LEGO Ideas is the best thing that happened for the community of enthusiastic LEGO builders who can’t curtail their imagination when it comes to creating jaw-dropping builds. Now, yet another LEGO set brings back the nostalgia of photography just in time for the holiday season. Thanks to YouTuber Marc (Minibrick Productions YouTube channel) who shares his interesting ideas on Google’s invincible video-sharing platform.
Remember the Polaroid SX-70 fold-flat instant camera that rocked the early 1970s? Now this iconic shooter has got the LEGO treatment in the form of a 516-brick set. The creation is a result of Minibrick Productions’ submission of the idea that earlier debuted as a concept. It’s partially functional, so you can’t click real-time photographs with this camera. The LEGO Polaroid OneStep SX-70 is for yours to grab as it can be pre-ordered right away at a price tag of $80 with release slated for January 1, 2024. Certainly, that’s way cheaper than getting the original one that’s a prized collector’s item now.
It’s a disappointment that this piece of retro-futurism cannot click actual photographs, still to keep the enthusiasts in the feels, there’s a Polaroid Time-Zero Land Film pack with three storable slides. Just slide one of these slides into the camera’s body and press the shutter button to eject the illustrated photograph. One of these photographic slides is that of Edwin H. Land, who invented the Polaroid camera.
To keep things authentic, the LEGO camera has the signature Color Spectrum of the Polaroid and the exposure compensation dial to a new 8×10 tile. As I said, it’s partially functional, so there working viewfinder and shutter button. To induce a bit of quirkiness, there’s the “photography-led” marketing that comes with the “NOT SHOT ON LEGO Polaroid Camera” sticker on the photos.
Piecing together this LEGO Polaroid camera is going to be a fun activity over the weekend and it’s going to induce the interest of onlookers who might mistake it for the real thing at first glance.
Sitting atop your book sort of like a halo, the Bowio 2.0 is a genius reading light that illuminates your pages and not your entire room. The light, styled like a leather fashion accessory, clips onto the left and right sides of your book cover, while LEDs built into its strap cast a soft glow that’s powerful enough to let you read in the pitch dark.
In an era dominated by OLED displays, it’s refreshing to see a book-light like the Bowio make the kind of impact it’s making. Now in its second edition, the Bowio 2.0 builds upon the success of its predecessor which raised over half a million dollars from 7000 backers back in 2021. The world’s most funded book light is back for round two, with a few improvements to its design, craftsmanship, and functionality.
The format of the Bowio 2.0 remains unchanged for the sole reason that it works so brilliantly. Sitting on your book like a golden arch, the Bowio 2.0 shines warm LED lights at your pages, allowing you to read, turn pages, and move around without having the light cause you or anyone discomfort. The Bowio 2.0 clips onto each end of your book (and is long enough to fit larger books or even board games like DnD), with multiple LEDs that cast a warm diffused glow that doesn’t cause any shadows, helping you read clearly. It attaches directly to your book, unlike other body-worn reading lights, which means you can adjust yourself without worrying about the light’s orientation going askew, and like its predecessor, the Bowio 2.0 has touch-sensitive brightness settings built in that let you adjust the LED brightness to suit your needs.
Bowio GameLight is specifically designed for Game Masters, it fits seamlessly with both carton and wooden screens.
Craftsmanship is one of Bowio 2.0’s highlights, with varieties spanning both vegan and genuine leather options. No matter which material you pick, the Bowio’s stitching and edge-finishing are impeccable, and the leather has just the right amount of stiffness to hold its shape no matter how you use it. Metal buckles on both ends separate the LED strip from the Bowio 2.0’s magnetic clip, and N52 neodymium magnets in the clips on each side help the Bowio 2.0 firmly grasp onto both paperback and hardbound books. High CRI LEDs offer better color rendering than regular LEDs, and draw power from a battery pack that gives it up to 95 hours (depending on the brightness setting) of use on a full charge. You can run your Bowio on 1.5V rechargeable batteries, charging them through a built-in USB-C port, or use disposable AAA batteries that are more readily available.
