Rack and pinion chick!

With the flick of a switch you can make life a whole lot more interesting. Presenting the Switch Plate designs of Etsy shop Green Tree Jewelry, who give the common switch plate a vamp with kinetic movements and cognition's that make turning the light on and off a whale of a time. If you feel like you're clunky white light switch sticks out like a sore thumb in your house, why don't you cover it with these quirky switch plate designs that bring an industrial look to the home.

On their Etsy site you can chose between levered movements, rack and pinion switches and planetary gear switches that come in a variety of colours all with a similar rustic wooden style. And if you're all for confusing your house guests (especially great if you run a hotel) then having a different style of light switch in a each room could give you hours of entertainment.

D*Haus

Digging through the relics of Kickstarter, I stumbled upon the very artistic article of furniture that is The D*Table. The D*Table is inspired by the D*Haus Company's D*Dynamic house concept, which allows for the consumer to open and close up pieces of the house to change with the seasons.

Based on the mathematical "Haberdashers Formula" that changes a square into an equilateral triangle with only a few moves, the designers behind the D*Table rendered the iconic four pieced shape into a 3D format, making it so that you can turn your table into a number of different shapes to compliment the home. It's been called the "Swiss-army knife" of tables, due to the eight different combinations that the table allows for. 

Not only is the table functional with it's adaptive qualities - allowing for storage on the inside as well as sections for holding books - the flexible rubber hinges can also be removed to allow each table piece to be separated and interspersed around the room.

The D*Haus Company offer the table in a variety of colours; ranging from "ice-cream" coloured pastels, to the "classic" black, red, blue and yellow, as well as in simplistic white.

At the beginning of their kickstarter campaign when trying to fund the project, they offered supports a D*Haus wooden model which is a scaled, functioning version of their D*Haus concept living space. They don't currently sell the model, sadly, but as the company is still growing they're making plans with manufacturers to modify their design so that they may be able to offer the model as a product in the future. 

Now the reason why I'm harping on about the model is because I believe it would make an amazingly modern dolls house for any child that encourages creativity. If D*Haus sell it as a blank canvas model, then it would allow for children to try their hand at interior design and exterior painting to kit the D*Haus out how they want. 

This D*Haus doll's house model would make a much more innovative addition to the house that an adult wouldn't mind being in plain site due to the motion and fluidity of the futuristic design.

In application, as inventive and bold as the D*Haus concept is there may be a few practical issues. Such as with the instillation of electrics, plumbing and water supplies due to the building being able to move at whim, causing difficulty with fixtures that are supposed to be permanent.

Despite these oversites, the D*Dynamic house offers flexible living to suit the seasons, allowing for the house to be closed up tight during winter then opened with large window panes during the summer months. In short the concept is nothing short of astounding!

Think Geek

For those who are geeks at heart, ThinkGeek.com is the place to shop for all your slightly nerdy and quirky bits and bobs.

They sell merchandise for pretty much every geeky programme or film that you can think of; with Star Wars handbags, Star Trek baby grow and The Big Band Theory hoodies, you'll be spoilt for choice.

What makes ThinkGeek.com really stick out is that they sell products that are exclusive to them, and their products are all fairly priced. 

Another bonus is that they've got a reward system that means you can save up points from every purchase to earn a free geeky gift at a later date. Meaning you get more geek chic for your money.

Fidget

For those who have the tendency to fidget when doing a monotonous or stressful task, then these Fidget Rings by Meg Dattoria are perfect for you. Designed to mimic the natural way our hands fidget, the fidget ring gives you something to actually fidget with so that you can calm down and keep control in a quiet and less obvious way.

These rings are a great companion for all ages; especially for sufferers of Autism, Aspergers and ADHD. They can help with focus and provide a good distraction from stressful subjects. If you're a health care or education specialist then you can get a reduced price lot of the rings with the 'Classroom Kit', which essentially lets you give the rings to people who need them.

There are rings that you can roll, slide, tilt and spin; each providing a different fidget for you to play around with. You can either get them in plastic (for practical application) or metal (which will look less conspicuous).

Grubs up!

