So on my random walk of the internet some time ago I stumbled across an awesome website called Leafcutter Designs. How did I know it was an awesome website? Well Lea Redmond, the creative genius behind The Worlds Smallest Postal Service:

Also, Lea has a cacophony of creative crafts projects which you can check out in her project section.

After finding this amazing creative website I promptly subscribed to the newsletter. This lead, some many months later to an email landing in my inbox full of awesome. It advertised a new service from Lea called the Curio Search Service:

In short, Lea loves ebay. No doubt trying to get her ebay fix without spending insane amounts of money Lea offers this service to search ebay for you (based on a bunch of words that you provide) and surprise you with a gift! Always on the lookout for awesome I decided to give it a whirl. This is the unboxing of said surprise gift:

Step 0 – The Words

The words I chose were:

Playing cards, gemstones, crystals, books, fossils, green, galaxies, maths, dice, jazz, storytelling, green, hand written letters, enthusiasm, wonder, magnets, chess, midnight

Step 1 – The Packaging

The packaging for the gift was immaculate. A lovely brown box with a beautiful handwritten note on the front addressed to my goodself:

Just above the handwritten address there’s a Leafcutter Designs stamp (in Green ink no less, Green is my favourite colour):

Step 2 – Inside Pandora’s Box

What might lie inside this magical box of wonder? Space perhaps? Or green? Maybe the ever elusive maths? Well here’s the contents:

There is one mysterious package, a note of some form and two business cards (actually, more like life cards I believe!). Here’s a closeup on the mysterious brown package:

Step 3 – The Gift

And so to the actual gift. Here it is in all it’s raw glory:

Yes, it’s a dice roller. Pressing the lever on the side springs the inside compartment which sets the mini-dice tumbling and gives you a fresh roll. As someone who played RPGs in my youth it’s wonderful to get some more dice in my life.

The contraption itself looks pretty old and sturdy. Maybe from a bygone era, the bottom if felted and the whole thing has a very ‘vintage’ feel to it. Here’s another photo:

Step 4 – The Note

Alongside the dice roller there was the letter. Which was pure joy to read. Tying all of my initial 20 words together Lea sketched out a brief history of the item, explaining that it’s real glass, not plastic in the toy and that it likely comes from 1940s Germany (due to the writing on the bottom of the toy). After the brief history Lea moves on to how the toy represents the universe (complete with some nice astronomical facts such as the age of the universe!) and the dice are like little random pieces of a bigger puzzle, perhaps plants, solar systems or galaxies. I won’t reprint the letter in it’s entirety but it’s lovely. Here it is:

Thanks Lea

In summary, this is an amazingly creative way to spend $20 (or more if you prefer!) either for yourself or as a gift for someone else. All told the curio is great but what really makes this service is the dedication from Lea to spend the time hunting around for your curio (Lea even tried to bag an item that eventually sold for $168.07!) and the imagination and thought that goes into the story to accompany the curio. In the language of ebay, A+ would use again.

I urge you to browse through the rest of Leafcutter Designs and let your imagination run free.

PS – just noticed that Lea is on twitter here: http://twitter.com/LeafcutterAnt

PPS – here’s another Leafcutter Designs unboxing from Qwantz