The Bowio 2.0 campaign is seeing a pretty good response right off the bat, which gives me hope for a human race that still prefers offline entertainment like reading and gaming (it even got an Honorable Mention at the 2023 LIT Lighting Design Awards). The self-proclaimed book light attaches onto board games too, allowing you to play in dimly lit environments, and each Bowio 2.0 ships with a tabletop standing accessory if you opt for its ‘Gamer’ edition. For the avid bookworm, the Bowio 2.0 is available in pastel or colorful vegan leather editions, along with an Alcantara synthetic leather variant. However, if you’re looking for something more au naturel, you’ve got variants made from cowhide in regular, suede, and even textured variants to resemble snake or croc leather… and finally a 24K gold gilded leather book light for elite bookworms. Each Bowio 2.0 comes packaged in a classy plastic-free kraft carton box that can easily be composted/recycled, and ships globally.
While traditional advent calendars from the 1850s were designed as cards with biblical verses in them, counting down the days to Christmas, modern-day advent calendars make the process a little more fun by including tiny gifts that build up the anticipation to the 25th of December. Major brands participate in the Advent Calendar trend, and IKEA isn’t one to be left out. The Vinterfint Advent Calendar comes flat-packed like every IKEA product, and needs to be assembled together. Put the pieces together and you end up creating an adorable Christmas-themed diorama with characters, houses, trees, and a few snowmen too! Under each of these objects lies a small trinket or chocolate that sparks joy every day for the 24 days before the grand celebration!
The Vinterfint advent calendar opens up to reveal an adorable Christmas scene featuring Santa, snowmen, and a few goats from the nativity display. You’ve also got decked-up Christmas trees and classic countryside-roofed houses amidst a snowy landscape.
Each paper object can be lifted up to reveal goodies underneath, featuring a selection of chocolates including pralines, nougats, and truffles, ensuring a sweet treat for each day leading up to Christmas. IKEA designer Paulin Machado envisioned it as a way to engage in holiday arts and crafts, providing everything needed to create a winter landscape complete with Christmas trees and snowmen.
The broader VINTERFINT collection, which the Advent Calendar is a part of, is IKEA’s way of creating a cozy atmosphere that falls in line with its brand ethos as well as the warm holiday spirit. The collection, inspired by Scandinavian folklore and traditional handicrafts, includes items like table linen, tree ornaments, gift bags, and wrapping paper. The wrapping paper, for instance, features horses, fire trees, and red apples, a nod to IKEA’s Swedish roots, infusing traditional Swedish folk art with a modern twist.
For the uninitiated, Advent Calendars aren’t your standard calendars. Rather than chronicling the 365 days into 12 months, Advent Calendars have just one simple purpose – to count down the days till Christmas. The calendar became somewhat of a tradition in the 1850s, with 24 different flaps that had Bible verses that you’d read every day up until Christmas Day on the 25th of December. In modern times, the calendar has become more of a gifting ritual, with brands creating tiny calendars with products/gifts for each day. This year, the folks at Onyx Coffee Lab decided to make a calendar that quite literally gets you ‘charged up’ for Christmas. The 2023 Coffee Advent Calendar comes in a gorgeous box that opens up to reveal an entire spread of coffee. The box itself is decorated beautifully with gold foil, and creates a wonderful fanned presentation of coffee sachets when opened. I imagine once you’re done drinking all that coffee, it would make for an incredible book or magazine holder!
Featuring 24 days of coffee, the calendar explores various origins, blends, and processing methods, allowing you to experience a veritable tapestry of coffee flavors leading up to Christmas. It’s a perfect way to explore the world through a single cup before deciding on what coffee you want to try more of in the next year!
While Onyx delights practically every year with its gorgeous advent calendars, this year’s packaging exudes elegance and is designed to leave a lasting impression. The box’s exterior is adorned with stunning seasonal illustrations, enhanced with gold foil treatments. Upon opening the box, you’ll discover an accordion-style collection box revealing 24 individually wrapped bags of coffee. Each bag is marked from Day 1 to Day 24, guiding you on a daily journey of coffee discovery. A beautifully designed information card is also included, providing details about each coffee, adding to the overall unique coffee experience.