To pay homage to the new selection of housemates that are taking on the 'I'm a celebrity get me out of here' jungle, Iceland have produced this fun family game that encourages you to play along too.

The Bushtucker trial game gives you the opportunity to suffer similar punishments to the celeb; such as eating Wichetty grub, Wriggly worms, Snot balls, Monkey Vomit and a couple of other gross delicacies. Of course it's not the real thing, but it sure is really gross.

It comes in the form of a snakes and ladders game where the landing on a worm means you've got to eat a gross food. On the plus side for every ladder you scale you either get a brownie or a marshmallow snack.

Suffice to say the game (despite all it's gruesome tastes) is quite a laugh and hands down one of the most hilarious forms of entertainment out there. For just £5 it's definitely worth the money for a couple of hours of amusement. Although it did produce mass debates when one person ended up eating nothing but treats and I had to suffer more than my fair share of punishments. 

Iceland also have a meat pack full of other 'Australlian' themed meats for you to try at home. Their Exotic Meat Feast pack features Kangaroo burgers, Crocodile Burgers, Ostrich Burgers and Ostrich Fillets; a meat selection for those who want to be adventurous and taste something new. 

I'm Rolling!

With Christmas just around the corner many household's are bound to be full of wannabe bakers trying their hand at cooking and creating a festive treat. Well what better present to get for a skilled or a novice baker than a festive embossing rolling pin?

Valek Rolling Pins is an Etsy Shop which creates themed rolling pins to make baking more fun. This Christmas themed rolling pin embosses a similar style to that of a Christmas sweater onto your goodies.

Even better if you're looking to give a personal gift to someone, you can also order a personalised laser engraved rolling pin which will have the phrase 'made by ...' written on the pin which will make your baking even sweeter.

Underwater Flying

So nearly every Caribbean holiday you've heard your friends talk about they've swam with dolphins and exulted in the magnificent blue oceans; now have any of them told you they actually swam underwater like a dolphin, next to the dolphins, with the dolphins? Well with the SUBWING you can! 

This clever piece of board lets you twist any direction, by pointing the board up and down you can control the depth of your dive so that you're really up close to those coral reefs. 

Essentially an underwater kite, the SUBWING works by being dragged through the water by a boat on the surface of the water, with you and the board being pulled along in tow; reaching up to between 2-4 knots it's not too fast for you to manage, meaning it's like a leisurely stroll through the ocean. 

"The SUBWING consists of two separate wings connected in a rotatable swivel. By grabbing the grip on each wing, it can easily be controlled in all directions. Manoeuvring is done by tilting the wings in different angels. Tilt both wings downwards to dive, and upwards to resurface. If attempting a roll, simply tilt the wings in opposite directions. Controlling the SUBWING is easy to learn and comes naturally to many first- timers."

At roughly £100 for the luxury water toy, it's a fair price for something to add to your holiday experience. And it's definitely an activity I'm adding to my bucket list!

Uh-Maze-ing!

While going through her papa's old belongings one day, a young girl discovered these stunningly intricate maze's that her father had drawn over 30 years ago.

Defying expectation K.Nomura spent seven years of his free time as a school janitor at a university to draw these complex maps that seem to have no pattern and no clear solution. You could spend hours following an illusive trail only to find out you went the wrong way and hit a dead end; amazingly frustrating for all those who have attempted it. Papa's Maze has already featured in a popular Japanese web comic One-Punch Man and is set to continue baffling intellects and artists all over the world.

You too can attempt the maze as Spoon & Tamago are selling the A1 sized sheets for all those who are brave enough and patient enough to take it on.

In loving memory

There's no better way to heal and remember our loved ones than through dreams, and this incredibly beautiful light is both a sensitive and touching way to rest easy with our loved ones in mind. 

Italian designer Agnese Dal Pont is the mind behind the tURNlight which emits light and helps you feel closer to your beloved dead ones, therefore balming the grief of their passing. By mixing cement and ashes, Agnese sets it into a globe shape and pierces several holes through the orb. After placing a light bulb inside the globe, the holes allow for specks of light to filter through and send the room aglow with a galaxy of stars created by and in memory of your loved ones. The lights give you a soothing space to reflect and can help you to dream when the emotions get too much. It's a much more subtle and personal way to pay homage to the deceased. 

