Blood Sport

It's so easy to get lost in a video game, and with the way the news has been reporting how games like GTA and COD are making our younger generations more violent its about time someone revolutionizes the way in which we game for the better. 

And Taran Chadha and Jamie Umpherson are just the guys to do it with their new gaming system Blood Sport. Blood Sport is essentially a fun and entertaining way to donate blood in which what happens in the video game has consequences in real life; i.e. every time you're shot or take damage in the game a proportionate amount of blood is taken. Apparently you'll be so immersed in the game you won't even realise the blood is being taken in a slow trickle compared to the butchers job you usually get when you go to give a couple of quartz at the hospital. 

It's all a pretty easy and harmless process; a medical professional inserts the cannula and the machine that takes the blood is hooked up to an Arduino board which can monitor blood flow safely and has your height, weight, age and other conditions preset so that you can be assured you're playing and donating responsibly.  

The creators of Blood Sport say they're developing the technology to get gamers thinking about more important issues whilst still doing what they love. For some reason (perhaps the many ethical issues) the Kickstarter campaign was taken down, but the concept is so amazing that hopefully Blood Sport can become a reality and will change the way people think of gaming as addictive and violent to productive and beneficial. 

I just had a vision

Everyone loves a good old nostalgic moment and with Projecteo you can keep your happy memories close at hand in the form of a miniature slide projector that with the click of a button will display your favourite Instagram pics for a personal slideshow. 

How does it work? Well, you sign in with Instagram and pick nine of your favourite Instagram pictures, which then gets developed on to a single cell of 35mm slide film and is inserted in to a small black wheel. Then all you have to do is wait for your Projecteo and wheel of images to arrive in the post. It is that simple. And once you've got your Projecteo you can project your photos on to any surface as a homage to the retro days of projecting. 

And there's endless possibilities as to what you can use a Projecteo for; its not just a way for you to keep your photos in a nostalgic way, Projecteo would make an awesome and very personal gift for a friend or family member. You could give Projecteo as a wedding keepsake or a customized valentines or birthday gift. Projecteo is so small and cute you could keep it in a pocket, on a desk or even on a necklace. 

Projecteo costs £23 for the mini projector itself and the wheel of nine images and comes with free worldwide delivery, and for roughly £6 for each new wheel of nine images you can have as many old memories as you want. 

P.S. if you're interested in getting your hands on the tiny Instagram picture then look online for people's 'friends codes' so that you can get $5 off the total. 

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. 

Oh SNAP!

Freedom to create is probably the best gift out there, and with SNAP you have the freedom to turn anything in to a coffee table, auxiliary table, desk or side table all with a simple assembly system that allows you to design your own furniture and change any space in to what you want it to be.

SNAP allows you to turn boards and surfaces in to tables that are portable, versatile and easy to create. There's no need to drill holes or make table legs, all you do is pull down the flexible portion of SNAP to fit around your desired table surface, then tighten the cable until your SNAP is securely in place. And voila!

SNAP is set up in seconds and you've got a sturdy table at the ready. That surfboard that gets in the way a little bit? Now it's a funky coffee table. An old chessboard sitting in the cupboard unused? Now a quirky side table to compliment your room.

SNAP has endless possibilities and easy set-up so that you can personalize your living space in a few, simple steps. And you don't have to use the conventional four SNAP's in making your table, you can use three for a more conventional feel, or two if you plan to rest your surface against the wall. You don't have to worry about it falling apart because it is literally fall proof. Prices start on Kickstarter from $60 for two SNAP's, to $80 for three and $110 for four, depending on what you want to do with your living space.

I'm having a pity party; so make that cake for one please

Birthday's just aren't what they used to be - all the cake and bouncy castles and friends (do you remember those?) - well, at least you can still have the cake.

Introducing the Sparkling Wonder Cake that caters to all those who want to give a little pizaze to their otherwise grumpy day; cake is the cure for all. Well, unless you're wheat intollerant, in that case the Sparkling Wonder Cake probably isn't for you, that is of course unless you like imminent bloating... Your call.

But for those who want to have their cake and eat it, just strike a match, light your sparkler and sit back and watch your birthday go off with a little fizz. It's quite underwhelming actually but hey, that's what happens when you get older. And when the excitement has died down, simply crack open your tin of Sparkling Wonder Cake and stick your fork in it. Everything tastes better out of a tin, doesn't it just?!? 

And this cake isn't just for the lonely bastards on their birthday's... You can have a little slice of your own misery whether you're saying 'Thank You', 'Happy Birthday', 'Sorry', 'Good Luck' or spreading the 'Love'. Perfect for every occasion. And guaranteed to put a smile on your grumpy mug when you're sitting their being a self depricating son of a gun and all for just £6.99.

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.

I can be a creep of every day of every week

All faint hearted look away now because you're about to see some of the grossest yet yummiest cakes and treats all created at the hands of the slightly disturbed Conjurer's Kitchen. Consider yourself warned... 

Presenting the gruesome edible art of Annabel de Vetten, the master sculptor and artist behind Conjurer's Kitchen, who produces cake treats that'll make you say "that's edible?!?" 

Annabel de Vetten performs culinary sorcery on her cakes, using a medley of horrifying shapes and finishes to create anything from organs to bones to innards that are bound to make you throw up and salivate all in one instance. 