The Cybertruck hype cycle is now in full gear. And yet it’s apparently the perfect moment for the Cybertruck maker to announce an entirely different flavor of cyber. Late last week, Tesla unveiled its CyberBeer + CyberStein Limited Edition Set, and – yes, it’s a total swing out of left field – but when you’re hungry for anything Cybertruck-related, relatively speaking, a new $150 collector’s item from Tesla is small fries. Especially when it potentially tastes great and quenches the thirst for good beer in addition to the thirst for a new electric vehicle shaped like Porygon.
Admittedly, the new CyberBeer + CyberStein Limited Edition set – which contains two bottles of CyberBeer and two CyberSteins to pour it in – looks like it’s straight out of Cyberpunk 2077 though it’s deliberately meant to mimic the style of the Cybertruck. Given the CyberBeer bottle’s black-and-white gloss color scheme, graffiti-style “CyberBeer” lettering and angled shape, it looks like it’d fit right in at a bar in Night City served next to a bottle of Pingo Pálido. In what appears to be a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, the back of the beer bottle features the words “haha cheers” in a far more standard-looking typeface.
Tesla describes the CyberBeer beverage itself as “a Helles Lager with European Noble Hops Saaz and Hallertau Mittlefruh. Accentuated by notes of herb and spice and more notable aromas of tea and citrus.” The included CyberStein looks a bit more like the actual Cybertruck model, thanks to its matte black appearance that actually features a miniature Tesla logo near the top.
If you want to buy one of these for yourself, you’re out of luck; the limited edition set sold out almost immediately when it went up. It could come back in another wave, but at this point, you may be holding out just as long as you would for a new Cybertruck.
As someone who sits in front of a computer all day, there’s nothing better than working at a desk that I assembled and decorated myself. Likewise, if you’re working out of your very own home office – where you ideally have space to get creative with the elements that make up your work area – you may want some tips on how to fill that space with items that offer both function and form in equal measure. The possibilities are limitless, and everyone has different tastes. Some of us like putting succulents in our workspaces, others don’t. Regardless, aside from obvious purchases like pens and notepads, there are ten staple desk accessory “categories” that you probably shouldn’t ignore. If I were shopping for a new home office right this moment – from scratch – these are the ten items that would sit at the top of my shopping cart:
1. PowerPic mod Wireless Charger
The PowerPic mod Wireless Charger is a decently-priced yet gorgeous wireless charger that is widely compatible with all types of phones. It’s slated to work with MagSafe and non-MagSafe iPhones, Android phones, and it even lets you customize the frame with your own 4×6 image, allowing it to blend with nearby furniture and match the overall style you’re going for. It only requires a single USB-C cable hooked into the base to power it, making for a clean appearance with no messy stray cables laying about.
2. Lamicall Headset Stand H1
The Lamicall Headset Stand H1 is an inexpensive way to store over-ear headphones on your desk without skimping on quality. The upper lip is designed to protect your headphones’ padding against damage, and the base appears sturdy enough to sit firmly on a desk without slipping and sliding around whenever you remove or replace your headphones. This is a simple product, but it makes total sense to have around; storing your headphones on their side on the desk surface is a missed opportunity to let them shine, and thanks to multiple color options, you can make the Lamicall Headset Stand work with any desk.
3. Shure MOTIV MV5
Shure is one of the best microphone brands on the market, and you don’t even need to purchase one of its premium XLR mics like the popular SM7B. The Shure MV5 is an excellent, affordable, and compact condenser mic that is well-known for outputting high-quality audio while taking very little desk space. This little orb comes in two slick color palettes; white ribs with a black chassis, or an all-black exterior accented with a red inlay. Not only is the versatile MV5 a great microphone for a streamer, a podcaster, or an office worker wanting to sound clear in video calls; it could also be useful for the traveling musician who wants to bring their recording studio on the go.
