One a Penny

Skateboard fanatics and designers alike will be glad to know that you can very easily make your own personalized version of the penny board now thanks to these free downloadable files from MyMiniFactory courtesy of designer Simone Fontana, who shows a perfect tutorial of how to print and assemble you're very own replica Penny Board. 

Of course because of the limited printing capacity of the 3D printer, this means that Fontana's download comes in five pieces that need to be put together using steel bars to give the board a bit of stability, but other than that it's pretty much a simple process that's a lot cheaper and more original than you going out and buying yourself a brand new board.

You can mix and match your Penny Board by picking your own wheels and printing each section in different colours etc; go mad with it because this is an awesome free download for the creative boarders out there. And whilst you're over at MMF don't forget to tip the designer, give back to the amazing creators out there. 

Clampersand

Why would you use a simple c-clamp when you can fix that shelf together using a clampersand? This pun intended product started life out as nothing more than the doodling of Tony Ruth, but eventually morphed in to a physical product which is typographically superior to the c-clamp in every way. 

The Adjustable Clampersand is a genius little tool that's both functional and aesthetic. You needn't worry about keeping your Clampersand hidden away from sight because you'd be proud to use this as a bookend or a note keeper, eager to share the pun with your equally artistic friends. 

And for $55 you could be the proud owner of a fresh Clampersand that'll give your projects a stylish edge all coutesy of the mad doodlings of an illustrator and the clever tinking of mechanical designer Tim Haley.

Feathered Heroes

Sick of seeing the next generation stuck behind their gadgets? Well take them away from their tech and bring their favourite feather based destructive app in to real life using your 3D printer and these free (yes! Free!) download files from MyMiniFactory.

Designers Marco Autilio and Lloyd Roberts are the brains who have collaborated Angry birds with the 3D printer, allowing you to download the files and print your own Angry Birds town to destroy with your fully working slingshot. 

You can design your own fortress with various blocks of ice, wood and stone and you can paint your pigs and birds whatever colour you desire. This is a great way to get kids interacting with the 3D printer, and to extend the fun by letting them paint their own piggies before they knock 'em down. You can play with all your favorites so if you're an angry birds fan you won't want to miss out on this game; so head on over to MyMiniFactory to download the file ready for printing. 

Rock, Scissors, Paper!

As Nerf has proven you don't have to be a kid to enjoy shooting a plastic gun and playing army with your friends, and with PaperShooters there's now a better way to get even with your buds and sharpen up your shooting skills. 

PaperShooters is a construction kit that lets you build all the components of your weapon; including the air chamber, springs and trigger mechanism. You can interchange the cardboard skins on your plastic 'skeleton' so that you can blend in with your battle field as you go to war. 

The ability to construct your own 124 piece weapon will give you extended fun before you do get round to mastering your weapon, ready for firing rounds at objects up to 65 feet away. 

No more collecting your plastic ammo after an intense shooting battle, because PaperShooters ammo is ultra safe, mess free and 100% biodegradable because the pellets are made out of paper, therefore no more ouchies when you do eventually get hit. 

And you'll never run out of ammo because each PaperShooters kit comes with a mold so that you can continuously make soft splat ammo, giving the perfect blend of functional and fun all in one innovative package. 

And you can get your hands on a PaperShooters 'Zombie Slayer' for just £30, which includes the authentic looking plastic and cardboard weapon as well as a wall target for accurate shooting and endless fun. 

Lego be gone! Pinblock's are upon us!!!

Now I know this'll be hard to come to terms with but sadly Lego isn't the 'It' thing any longer. You know all those times you got a chunky yellow brick stuck in your foot? And you got aggravated with the basic 90 degree joints on all your models? Well with Pinblock's your feet are safe and you can now make your models around six rotation points!!! There's nothing better than rotation points. 

Pinblock started as a Kickstarter project aiming to re-imagine the building block, to bring these tiny, flexible pieces of plastic to market so that every creator and dreamer out there can surpass the limitation of conventional construction.

These bad boys are amazing in that you no longer have to search through the box for the right piece; because all the pieces are the same size, dimension, width; what I'm basically saying is that every brick is identical! And no longer are your models stiff and lifeless, they're flexible and able to curve; no more restrictions in your buildings and creations.