The cakes at Conjurer's Kitchen start at £100 and go up and up depending on your budget; though they promise to give you what you pay for. And for artistry like this you'll definitely get what you want and more. Just one example of their commissioned cakes is the Dexter cake made especially for Fox; featuring a life sized version of Dexter on the morgue slab, ready to be cut up in to a million delicious pieces! 

And if you can't commit to a cake because you're too afraid you'll lose your lunch, then head on over to the Conjurer's Kitchen Chocolate Shop where you can buy animal and human chocolate remains for roughly £15 which will make you question whether they're real or not. A great treat for the gory hunter out there!

These chocolates and cakes are demonically delicious and totally something you'll want to get your teeth stuck in to after you've gotten over the fact that they're a little creepy. They do cakes for every occasion and for every theme you could possibly create; such as their haunting wedding cakes covered in chocolate skulls and flesh detailed icing, ready to test the stomachs of all in attendance. 

Paper Fairytale

If you think you're journal is a one of a kind then you really need to get a load of these Polymer Clay Journals that really bring a whole new meaning to the word 'ethereal'. 

These Polymer Clay Journals are amazing feats of art that combine realistic 3D form with magical characters to create journals that are truly one of a kind and thought provoking. They're the work of Etsy shop owner Mandarin Duck who is a London based designer that specializes in Polymer clay artistry with anything from journals to jewelry to tutorials for you to experiment yourself. 

The life like creatures featured on the skins of these journals are gorgeous and so greatly detailed in they're layers, surrounded in the complimentary scenery, bound to make your writing more exciting and adventurous. And if you'd like a Polymer Clay Journal then it'll cost you around £300 for a bespoke journal, or roughly £15 if you'd prefer to follow a tutorial and try your hands at one of these unique pieces. 

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. 

Show off

You've got precious items that need showing off but you don't want to leave them in a cabinet when the only time the eye is draw to them is when they get dusty? Then you should definitely store your trinket in a Showcase Mirror. 

The Showcase Mirror is your conventional glass mirror except for it has a plexiglass bubble formed over the middle center which provides a reasonably sized space for you to store your prized possessions and showpieces in a way that's a little more creative and unique than putting it on a shelf. The bubble makes it appear as if your souvenir is floating; genius! 

There really is no limit as to the stuff you can store behind the bubble of a Showcase mirror; be it your flowers, a necklace, a delicate piece of china or even some kids toys to spruce up their room a bit. Whatever you have that you want showed off to the world, you can put it in a Showcase Mirror. There's something almost poetic about the display of floating art. 

Designers Studio Thier&VanDaalen created their own machine which allows them to form plexiglass panels in organic curved shapes which make all of their Showcase Cabinets look as breath taking and magical as they are. And if your article is too big for the Showcase Mirror then maybe the line of Curator Cabinets is for you; with an all over plexiglass bubble to display larger items. 

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!

There's a point to pointie

You never know nowadays who's following you down the street and you can't premeditate an accident so when you're in need of a self-defense and survival tool that's practical, tactical and concealable then the Pointie Self Defense Marker is where it's at, and should be in your handbag for simple peace of mind.    

Simply put, Pointie is a hardened stainless steel spike inside of a marker body (concealed as our favourite David Beckham endorsed marker pen) that can be used for anything you think of. Use it as a self-defense tool, take it hunting and hiking, use it as a hole punch, an engraving tool or a glass breaker; it literally can be whatever you make it; except a pen, it'll never be a pen. 

Pointie comes in two different styles; the 'signature head' which features the iconic pointed Pointie shaft inside the pen body, or the 'concealed marker head' which has just the tip of the Pointie inside of a marker shaped body with an extended plastic piece to further enforce the 'marker' appearance of your self-defense tool. And for this compact multi purposed it'll cost roughly $30, a great bag companion for those times when you just don't know what'll happen. 

Utilize the outdoors

It's always important to have critical supplies when venturing out in to the wild (I mean the forest, not the streets; it's not that wild out there, jeez) and there's no better way to carry what you need in a compact way than with a VSSL canister of outdoor utility tools. 

A flashlight is one of the most primary camping tools out there; so it's essential for a VSSL to have a high efficiency LED light attached to the end of the canister for quick and easy use. And within the canister you'll find all sorts of useful equipment perfect for your camping, hiking and outdoor adventures all in mini capsules; Such as first aid kids, a compass, candles, a razor blade, aqua tablets, a wire saw, an emergency whistle, water proof matches, tinder (not the app!), fishing gear and a punch of other stuff. Everything you could possibly need in a crisis. 

The aluminium VSSL tube is 9" by 2"; perfectly compact and totally durable with its military grade aluminium casing which is weather resistant. 

VSSL come in four forms; the Supplies canister, First Aid canister, Shelter canister and the Blank/Empty canister. The latter of which allows you to store all your emergency items securely with the VSSL flashlight on the canisters head. Prices for VSSL's range from $49-$105; a great price for a small and easily accessible emergency pack. 

Unofish

If you've got a bit of a basketball obsession and you've got money to splash then maybe you should invest in a handcrafted leather basketball that takes swag to the next level. 

Unofish are the designers behind these sexy basketballs who use a range of different patterned and treated quality leathers to make these striking basketballs that'll make you feel like a queen or a king. Several of their 'crocodile' inspired balls feature alligator embossed leather, whilst balls like 'the state' have cross sections of pony hair leather which add an elegant edge to the material. 

With an Unofish basketball you're paying for great quality and finish to beat all others. And although your game might not be on your ball game definitely will be with everyone marveling over your basketball as you will stand out and above all others with your £160 basketball.