4. HappyLight Luxe by Verilux
It’s fall, which means seasonal affective disorder is coming sooner than many of us are comfortable with – at least, up here in the Northern Hemisphere. That said, the rather tiny and comparatively affordable HappyLight Luxe Therapy Lamp could be a great assistant to get rid of the SAD by tricking your brain into believing the sun is fully visible, even when it’s dark outside. Its convenient tablet shape makes it way easier to fit on a packed desk than some of the other, bigger therapy lamps on the market. But it doesn’t compromise on power to achieve such a slim and slender form factor; the HappyLight Luxe is rated to output 10,000 lux, which is roughly how bright it is outside in the middle of a clear summer day.
5. LEATHER VILLAGE Vintage Leather Bound Journal
The Leather Village Vintage Leather Bound Journal is a rather unconventional alternative to smaller, cheaper journals. But hear me out: how much cooler would it be to write work notes and conduct journaling sessions with a giant, leather-bound journal that looks straight out of Middle-Earth? Leather Village balances rustic charm with eco-friendly principles, vowing to only use leather from water buffalo that died of natural causes and paper made from recycled cotton waste. In any case, this is one of the most stylish journals I’ve ever seen – perfect for stationary enthusiasts.
6. Bose 700 Headphones
Sure, the Bose 700 Noise Cancelling Headphones are on the expensive side relative to other noise cancelling headphones in this range, but the key difference is that this pair is also wireless. You can’t argue with Bose’s durability and sound quality, and the Bose 700 is built with high-quality materials to provide a balanced sound stage and decent noise cancelling features with a 20 hour battery life. Its extra mics allow it to pick up more of your voice as well, making it a strong daily driver for phone calls and video conferencing.
As far as $300 headphones go, this is an all-rounder that hits every box on the checklist of features you might want when isolating yourself from annoying sounds in your work environment, and it also sounds good, looks good, and lasts for a long time without needing a charge. When you do finally need to recharge it, it should only take about two and a half hours plugged into the wall via USB-C. It comes in black or luxe silver.
7. Goblintechkeys Pastel Pink Seaside Desk Mat
Goblintechkeys’ Pastel Pink Seaside Desk Mat is one of several custom desk mats from Goblintechkeys, and though it happens to be my personal favorite, all of them look gorgeous and immediately breathe life into any desk surface they’re placed on. It’s advertised to use 100% natural rubber to create a spill-resistant, non-slip surface that works great as a mouse pad, a desk surface protector, and a cushy place to rest your wrists. I recommend the extra large (90x40cm) desk mat, which can comfortably seat a keyboard and a mouse on a desk surface while livening up the entire workstation.
8. YETI Rambler 46 Oz Water Bottle
Everyone needs to drink more water. Fortunately, water bottles are always in fashion, and the YETI Rambler 46 Oz Water Bottle is just as useful in an office as it is in the middle of a desert. Yes, this is an expensive bottle, but YETI bottles are famously sturdy, clean, aesthetically appealing, and designed to maintain internal temperatures longer than other brands. This is probably the fanciest water bottle you’ll ever buy, but it’s also potentially the only water bottle you’ll ever need to buy. It comes in several color options, including navy, charcoal, seafoam, black, and white.
9. Serenilite Hand Therapy Stress Ball
Working long hours in one position is stressful business, which is why I always keep my Serenilite Hand Therapy Stress Ball nearby in my own home office. Squeezing these colorful little balls can build up your hand and wrist muscles while easing tension in your body. I even gave it a few good squeezes while writing this article, but the best part of using it so often is it’s never scratched or torn; in fact, it still looks exactly like it did the day I bought it in 2020, when I was first setting up my workspace. Fortunately, Serenilite offers these in packs of three (in case you lose one) including soft, medium, and hard options if you have a preference for one or the other.
