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🧔Publix gives beards a thumbs up
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🧔Publix gives beards a thumbs up

ALMOST LIKE A PORTRAIT

After being priced out of her home near the Design District in 2015, Julie Brumlik, the founder of Open Card Now, didn’t know what was next.

She’d already been a chef, a typographer, a graphic designer, and an artist. So she flew to Asia, biked from Tibet down to Vietnam and stumbled into her new passion project: creating 3D-printed pop-up cards.

After spending months learning how to make the intricate cards, she returned to Miami and found an affordable place in Buena Vista, just north of her previous home. Her new spot is also her home studio, where she’s created more than 300 unique designs and printed thousands of cards.

Now, let’s tell you a little more about Julie and some of her favorite spots.

TELL US ABOUT OPEN CARD NOW IN ONE SENTENCE.  “It’s almost like doing a portrait even though it’s not a picture of the person, but it’s a picture of some part of their life they want to capture.”

HOW IT GOT STARTED. Back in 2015, Julie spontaneously bought a one-way flight to Asia so she could bike through the continent and find inspiration.

She eventually arrived in in Vietnam just as the annual Lifestyle Vietnam craft and gift fair was taking place in Saigon. That’s where she saw pop-up cards for the first time. She was immediately hooked on the idea of learning to make them.

She made it back to Miami in 2016 and started with nine designs. She got good feedback on those, so she decided to make the business her full-time job.

ON HOW THE DESIGN DISTRICT HAS CHANGED THE NEIGHBORHOOD: She thinks the new buildings and garages are unique and beautiful, and noted that if shopping at Gucci and Balenciaga isn’t your thing, there’s plenty of free stuff to check out, like the public art and the free shows at the Palm Court.

But she calls the development a “mixed blessing.”

“I feel like I was complicit in some ways because I just thought it was so beautiful but it also affected me and then I had to leave.”

SOME OF HER FAVORITE MIAMI SPOTS:

🍞Sullivan Street Bakery

🐟Seven Seas Restaurant & Fish Market

🛍️Upper Buena Vista Shops

HER LIFE ADVICE FOR OTHER MIAMIANS:  “I suggest that everyone, when they get to their late 60s, should take off on a bicycle and go travel the world for a couple years.”

Wanna check out Julie’s cards? You can find more info and see her unique designs by visiting her website. You can also find her cards in stores like Babalu, The Honey Tree and Glottman.

WHAT'S NEW IN THE 305

Curtain time. If you missed DWNTWN Art Days this weekend, that’s a bummer. But this rundown of all the exciting things shaking up Miami’s arts scene this season will give you enough pointers that you’ll be covered straight through to the next season. From Nu Deco Ensemble to the newly launched Commissioner, this season is on 🔥 (Miami Herald)

Rocked like a hurricane. Hurricane Florence may be very far from Miami, but that’s not stopping the Democratic National Committee from second-guessing our viability as a site for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, where the party chooses its presidential candidate. We’re a finalist, but a reminder of how vulnerable we are to hurricanes is no bueno for our bid. (POLITICO)

Up in smoke. Being technically illegal for people under the age of 18 hasn’t stopped e-cigarettes from taking hold among high schoolers, and now students are lighting up their juuls all over their high school campuses. Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber is worried about their surge in popularity, after decades of declining cigarette use among minors, so he’s proposed a bunch of new rules for businesses in hopes of cracking down on illegal sales. (Miami Herald)

It’s funny because it’s true. We didn’t need John Oliver to tell us that there were some serious issues with Florida’s policy of barring all felons from voting, even after they’ve served their time. But we definitely don’t hate that Last Week Tonight took on the issue and underscored just how absurd it is that we still have this policy on the books in 2018. And a few days after the segment, a clemency board hearing got a bunch of extra attention from national media. (YouTube, Tampa Bay Times)

If you ain’t a gator, you’re gator bait. University of Florida’s been striving to become one of the top five public research universities in the U.S. for years now, and it got a little closer this year: in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings, it’s jumped from No. 9 to No. 8. In at No. 26 is FSU, just shy of its goal of being in the top 25. Three other state universities also made the top 100: University of South Florida, University of Central Florida, and Florida International University. Better start that Florida Prepaid fund for your kids. (WLRN)

Grab your flannel. Publix employees can now try out that lumbersexual look. The grocery store chain has backed off its longstanding policy against facial hair other than small mustaches, and will now allow employees to have small, “well-kept” beards as well. (WLRN)

Second chance. Northwestern University’s journalism school may have just given a Miami man sentenced to life in prison a second chance at freedom. Tony Brown was convicted of murder more than a decade ago, but the Medill Innocence Project at Northwestern just got a Miami-Dade judge to give Brown a new trial after uncovering evidence that cast doubt on both DNA evidence and the state’s main eyewitness.  (Miami Herald)

ONE MORE THING…

Did you catch the Indulge feature on Chris Adamo, our parent company’s chief business officer? Chris has been wearing Jams, a line of super eye-catching Hawaiian shirts, every day for almost two years, spreading a little joy each time he does. #goals

If you spot a man walking the streets of Miami day after day in a different, possibly blinding Hawaiian shirt, it’s probably him, and you should probably say hi. You might even get your own Jams shirt out of it. Shine on, friends.

– The New Tropic

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