal rock band – available at uncommon goods.com
A T-shirt every Cellist Needs
Silly questions require silly answers. Here is the T-shirt every cellist needs.
Do you play the cello? Nope… – T-shirt can be found at cafe press.com
Cosy Tea Mugs for Musicians
Big handmade mugs for coffee, tea or soup. There are even musical designs at the bottom of the mugs. Great for a slow breakfast after performance nights or to cuddle up with in the couch and your favorite music.
Colorful handmade mugs with musical notes from notonthehighstreet.com
Gift card
A gift card is not as personal, but sometimes a better option than filling peoples’ homes with “stuff”. Consider a a gift card from a local music venue to be used towards conserts, or one from you local music store to be used towards instrument repairs or sheet music. In addition to being a useful gift, it gives much needed support to organizations and small businesses in your community.
A gift certificate is always a welcomed gift for music teachers and musicians.
The Most Perfect Thank You Note!!!
The other day, we found the most perfect thank-you note! When shopping at our favorite gift store for musical gifts, the CSO gift store in Chicago (On East Adams, just around the corner from the Symphony Center on 220 S Michigan Ave), we also help support a phenomenal orchestra. The cute card is perfect as is or with a gift card and/or a funflector® treble-clef reflector!
Thank you note from the CSO gift shop with funflector treble clef reflector
Elisabeth # ps. almost forgot the footnote for those of you who want to look sharp… 😉 🎶
We are so excited that the 2014 funflector® wholesale catalog is off the press! We hope you are too! It has all our new (and old) designs and our first licensed line of reflectors from the Particle Zoo. New for this year is also an online flip book, (you just need a little bit of patience while it downloads) but we have stocked up with envelopes and stamps and will gladly mail a copy to your store! You can order it here or shoot us an email.
Having grown up in Sweden, I would have loved a skate safety reflector instead of a boring hard circular reflector. Even in the very south, skating and skiing was an obvious part of most winters. No classes or fancy outfits, just hanging out at the neighborhood soccer field which had been turned into an good-enough ice to skate on. We skated, we cross-country skied on the fields and had snowball fights – and watched winter sports, especially the Olympics. After 4 days of the Sochi games, the Canadian and the US hockey women are looking good! We have also already been blessed with some spectacular figure skating performances. 15 year old Yulia Lipnitskaya stunned us all with a perfect performance. Equally amazing and mezmerizing was Meryl Davis and Charlie White’s ice dance! Do you know we now have both a black hockey skate reflector and a white figure skate reflector? Order yours here>
As some or our customers were quick to discover, new colors of the reflective slap bracelets are in stock in the funflectorwebshop. Slap bracelets are always fun, and these double as quality pedestrian safety reflectors!
A bucket of reflective slap bracelets show their strengths when hit by a camera flash
Le bonhomme du neige – the good man of snow – is the french expression for snowman. And who does not like snowmen? Shoveling snow might not be our favorite pastime, but making snowmen is fun, creative and brings us outside. After the snowman has been adorned with a broom, stick arms, a carrot nose, a scarf and a hat, we dry our mittens and enjoy some hot cocoa or cider while we let our rosy cheeks fade away.
Snowmen safety reflectors – or Good Man of Snow as the french say.
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