10. Samsung T7 Shield
USB storage options are abundant nowadays, but I don’t regret purchasing a Samsung T7 Shield earlier in the summer when I needed a way to migrate all of my data from an older external HDD to something faster and more secure. This tiny portable SSD can carry up to 4TB of storage space and is now shipping for a relatively low price, though you can buy a 1TB model at sub-$100 these days. Thanks to USB 3.2 connectivity and the T7 Shield’s lightweight design, you can use it to easily store and transfer information between all of your devices – allowing you to let Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, iPad Pro, or even gaming devices like the PlayStation 5 transfer files between one another.
I personally keep my T7 Shield hooked up to my PC, where I offload Steam games and play those games directly from the drive, which works way better in practice than I expected, given that it’s an inexpensive way to seamlessly add terabytes of storage to my device.
What makes it truly stand out, however, is just how durable and secure it is. As a Windows user, I can use Samsung’s proprietary software to set a password on my T7 Shield, which locks anyone out of accessing or even viewing the drive partition unless I personally unlock it from my Windows computer. This means nobody is going to be able to break into it and access my data if it gets stolen. It’s also rated to survive up to 9.8 ft drops and is even rated as water resistant and fully dust-proof.
Designed by the maker of the Levitating Pen from a little over a year ago, Novium returns with some more gravity-defying office instruments. The two new pieces of space-inspired stationery are the Edge, a hovering box-cutter, letter-opener, and scale, and the Shuttleport, a similar gravity-defying paperclip holder. With a design that’s a unique combination of practical and utterly fascinating, the Edge and Shuttleport bring a sense of futurism and whimsy to your tabletop. They compel you to look away from your screen once in a while and just stare in wonder at them as they float. Suspended using a set of precisely positioned magnets, the Edge and Shuttleport make for rather engaging fidget toys too, as they bob up and down when gently nudged.
The Novium Edge is a multipurpose tool that effortlessly hovers above its magnetic base, making it an eye-catching addition to any desk. The levitating box cutter, letter-opener, and scale comes with an edgy, future-friendly design that’s simultaneously also ergonomic, intuitive, and safe to use. When docked, the Edge rests reliably on its anti-gravity base, hovering at a precise 12° angle that makes it easy to grab whenever you want.
The Edge’s design visually splits into its three broad functions. At the very tip is the box-cutter, made from stainless steel with a 1mm-wide safety tip that lets you pierce through boxes but not hurt or harm skin. The Edge’s anodized aluminum grip has a notched upper surface that serves as a precision scale, and a semi-sharp bottom surface that’s perfectly dull enough to cut through envelopes and packages to reveal the contents within.
The Edge sits at a 12° angle against its magnetic base, with the handle hovering in mid-air for you to easily grab onto. Docking the Edge is satisfying too as it instantly grabs its position with a click.
The Edge weighs a mere 25 grams, and despite its angular grip, is incredibly comfortable to hold and use. Its weighted mid-section gives it a sense of reliability as you grip it, and the blunt-tipped box cutter is safe enough to hold without hurting yourself. It’s notoriously effective against boxes, though, so points for that. The Edge’s base, on the other hand, is made from zinc (with powerful built-in rare-earth magnets) and weighs a sizeable 130 grams. This makes it an effective docking station for the Edge because it remains in its place as you engage or disengage the magnetic system while you’re lifting or docking the Edge. The heavy base also makes it a pretty wonderful paperweight, adding to the Edge’s list of impressive features.
The Edge’s rocking motion makes it a brilliant fidget-toy to constantly play with
While magnetic paper-clip holders have been around for decades, none are as impressive as the Shuttleport. With a design that actually glorifies the paper clip, the Shuttleport comes with a split-arc form factor that’s filled with visual drama, and its matte-black color simply serves to guide your eye to the hovering silver paperclip located at its center. The Shuttleport comes with two kinds of clips, the bent-wire kind and the sheet-metal kind. Both the clips sport an angular paper-plane-inspired design (giving legitimacy to the word Shuttle in Shuttleport), although one is well suited for binding papers together into documents, and the other acts as a metallic bookmark, marking pages for you to go back to.