Pinblock's aren't just for creators, they're also for designers, they provide the perfect, slim material to create pixelated images with. These Pinblock's are so clever yet so uncomplicated! There's really no end to what you can do with them; build watches, make portraits, construct the Empire State Building!!! Whatever you want to do you can do it.

I happened to make a loose interpretation of Mickey Mouse in my first go at Pinblock's, proving that even the simplest of minds can get carried away with this awesome new toy.

What's even better is the variety of boxes available. Pinblock offer a choice of freestyle colour schemes, as well as kit boxes which give you a step by step guide to building rockets, ships and jets. The genius minds behind Pinblock's - great mates Vlad and Jun who decided to change engineering for the better - are really on to something here and I hope to see Pinblock's go global; encouraging kids and adults alike to get their build on.

At the end of Pinblock's Kickstarter campaign they launched The Manual Challenge, which was a race among pledgers to share pages and collect all fifty two pages of the Silver Falcon Model Manual for the chance to win a box of each of the Pinblock sets (seven boxes in total) for absolutely nothing! Pinblock's sent different pages out to each person and it was a battle on Facebook, Twitter and Kickstarter to send pages to each other and share their own in order to gather all the pages of the manual. Of course by sheer determination and brazen annoyance, yours truly managed to wrangle together all 52 pages first and nabbed herself the awesome prize.

And this week the box turned up all large and full of tinkling brick noise and I practically wet myself in excitement, eager to get my build on. And build I did; cathedral's, characters and other cute critters! I did my best to test the durability and flexibility of these Pinblock bricks and am utterly astounded by the versatility in one tiny 1 cm wide brick!

Well done Pinblock; live long and prosper.

Get Passive Aggressive!

I've left a few post it note rants in my time that end up spanning three separate notes - double sided might I add - which is when the Post-It Note Roller would have come in handy. The Post-It Note Roller lets you get your notes down without having to cram it all on one sheet, allowing you to roll out as much as you need all in one pretty pink go. 

No more restricted telling offs in the office, no more post-it notes losing their stick and fluttering around the place; with the Post-It Roller you can literally paste your notes on any surface as if laying down wallpaper. 

The Post-It Note Roller is spunky and fun, letting you be creative with your notes; making a great gift for the 'passive aggressive' post-it note culprit in your dorm room. And at roughly £8 it's a nice filler present. 

Take a hike

There's good weather on the way so there's no more excuses to stay indoors wrapped in in your duvet watching Youtube when there's a whole world out there ready to be explored. And if you do plan to be putting miles of gorgeous countryside and wilderness under your feet than you should go prepared by picking up some of these awesome, compact hiking and camping essentials. 

First up for handy camping gear is the Gerber GDC Essentials collection which feature assorted blades and tools that attach easily to your zips for quick access and light carrying. They feature a clip for easy removal and are a perfect carry companion for daily use; attaching to virtually any zip with a small, sleek form made out of durable stainless steel. In the GDC essentials collection there is a Hook Knife Ring, LED Light and Bottle Opener, Mini Key chain Knife, Hex mini multi-tool and Driver Mini Multi-tool. Anything you could possibly need for a camping expedition all within reach and perfectly compact. 

This next product is an all in one item that features anything you could probably think of needing. The Kelvin 23 Ninja (cleverly named for it's twenty three functions) is unique and designed for the everyday jobs, including; an ultra handy screwdriver, a bright LED light, a tiny yet nifty spirit level, a five foot tape measure, a powerful magnet to hold loose screws, a tiny hammer and 16 essential screwdriver bits to fit practically every fixture out there!

A Kelvin 23 Ninja on your key-ring or in your back pocket means you no longer have to scramble around looking for your hex key to tighten up the book shelf; probably the ideal gift for the college kid or new home owner who will encounter DIY for the first time. It may not be much of a camping essential but you're sure to find a use for it if you plan on getting crafty with nature.

The final tool on my list is the LighterBro which literally means you have to carry around a back pocket tool roughly the same size of a lighter. The LighterBro Multitool clips around your regular lighter to provide on the go tools such as; a micro Phillips screwdriver, a Flathead screwdriver, a super sharp knife, scissors, a bottle opener and a key chain attachment so that you can keep all your essentials in one place.