Because hygeine matters

Okay, we've all done it, we've all picked food out of our teeth with a nail in a public space whilst trying to be as stealthy as we can. But why not make it as obvious and humorous as possible?

With the 'Shit-in-m'teeth' tooth picking kit, you can excavate all food substances from your teeth whilst looking as suave as ever. Impress all those observers out there with this funky kit which includes a mirror and several vital tooth picking tools.

It's card sized; which makes it suitable for your wallet and manages to make digging for food an amusing process. 

Sadly this is only a Kickstarter funded project for now, but I really hope to see these on the market in the future because they'd make awesome gifts for hygiene fanatics or for a friend who's always getting seeds stuck in their fillings. This tool has the ability to stop humiliation so what are you waiting for?  Go and pledge if you think this is something worthy of our shopping endeavours!

Anamorphic Sculpture

Anamorphic Sculpture is the cleverly designed work of Jonty Hurwitz which consists of great mathematical thoughts and an eye for detail. 

Rather than have an object reflected in the mirrored cylinder like a fun house mirror, Hurwitz's sculptures instead make the reflective object distorted so that the reflection is accurate. This process involves a lot of thought and a lot of technical skill. 

Firstly Hurwitz has to scan a 3D object into the computer and then manipulate it in the computer using pie algorithms (I don't even want to think about how difficult this must be). With his computer model finalised, Hurwitz takes copper, steel and perspex and some how morphs it into a replica of his computer modelled sculpture.

Probably the best feature of these anamorphic sculptures is the way in which Hurwitz switches up expectations. You approach the sculpture wondering what it is, walking around it and observing it at many angles, yet it's only when you look at the reflection that you see the intended object, therefore highlighting perception as a key feature in interactive sculpture.

Rotation Innovation

This remarkable table is the work of Fletcher Burwell-Taylor who uses the power of mechanical rotation to make the seating capacity of the table double- and all you have to do is rotate the table top 120 degrees.

The Fletcher Capstan table effectively offers you two for the price of one so you've got a table suitable for large get together's that also condenses for when it's not in use.

It's constructed of a clever layering system with an aluminium honeycomb at the centre that does all the technical and mechanical magic. The use of rigid and stable materials means that the table is foreseen to have a long life, with a quality that lasts generations. Even better is that you have the option of electrically controlling the rotation element so that you don't actually have to put in any effort; now that's dining in style.

Silk

If you're bored on the Internet and photoshop just isn't doing it for you anymore, then you're definitely going to want to check out Silk; the interactive, generative light drawing tool where you can spiral, mirror and fold your line to create any kind of pattern you want. You can use the colour palette on the side to edit your silk thread, and slide the slider to choose how many times your silk repeats.

Of course I'm just a novice, so I'm still trying to get the hang of spirals, but there are some creative genius' out there that weave silk like no other. With creations such as the joker, a cat and Charizard, there really is no limit to what you can do with this app. Absolutely amazing!

Cake Fabrication

To commemorate and pay recognition to some of the amazing artists and bakers of this years Threadcakes competition, I thought I'd go through a selection of my favourites.

Firstly I'll introduce you to Threadcakes in case you don't know what it is exactly. Threadcakes is simply a competition run my the tee shirt printing company Threadless, where bakers and artists alike are encouraged to bake cakes based on any Threadless t-shirt design and enter them online with as many photos as possible of you making the cake. It's a fun and friendly competition not just for pro's but for amateurs too; and heck, even if you don't win you still get to eat the cake. 

To the left is the stunningly intricate Steampunk cat cake 'The Observer' by baker Yenna Susanty, which is comprised of over 108 carefully crafted gears and cogs, as well as tons of chocolate made butterflies and kilos of thick butter cream carefully layered to create the colour of the cat. 

It took 3 whole days to assemble, 1 day of experimenting and another day of making parts in advance. But the effort was definitely worth it to get a masterpiece like this. 