The Shuttleport’s anti-gravity base comes with a platform for docking one levitating clip, and a dedicated storage area on the side for keeping the rest of the clips handy just when you need them. The anti-gravity base looks a lot like the one seen on the company’s levitating HoverPen series, although this one’s designed to work with paper-clips instead. The clips rest at a precarious angle, pointing towards the sky, while their plane/jet-inspired design just feels like a wonderful extra design detail that is bound to grab anyone’s attention even when the clips aren’t on their levitating docking station.
Simply pinch the clip and lift it off its anti-gravity base to un-dock it. Once you’ve used the clip, return it to the base and it automatically aligns with the magnets.
The paper clip and bookmark both come with a paper-plane-inspired design
Both the Novium Edge and Shuttleport are made from high-quality materials, ensuring durability and longevity. The aluminum, steel, and zinc construction gives them a premium feel while being lightweight and easy to handle. The weighted magnetic bases provide a stable foundation for these levitating marvels, ensuring that they stay in place and function flawlessly.
The Edge comes in Space Black and Starlight Silver color options, whereas the Shuttleport has a single Space Black variant. Launched as Novium’s fourth campaign on Kickstarter, the Edge starts at a discounted $69 while the Shuttleport is priced at a discounted $39. If you want to grab both of them, you can for just $99, making them a wonderful addition to your office or WFH tabletop, or an absolutely stellar gift for a special someone. The Novium Edge and Shuttleport begin shipping in August 2023.
It’s February 14, and that time of the year when couples worldwide choose to celebrate with dinner dates in posh restaurants, or head to romantic getaways, or even have an intimate date night at home. All you need is a little décor, a nice hearty meal, and a few exchanges of gifts to complete this celebration of love and affection. But before we start decorating our homes, let us understand the origin of Valentine’s Day.
The theory goes that Emperor Claudius II of Rome executed two men named Valentine on February 14 separately in two different years in the 14th century. It is said that St. Valentine was a priest arrested for defying a Roman decree forbidding soldiers from marrying. As a result, he was executed as wed lovers in secret and thus is known as the patron saint of love. Hence, the annual celebration of love and romance across the world’s various regions pays homage to St. Valentine, and the festival is named after him.
So, indulge your affection for your beloved and transform your celebration into an awesome and unforgettable one. Here are some amazing Valentine’s Day decoration ideas to hang out on cloud 9 with your Valentine.
1. Style the Table
Dress up your table in style, as nothing says romance more than a nice candlelight dinner. Red is the color of passion, so strategically create a layered setting with hues of red in the table linen, dinnerware, and placement mats. Make sure to strike the right balance, so the tablescape looks elegant and not gaudy.
Designed by James Kaoru Bury, the Chouchin Candle is pillar-shaped, styled to look like a traditional Japanese ‘chouchin’ lantern. It is made from two different grades of wax, one on the inside, which burns the way an ordinary candle would, and the non-melting wax on the outside, which serves as the candle’s exterior; it lends subtle translucency and mimics the effects of a lantern by diffusing the light that passes through it. The best part is that the wax collects within the candle when it melts and eliminates the need for having a plate or tray below. The candle can be held while it’s burning, and the traditional candle has a burning time of 60 hours.
While roses are one of the most popular way of showcasing your love, the Everlasting Rose takes your sentimental display to a whole new level! In an era where we want our gifts to last and also be useful for a longer period of time, the ordinary rose that needs to be thrown away ends the romance a little too soon. The Everlasting Rose, on the other hand, lasts for upto three years without requiring any constant care. And before we go ahead and announce it artificial, the roses used are 100%natural and ethically sourced from farmers who grow them minus the pesticides or chemicals. Get your’s now and let it share your language of love for years!
This minimalist aroma diffuser operates without a battery. It harnesses the power of a single candle and uses simple physics and science to spread calming aromas. It has a hypnotic effect that triggers the senses, soothes the mind, and is environmentally friendly.