LighterBro is the perfect tool for camping/hiking with it's durable metal case and compact body; it's perfectly affordable and clips to your average Clipper Lighter. Even the reviews rave about how useful you'll find it and screaming praises for the swiss army style tool that wraps easily around your lighter; brilliant!

Get Keyed in!

So you've got a key chain full of keys; your car keys, your house keys, your partners house keys, your folks' house key and that miscellaneous key you know opens something but you haven't quite worked out what that something is yet. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. And you can't sneak anywhere without making a noise all thanks to that noisy little wind chime hanging off your belt loop.

Well good thing there's a solution. The KeyDisk (number two and one) are awesome key companions that fit up to nine keys in a tiny, compact disk, therefore making it easier to access what you need when you need it whilst it's tucked away safely in the meantime.

KeyDisk is sleek, simple and geometric; ace for all of those people you know who have more keys than sense my friend. Now you don't have to keep all those tacky key chains people gift you for birthday because they don't know what to get you; leaving your pocket light weight and your keys secure in its durable frame constructed from aluminium. And as an added extra KeyDisk features a bottle opener in its center; absolutely great for those get away days with your mates.

The KeyDisk two isn't just for keys, it's for all your wallet essentials; such as membership cards, flash drives, car remotes and other junk that you might need. And at $25 you can get your KeyDisk tidy tool in either Gun Metal Gray or Onyx Black. Smooth, a very much an essential part of daily living. 

Instamag

Thanks to the invention of camera phone's everyone's a photographer nowadays; we all fancy ourselves an artist when we post our pictures to Instagram and buff them up a little with filters, trying to share our great eye for detail and composition. And there's really no better way to permanently display your creations than in the form of little 2x2 inch square magnets courtesy of Ninemags. 

By simply syncing your Instagram account to the ninemags website, you can select photos from your Instagram feed to be printed out in the form of great quality photographic magnets; perfect for sticking on the fridge as personal and artistic note holders. And for $14.99 you get free delivery all over the world and nine of your Instagram pictures there in your hands and as a tangible object. 

Sticking these ninemags up all over your house will help bring back those memories of a time and place where you snapped your picture, bringing Instagram to life with your amazing images. Ninemags would make a great gift for a photo fanatic, or just a nice way to treat yourself and bring your home to life. 

Precision Bites!

Now this Tool Pen Mini is the perfect pen pal for any crafty tinkerer out there who always gets stuck in and fiddling about with electronics, watches and other intricate objects. Tool Pen Mini is a smaller and more intricate version of Tool Pen which producers mininch ran on Kickstarter in 2014, and is there to cater to all the tiny screws out there; hence the slender tips and mini sizing of the pen that's built and designed for excellent precision. 

What makes the Tool Pen Mini innovative is it's "Pop-a-Point" nature, which allows you to pull screw-bits out of the bottom of the pen to slip them in to the top and cycle through pieces until you get the bit you need; perfect for cutting down the need to have tons of tiny screwdrivers and other tools lying around, instead compacting them all down in to one sturdy chamber. Tool Pen Mini is also light weight and portable, easy for you to carry around.

To help you tell which bit is where in the sequence of bits within the chamber the bit sizes and icons are printed on every facet of the bit, with windows in the side of the pen allowing you to see where they are in the cycle. 

The cap on the top of the pen makes it pocket perfect, with a magnetic lid that means the cap won't pop off whilst the clip on the side lets you keep it firmly in place. And the material of the Tool Pen Mini means it's more than capable of competing with the best mini tools out there; a firmly cast aluminium that can deal with every day wear and tear whilst still being an attractive accomplice.

Wig out

For those of you who want to get some blooms in to the house over this spring and summer than the Wig Vase sounds like the perfect solution to bring sophistication and modern design to your flower arrangements. 

The Wig Vase is either a matte or gloss finished ceramic head vase that allows for you to place the stems of your flowers through the series of holes in the head and arrange them as if to arrange a floral wig over the vase's head. It's artistic and fun and encourages you to get creative with nature by either making an Afro, a Mahican or a number of other crazy styles to jazz up the home with. 

Slightly Art Nouveau in style, these chic vases work with a detachable neck base which pulls away from the main head piece to allow you to fill the inner vase with water to keep your 'do' healthy and refreshed. 