On a totally different end of the spectrum, baker Jessica Allard decided to go for a more cute character to copy the 'Ramen Ses Return' shirt. She built this mummy cake onto an exoskeleton, packed it with vanilla cake and then wrapped the cake in oodles of noodles of modelling chocolate string.

Some others that are truly amazing are the Celestial Cephalapod by Corinna Maguire, which features a large chocolate cake planet being sat on by a candy clay octopus that's been rendered in breathtaking detail.

Another equally stunning cake is this Simpson's themed Cutout Ralph by Kylie Mangles which shows all the guts and yummy gore of Ralph's insides. What amazes me most about this cake is the black piping that follows the edges of the cake so that this cartoon looks as real to the original Ralph as possible.

Onto more manageable cakes, this cute crayon box cake Be Creative by Natissa Small, would be perfect for a child or tween's birthday. On top of the rainbow layered is a gum paste and fondant box full of fondant crayons in all the colours of the crayon rainbow; it's almost too cute.

Lastly is the earth shattering water coloured cake sculpture by Jacinta Perkins. The Endless Sea is a beautifully crafted cake made with impeccably intricate detail and amazing use of watercolour over the cleverly proportioned features of the mermaids face.

Lofty Expectations

IKEA took advertising to a whole new level with their climbing wall billboard this September. To celebrate the opening of their 30th store in France, IKEA took the layout of their showroom and made it into a vertical climbing structure for people to interact with. 

They teamed up with agency Ubi Bene to erect this awesome installation that lets people climb and explore on a different axis whilst looking at furniture in a unique way. 

Wheely?

With collapsible bikes on the increase, it's about time that someone made the scooter more functional too. And that's exactly what designer Adam Torok did with his scooter by making it into a wearable belt. 

The plywood and iron frame only comes in at 1.7kg which is definitely a functional weight, and it's simplistic style means that it's about as discrete as it comes. But let's be honest; if we owned one of these we'd most likely want to boast. It's the next thing up from the penny board and is so much easier to carry around!

I'd much rather carry this onto the train in the morning than a collapsible bike that's for sure; especially because you can use this on the pavement too. 

Doodle By Stitch

For those who have to doodle everywhere they go, this is the perfect idea. Doodle By Stitch are a company that create products specifically so that you can draw on anything; from your bed, to the table cloth to aprons and pencil cases, pretty much anything you can think to draw on they sell. 

 

The rules are simple too: you use the Doodle By Stitch pens to draw on your material, then you chuck it in the wash, let it dry and doodle all over again. Simple right? With a range of different colour pens available and a reasonable budget for the product, it's a great way to avoid children drawing with permanent markers in no-no zones, and to prevent you from having to frantically search for a paper pad in the night when you wake up with an idea. Genius!

Get a hold of this!

This is one of those quirky products that I just can't wait to get my hands on! 

The Hand-le is a hand shaped door knob attachment that when you twist it, it mimics the action of holding or shaking someones hand. How odd yet charming? 

Designer Naomi Thellier De Poncheville is on to something with these doorknobs that perfectly imitate a human hand. If you like playing mind games with your house guests these are perfect for you.

Art That Heals

This is probably the most creative and selfless thing I've ever seen; artist Paula Strawn paints children's medical helmets to look like more than just the plain white plastic that they are. Her designs are cute and kid friendly and great for promoting self confidence in these young children in need of skull reshaping. I think it's a general consensus amongst the population that more of these cool helmets need to be made for people who feel uncomfortable wearing a bulky white bucket.

Photojojo

One website I've come across in my creative endeavours is Photojojo; a site that produces quirky camera accessories and attachments to make photo taking more fun. They have a range of interesting items from Spy Lenses to Photo-opoly to Keyboard Skins, all unusual items that definitely bring the fun to being a photographer.

Not only do they sell products, but they also have interesting tutorials attached to their website which give you tips on how to make the most of your cameras; for example this funky tutorial on how to make your own 3D camera using two disposable cameras!

Photojojo also have the facility for you to rent their strange products on a day to day hire, so that you can try out their items or use them for events; where you have your chance to play with their Poppy 3D Camera's and time lapse cameras.