The sleek aroma diffuser looks like a home device with the luster of a metallic base. Its smooth and unadorned surface has a ceramic plate on top that acts as a filter that forms a subtle contrast with the base. Handcrafted by artisans from Hida, Japan, using traditional kilns, the porcelain forms the base for holding the scented oils. It has a battery-powered fan inside that offers an even aroma. Plus, it is easy to clean and maintain.
Raise a toast to love because no V-Day celebration is complete without champagne or sparkling wine. Add hues of red to your bar counter with luxurious wine glasses that feature a red stem with sinuous curves, making the celebration more memorable. Such richness in barware takes the mood to a whole new level.
6. Modular Flower Vase that holds flowers aesthetically
Valentine’s Day has been the biggest worldwide for sending flowers since the 17th century. Roses represent love because it is the favorite of Venus, the goddess of love, who believes roses stand for strong feelings and emotions.
Provide your aesthetics a unique flair by getting a stunning vase that brings the elements of the Earth together in beautiful harmony. This tubular vase is made of copper and a wood container with thin, removable, and adjustable copper pipes that provide the freedom to create your arrangement. The tubes come in different heights for an interesting visual effect and develop unique patinas over time, adding to the character of this one-of-a-kind vase. In addition, the wooden base offers enough weight to not topple over, even with large flowers.
Bedding is the pivotal point of your bedroom décor, so create a beautiful setting with satin or silk bedding. It infuses elegance and glamor and makes the space look enthusiastic. Velvet, silk and satin can be the perfect fabrics for your bed for relaxed comfort, snuggling, and a cozy setting. Red bed linen can envelop the bedroom in warmth and intimacy, but you can also go for hues of white, black, green, and blue as your choice. Ensure the window curtains or dressings are plush and alluring and can successfully cut outdoor light and external noise.
A soft textured floor rug or carpet can offer warmth and a comfortable underfoot. It adds softness to the overall ambiance but ensure that it matches the bedding and upholstery. ‘The Many Faces of Red’ rug is a simple graphic design by UK-based artist and color theorist Josef Albers. It displays angular lines and a strong silhouette, while it’s red and rust-hued patterns pop against white and make a brilliant graphic statement in any bedroom or living space.
Couples that laugh together last together! Let your space reflect your personality with decorative elements that personalize your relationships. This heart-shaped desk light brings in the perfect Valentine’s vibe, enlivens the space with color, injects visual interest, and crosses between a functional piece and a sculptural light. Complement the decor with some seasonal chocolates and fresh flowers.
Don’t forget to play your favorite songs! Music can evoke emotions that relaxes the mind, sets the mood and lets conversations flow seamlessly. Reminiscent of old-school vinyl records, the sleek CD player breaks away from the mold with a minimalist art device. The plain, boxy shape of the player looks like a picture frame where the CD player can be displayed just like album art in music apps. In addition, this device transforms into a piece of decor, especially when you hang it on walls.
While popular culture makes you believe that Valentine’s Day is only for love-struck couples, it’s a day of love and that love can be for anyone. Thus, all kinds of love should be celebrated, whether for your parents, siblings, or children.
Created by Nendo, the Invisible Snow Globe has more than what meets the eye. While it looks like an empty sphere filled with liquid and suspended microparticles at the bottom, shake it and you finally see what’s so special about the snow globe. Rather than having the snow gradually settle down on the bottom of the sphere, some of the particles seemingly levitate in mid-air, creating either a spiral staircase, a set of flowers, or a smiling emoticon. It’s baffling at first and entertaining immediately after, as you see the snow particles suddenly defy gravity to create designs in ‘thin air’. This, Nendo says, was created so that the joy of watching a snow globe would last well beyond the short time it takes for those snowflakes to fall to the ground.