This home decor by Tania da Cruz transforms flowers in to one wild head of hair and the ceramic vases are hand made coming in a choice of either white or black with the option of a gloss or matte finish. 

Knit one, Purl Two

Do you ever feel like time is passing and you've got nothing to show for it? Well, the Knitting Clock can help remedy this by gradually knitting a two meter scarf each annual year. For each of the 365 days of the year, as the hours pass the clock weaves every minute going by, the yarn forming around the knitting hoop in such a way that you can still tell the time. 

The Knitting Clock quirky and a symbolic way of bringing the past in to the future; however it probably seems like the longest way to get a scarf. The fact that it's both practical and creative makes it a nice house accessory for any knitting fan. 

Insta-tat!

If you're the sort of person who can't commit (or isn't allowed to more likely) to a permanent tattoo, these cute, square shaped Instagram temporary tattoo's are the ideal replacement to abate the need to show off the things that both represent and matter to you. 

Picattoo is a quirky company that lets you select 12 of your stylish Instagram pictures which they'll then turn in to temporary tattoo's, ship to you and let you plaster them all over your friends, family and self. And they last up to a week! Picattoo will make an ace personalized gift for a friend, or are a cute way to immortalize a memorable event and bring back nostalgic days. At £9.99 for 12 Instagram pictures, it'll make a sweet present. 

Map-envelope

What better way to share your whereabouts and doings with your friends than to print it on the inside of an envelope? Mapenvelope is the genius creation of Beste Miray who wanted to share her whereabouts with a friend on the other side of the world; and it's all very well describing the place, but isn't it so much better to show a satellite image that literally pinpoints your location in the world to make sharing more interesting?

Mapenvelope is a free envelope service that allows you to enter in your location and your message and then generate a preview envelope of which you can print from home and glue together. There are two options of map viewing; both satellite and road view which add a beautiful graphical element to sharing your whereabouts.

This would be a great idea for sending out invitations for events (be it weddings or parties) by mapping your intended location point on the envelope and writing a relevant message. A beautiful personalisation technique at a smart price! 

That's a Wrap!

It's often a pain to dig through your wrapping paper rolls to find the right one for the occasion (admittedly I have nothing wrong with wrapping birthday presents in Christmas paper) and you're left with a store cupboard full of miscellaneous half used wrapping paper sheets. But with Wordless Wrap Wrapping Paper, the quandary is solved as this word-search style wrapping paper allows for you to circle out the correct greeting for a variety of occasions. 

For example you can choose from: / MERRY CHRISTMAS / HAPPY BIRTHDAY / HAPPY VALENTINES DAY / HAPPY EASTER / HAPPY THANKSGIVING / I LOVE YOU / I MISS YOU / HAPPY NAME DAY / CONGRATULATIONS / HAPPY RETIREMENT / RECOVER SOON / GREETINGS / WITH LOVE / YOU ARE THE BEST / FOR DAD / FOR MOM / ENJOY / ALL THE BEST / IT IS NOT A TIE / IT IS NOT A PERFUME.

And if you're not too great at your word-searches the solutions are on the inside of the Wordless Wrap wrapping so that you can easily locate the intended greeting and circle it without having to turn your gift around trying to find the answer. 

Blonde's do it better

If you're lucky enough to be rocking light coloured hair, then you're definitely going to want to get your hands on some of these colourful non-permanent hair dyes by Bleach London. For any shade of blonde hair (from platinum to natural) these rainbow coloured dyes can last anywhere between two and ten washes and can give you either a pastel shade or a vibrant bright colour that will make heads roll. 

Bleach are a London based Hair Salon that inject colour on to the heads of many creative individuals. They offer dip-dye's, full heads of colour and highlights as well as funky hair cuts to go along with your wild new colour. 

Probably the best aspect of Bleach is that they offer home DIY colour dye kits, giving you the option to dye your hair an assortment of colours from home so that your hair never runs out of fun loving colour. And if you don't know which colour to go this month, then you can buy the Bleach 'spin the bleach bottle' hair dye kit which lets you gamble on which colour to go this time round. They also sell miniature colour kits so that you can master the art of blending colour or streaking dye to create wild patterns. Their coloured Bleach hair crayons let you scribble in your colour as it begins to fade and lets you touch up any showing roots. Another good idea for these dye's is to get one of the smaller kits and let children experiment with hair dying their dolls hair; much like Bleach did in their Barbie collection. 

