Mug Shot

For those of you fellow designery people out there, who are more than familiar with colour giants, Pantone, I present the Pantone colour block, fine China espresso mug – a tiny, cute, adorable little thing featuring a colour from the famous Pantone range.  These things are horrendously expensive for what they are, unless, like me, you find them on sale for a pound while in the UK and snap a couple up for sheer adorability factor alone.  (link is to other retailer with sale)

Also found by me, hiding behind a horrendous kitchen set in TK Maxx (UK version of TJ Maxx), a set of four, regular, fine china Pantone coffee mugs for seven pounds (here are some on sale from the interwebz) - less than a quarter of their normal price) which will make coffee time so much brighter now, because you just know I had to have those suckers. 

That’s the UK for you.  Full of great cheese and pretty things.

Camping By Your Own Door

You all probably by now, all know of my fixation with campers, caravans and RVs, particularly of the vintage variety, well now you can fuel such an interest with this hellishly cute, tiny camper/caravan doorstop.  Got a door that defies gravity and keeps closing when you don’t want it to?  Take care of the issue with this sand filled little gem of utter cuteness.  I mean can you think of a cuter way to keep a wandering door ajar?  Of course not!  It makes a lady want to take afternoon tea with scones and jam, out on the lawn, no?

Just me then.

Friday Joy

Hilarious.   If you’ve ever had a dog, it’s even more funny.  Happy Friday, mes amis!

Art From Recycling?

Hey guys, check this out!  A bunch of portraits made from recycling objects.  Some of these are so wonderful I might have to try something like this myself.   Enjoy.   Left – James Franco made out of pills. 

Thanks to the Chive for the gallery

Stop Loafing and Coast

Can I butter you all up with some of these sweet coasters from MoMA? Who knew toast could be so functional? OK so it’s not really toast, but how cool are these? Coasters. Shaped like toast? I’m a bit of a toast freak (some say I’m just a freak, period) therefore, these are the best thing since sliced bread. Groan. Awesome.

I found these courtesy of “How About Orange” but they were so cute, I had to steal them for you guys

More Hoots

You all know my enjoyment of cute owly things right?  Today, my good friend, Pat, sent me a link to the wonderful Patina Stores which is stock full of cute, bright coloured goodness of both owl and non-owl stuff.  In particular, though, they have lots of owl adorability, like these three delightful items below:

The first is an Owl Sitter, which is a fancy name for an ornament of extreme cuteness.  The second is one of their range of owl cushions, and really, who ever has enough cushions in their house?  Only a madman, that’s who.  Lastly, is their owl lunch box, which is aimed at kids but if you ask me, wasted on the little devils when it could be hosting MY sandwiches.

Owl lovers, go forth and purchase the hell out of those.

3D Glass Art

Want to see some fascinating art by artist David Spriggs?  Check out a set of photos over at Gizmodo to see more of his work. 

David paints on sheets of glass then arranges them in layers to produce an amazing 3D image viewable from all angles.  I think you’ll agree it’s a pretty impressive effect.

Retrofy Your Lunch

I was just thinking yesterday how I’ve been slacking lately at web surfing and finding interesting stuff to drool over, when my good Australian correspondent buddy, Mel, sent me a link to this delightful and covetable item.  Yes it’s a lunch box! That looks like an old school Walkman!  I know, how cool is that, right? 

If you’re old as the hills, like I now feel, because I had a Walkman once upon a teenage time, you might enjoy encasing your grown up sandwiches in this fine box of memories.

Naturally this link and all other links I found such as THIS ONE seem to be from web stores in the UK but hey, isn’t everything these days?  And most do ship internationally without costing you your first born or anything. 

Indulge Yourself!

You want to know something I bought last year while in the UK, that you all need to find ASAP? Well I’m going to tell you.  You need this.

Looks like a whisk doesn’t it?  Kind of.  If you’ve had a few Martinis maybe.  It isn’t.  It’s a head massager.   These things look innocent enough but believe me, they are not.  They are little purveyors of pure, pleasurable evil.  I’m not really a head massagey type of gal in general but this thing changed my mind entirely.  It feels SO GOOD.   You’ll see why in Scandanavia it’s known as the Orgazmatron!   The sensations it gives are amazing, relaxing and delicious.  Goosebumps?  Yes indeed.   You can pick one of these up for around Five British pounds/$8US or even less, so don’t be fooled by the occasional high priced version.  They all work the same.  You just place on the top of your head, looking and feeling like a Star Trek test subject, then push down.  All the little endings massage your head all over.  It feels incredible.  I’m in love with mine.  I don’t know if these are available in the US yet, but if they are not they will be!  Do yourself a favour ladies.  Seriously.   They’re even better if you get someone else to use it on you.  Yum!

It’s a Hoot!

I once had a cookie jar named Pablo.  He was a little, fat Mexican dude wearing a big sombrero and an impressive mustache.  I loved that thing, truly, although I’m sure Mexicans would groan and think it was racist or something.  I just know I loved Pablo even though he was cheesy and silly.  Then my cat knocked Pablo off the fridge and shattered him into a million pieces.  I was heartbroken.