Aptly dubbed the Invisible Snow Globe, this rather fascinating winter-themed tabletop toy is the result of a nifty optical illusion. Most snow globes are filled with diluted glycerine, which has an estimated refractive index of 1.333 to 1.475, which allows it to bend light a certain way. Nendo’s snow globes come with ultra-transparent silicone resin structures inside the globe, with a refractive index that almost matches that of the diluted glycerin. If you’ve ever seen those absorbent polymer balls that go invisible in water, this is pretty much the same phenomenon. The structures turn invisible in the diluted glycerin, making them difficult to spot… however, when you shake the snow globe, the snow microparticles rest on top of them, making their vague outline visible to you.
“By initially erasing the existence of the object, the impression and the role of snow is emphasized, and the design allows enjoyment of visual changes over time”, the Japanese designer said. Designed to evoke a sense of childlike whimsy, Nendo’s Invisible Snow Globes come in three variants, dubbed the ‘Spiral Stairs’, ‘Flowers’, and ‘Smile’. They’re listed on Nendo’s online store with each globe going for ¥12,100 or $87.9, although the entire collection is sold out as of writing this piece.
By putting the most common tools and functions right under your fingertips, the PenPad hopes to make using the iPad’s most famous sketching/painting app much easier by eliminating the hassle of navigating the Procreate interface. Instead, almost like the way a Numpad makes accessing numbers easy, the PenPad gives you access to 22 different functions that you’re most likely to use while sketching on Procreate, from increasing and decreasing brush size, accessing the color wheel, switching between brush and eraser, or just bringing up the color wheel or eyedropper tool. The fact that it’s a compact hardware accessory means you can paint with one hand while intuitively pressing buttons with the other to make your workflow tonnes faster.
Available in Black and White variants, the PenPad connects via Bluetooth to your iPad and automatically begins working with the Procreate app right out of the box. The 22 concave buttons on the PenPad are laid out in a way that makes them easy to use, and pressing buttons allows you to actively perform tasks like see your layers, toggle the selection tool, cut, copy, paste tools, etc. The buttons work rather seamlessly, almost like a wireless keyboard would, resulting in faster workflows because your mind is focused on creating rather than navigating the UI anymore.
What PenPad really does is reduce the time it takes for your eyes to wander and your hand to follow it around Procreate’s UI. More than 90% of the Procreate screen is the drawing canvas, which means the other elements (the buttons, menus, etc.) are laid out in a way that gives the canvas the main importance. Drawing on the canvas is easy, but using other features involves shifting your focus from the canvas to locate the appropriate toolbar, drop-down menu, etc. It takes a mere second, sometimes up to 10 seconds, but all this adds up rather quickly when you’re working with large files and multiple layers. To avoid this, the PenPad just puts common functions under your fingertips. This way, your dominant hand can sketch on the screen, while your non-dominant hand rests on the PenPad, away from the touchscreen display. Once your fingers get a hang of the PenPad’s layout, it becomes even more intuitive and rapid!
The tiny wireless device comes with a format that seems rather calculator-ish. It’s relatively flat, barring a bump at the top that makes the PenPad rest on surfaces at an angle – a feature that actually helps make it more ergonomic. The accessory is still rather flat, and slides right into your backpack, tablet/laptop sleeve when you’re not using it.
The PenPad works seamlessly with iPads running iPadOS 14.4 and above, although there are a few shortcomings. For starters, it doesn’t work with any other sketching app – so you’re really limited to Procreate. It doesn’t work with Android tablets either, given that Procreate isn’t available for the OS. The buttons aren’t reprogrammable either, so you can’t quite map them to work on other software for the iPad or even the laptop. It’s strictly bound to one app for one device category. Another user also pointed out that the PenPad lacks the three most popular actions performed while digital sketching – pan, rotate, and zoom. To be able to perform them, you need to take your hand off the PenPad and pinch, tap, swipe on the iPad’s touchscreen.
That doesn’t take away from the fact that the PenPad still DOES speed up your workflow. It’s quite a must-have for most digital artists who use the software for work (or even for recreation). The PenPad comes with a 100 mAh battery built-in that gives it a 5-day battery life, but unfortunately, it charges via MicroUSB (unlike the USB-C charging on the iPad Pro), so you’ll sadly need to carry an extra cable with you wherever you go.