Sadly these dyes really do only work on blonde hair, and work best on the lightest of blonde's. So if you're looking to change your hair colour on a regular basis and without doing much damage, you'll have to think about bleaching your hair blonde before hand to get the best results. 

Put a cork in it!

Apartments in the city are getting ever smaller, but our sense of style isn't. How do we overcome this issue? Easy; we buy flat pack furniture from Ikea. Wrong, because we no longer have to look to cheap and unremarkable furniture to fit our houses with when designers like Hyeonil Jeong are using simple and clever ideas to allow us to make the most of space. 

This Cork Stopper Table by designer Hyeonil Jeong uses innovative joinery to achieve a high end look. Four clip legs can be hooked on the inner lip of a glass pane and wedged into place using a giant cork stopper. 

What makes this table beyond genius is its quick assembly, and lack of screws and fixtures in putting the table together; meaning that it can be easily packed back up and slipped into storage until the next time you're entertaining. 

Another amazing aspect is the style of the design; it's sleek and modern with the use of glass and bent plywood. It doesn't need colour to make it a statement piece as the ingenuity of the design and cork stopper fixing speaks for it. 

Functional Beauty

This is the perfect workshop companion for those who are short on space and who still want a table to work on when the mood strikes. The Wall Clamp by Brendan Ravenhill is nothing more than a pair of sturdy C clamps made of cast iron with two drilled holes in the frame that allow them to be affixed to any wall using a couple of screws. 

Probably the best feature of these clamps is that you can pick out your own shelf material, allowing you to pick different sizes and thicknesses, meaning it can also be a table too. You could also use the clamps to store your wood by stacking layers and clamping them in; therefore getting use out of the materials you'd otherwise keep leant up against the wall getting in the way. Or if you think they'd make a nice industrial accessory to the house, you can do as in the picture and use the clamp as a bedside table to hold up your books and denture glass.

The Wall Clamp's are on sale online at Areaware, who also sell an assortment of kitsch and modern home accessories.

Drawing in the Sand

 Okay, so this is it... The design that I have been pouring all of my creative juices into for the past six months: The Spirograph Master, and it's finally finished.

It may not be much in the way of looks - but hey, I'm a concept person - though this model depicts what my life sized interactive piece of spirograph machine would look like. 

In real application the spirograph would be hip height and over ten metres in length and completely made out of glass. The idea is that people walk on the glass rim and drag the Egyptian handles around the gear path, thus drawing in the sand a spirograph pattern that is visible and erasable, ready to try again. 

(If you don't know what a spirograph is, it's that mathematical shape on the right -> ) 

The tough part was finding a way to get the spirograph off of the ground and up into the air, whilst still being able to draw a feasible pattern. Which is why I eventually decided I had to sandwich my spirograph between two layers that would keep the rotor from falling through to the floor. 

Using the 3D Printer (I feel like a pro at using it now) I designed three different 3D renderings of Hieroglyphs to relate to my Egyptian influence, these act as the handles and 'pencils' that draw the pattern into the sand. I also resonated with my Egyptian historical link through the hieroglyph engravings in the surface of the spirograph stator, as well as in the use of sand as a drawing material. 

I really love this model, and on a larger scale I could only imagine the interactive fun that can be experienced through creating a spirograph. Though my favourite element has to be that once you've finished, you can sweep the sand over and start again; endless opportunity for creativity.

Organised Chaos

Watch Diary- Wonjune Song

 This nifty little organiser by designer Wonjune Song is the perfect way to keep your schedule on time and to organise your day. 

In the middle of this journal is a watch which not only tells you the time, but allows you to plan your day to the hour with the ingenious page design that breaks the day down into manageable sections. 

 

Watch Diary

No longer do you have to make a list of your daily itinerary, because this fun dairy allows you to track your daily activities around the watch face that lies in the centre of the page, making it quick and easy to check if your sticking to the schedule.

This diary is especially good for around the clock  planning and to make it even better it comes in a series of sizes and colours for even more fun!