I think it’s time for a new cookie jar though and I am loving this little guy here.  I mean come on, how cute is that?  And you all know I love the owls.   Sadly I don’t love the $48 price tag but still, it’s not bad either for something so damn adorable, no?

Entanglement

All you poor souls having to work today might be finding things a touch quiet and if so you’ll want a fun, addictive little game to pass the time, no? Oh yes, you will. Try this one. The aim is to make the red path join up with the other tiles and keep it going as long as possible without touching a wall or ending up in the center. The scroll button on your mouse or the arrow keys on your keyboard will rotate the tiles to whichever path you choose. Good luck.

Just don’t blame me when your boss frowns at you and yells, “NO BONUS FOR YOU!” because you’ve been playing this for eleven hours straight.

Happy New Year, ladies!

Chase This

No I'm not dead! I'm merely resting my surfing fingers. However...

All you children of the eighties will be as familiar as I am with Pac Man and his little ghosty frenemies. How cool is this necklace here? Answer: very. I mean if you want something sassy and fun but still cute you can’t really beat this little baby, right? Okay, so it’s almost fifty smackers but how often do you get to make a kickass pop culture statement for under fifty bucks?

Me want. Me, me, me!

Wanderlust

If, like me, you love maps and atlases and globes, etc., you might like to have a look at this fantastic site from two Ohio designers who love maps as much as I do, only they do something about it! 

Their limited edition prints are reasonably priced and beautiful.  Check them out.  Maybe find a nice unique gift for the travel lover in your family.  I am coveting several of these right now! 

Game Day

You all want a creative way to waste time this Friday afternoon? Look no further. You're welcome. Now see if you suck as much as I do.

May the Plush Be With You

Is the force with anyone in your family?  Got a budding junior Han Solo or Princess Leia busting to save the universe?  If so, this might be something unbearably cute they’d approve of.

These petite 7.5 inch high plush figures might be just what the doctor ordered!  And you never thought Darth Vader or Boba Fett could be cute, huh?  Boy were you wrong!  Courtesy of Think Geek.

More Retro Lamp Goodness

My good friend Miss Py, sent me a link to these fine table lamps by Akari.  Sort of mid-century, retro coolness if you’re into that sort of thing.  Which I am.  As you know.  Duh. 

The lamp opposite is my favourite in the set – I can’t decide whether I like the orange or the green, but since I’m broke, and I live in fantasy land, I can have them both, right?  In my dreams I mean. 

Anyway, if you too are interested in stuff that looks like it was thrown up by the sixties, check ‘em out!  While you’re there check out the rest of the store for some expensive but interesting stuff.

Serial Posters

If you’re a fan of Showtime’s “serial killer as a good guy” show, “Dexter”, can I just recommend these kickass prints and associated merchandise by designer and huge “Dexter” fan, Ty Mattson. There’ s a couple of limited edition posters for each season and if you ask me, they’re quite beautiful. Each one depicts the artist’s rendering of events from that particular season. I want them all, damn it.

Check out the full range at Showtime's website, here. (pictured, the Season 2 poster)

More of Ty’s work is featured on his website, here.

Peek-A-Boo!

I can’t say I’ve ever stopped and fretted that my front door peep hole is ugly or cumbersome in any way, but clearly someone has thought about it and figured out how to make it prettier. From France come these very cute little peep hole disguisers and I have to say, I kind of dig them!

I’m a touch unclear if they’re just selling you the PATTERN to make one or the actual item. Damn non descriptive descriptions (?).

It does look like you get the actual item though, although I’m also unclear if it comes without the glass peep hole that you’d have to install yourself, or if you just get the wooden and gold part that goes around it. I’ve been wrong before (only a trillion times!) so who knows? You’d think I would do some research sometime right? Wrong.
Either way, I’m liking them all a lot. Check out the full range. They even ship worldwide. Whoo!

Scary Good

You may have seen these Crystal Head vodka bottles before but they’re worth seeing again, they’re so damn cool. I mean the vodka is irrelevant really when it comes in a container this fantastic. It is actually distributed by Dan Ackroyd’s company. Dan’s apparently big into vodka.

Anyway, the stuff is pretty hard to find apparently and it’s even banned in some places (hi Ontario!) but it’s reassuring to know that my local liquor store has tons of them so you know, maybe they're not THAT hard to find. I aim to get one some day soon and make a groovy, creepy lamp out of that little glass skull. Oh yeah. I might make cocktails too.

Thanks for the Memories

The lovely MEL is becoming my go-to girl for all sorts of cool robot themed goodness.  I mean check out these uber-cool little fellows here, she emailed me about yesterday.  Robot memory sticks!  And you know you want them.  Not only are they functional AND cute, they even light up when you plug them into your USB port.  One of them even looks kind of like a little memory ninja, so tell me honestly, who wouldn’t appreciate that level of awesome guarding your important files? 

Well, anyone who doesn’t want to pay over fifty bucks for a 2GB memory stick I guess (me) but it doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate them from afar, right?