GelaSkins

I have a dilemma. I love GelaSkins, I think they're fantastic and I just can't choose what design to get.

GelaSkins are protective covers for iPods, created in a whole range of amazing artistic designs, and I love them. There are at least two I would love to hang on my wall, let alone to have on my iPod and now I'm torn between the two. Spirit of Medicine Lake or Bookshelf?


I just don't know. I wonder if they do wall hangings as well as iPod accessories.

Spirit of Medicine Lake at the top, Bookshelf below, both fantastic designs.

GelaSkins - £8.99 from ShinyShack.com

The Sharp End

I showed this pencil sharpener to a friend of mine with some trepidation. She's a very enthusiastic cat owner and while I'm fond of cats myself, I'm aware that some cat enthusiasts can be quite militant about cat welfare, even when the cat isn't real.

Luckily, she saw the funny side and was really quite tickled by the cat's bottom pencil sharpener.

The white plastic cat stands in its own tray to catch the shavings and the pencil sharpener is positioned in the body of the cat. The pencil is inserted, of course, into the bottom. To add further further comedy, the cat meows pathetically while you sharpen the pencil.

A cruel but amusing desktop toy, just make sure everyone in the office shares your sense of humour!

The Sharp End - 6.99from ShinyShack.com

Tokyo Courier Bag

I would really like to have this courier bag. I love the bright colours, the fantastic geometric design and the high quality finish of the bag.

My main problem is that I'm really not sure if I'm cool enough to carry off something just so stylish!

Tokyo Courier Bag - £24.99 from ShinyShack.com

Freshly Baked Shortbread Scented Candle

This is my absolute favourite candle ever. Even before you open the tin you can smell this fantastic, buttery shortbread scent. Open it and you can take a deep sniff of the delicious smell.

Unlike many scented candles, it doesn't lose its scent when lit either. Light it in the corner of a room and the whole room fills with a warm baking smell. Very cosy. My only warning would be; don't light it when you're feeling hungry, or you'll be tempted to nibble the wax itself! (don't though - it's just wax, it really doesn't taste nice).

I like the tin too, when you've finished with it for the night you can just pop the lid on till next time.

Freshly Baked Shortbread Scented Candle - £6.99 from ShinyShack.com

Loser Badge

I like this badge, as should anyone who didn't exactly shine at school, or has a taste for irony. Those of us who can remember back to school blazers and prefects, and whose memories haven't failed completely yet will remember the badges that were presented to the brightest and best. Head Girl, Head Boy, Prefect, Monitor... they indicated a certain amount of power that was wielded by the wearer.

The Loser Badge is created very much in the vintage school style. The shield design with the slanting gold text all has a strong flavour of the school room. The fact that it proclaims clearly 'Loser', strikes a blow for all of us whose career sheet suggested Tractor Driver and Prison Warden as likely options.

So come on Losers, stand up and be counted!

The Loser Badge - £3.99 from ShinyShack.com

Bubble Scrubber

It's a nice attempt to make washing up more exciting. I'm not entirely sure that doing the dishes could ever be really fun, but it's a nice idea that you could stop and blow bubbles using the soapy water.

Who knows? It might even encourage the kids to get stuck into the dishes for once?

Bubble Scrubber - £5.99 from ShinyShack.com

Drip Clips

I need these. I have no paper clips, and even when I do have paper clips I have to keep them in the rather boring and utilitarian plastic blue desk tidy. I want a tiny porcelain sink on my desk with a little blue paper clip dangling from the tap. It would brighten up my working environment and make me much more efficient.

The only down side is I wouldn't want to actually use the pretty blue paper clips, I'd probably have a stash of boring grey ones to actually clip things together. But I could keep them in the sink too. It's just what my desk needs.

Drip Clips - £6.99 from ShinyShack.com

Big Birthday Candle

I haven't had a birthday cake with candles for many a long year now. Which is a shame really. I always enjoyed the tradition of the cake appearing and blowing them all out as you make a wish.

It has been remarked somewhat unkindly that if I want the nostalgia, then these days I'm going to need a bigger cake. Or maybe I just need a different kind candle?

I really adore the big birthday candle. It must be the kid in me, but 12 inches is an awful lot of candle and when you open the specially designed box and there it is, just like the all little white and pink candy striped birthday candles I had on cakes over the years fused into one giant candle... well it puts a smile on my face.

My only problem is I can't bear to light it and watch it melt!

Big Birthday Candle - 14.99 from ShinyShack.com

Astronaut Ice Cream

What if you could carry ice cream around with you all day without it melting? Don't be silly, you'd say, why would you want to carry ice cream around? You have ice cream - you eat it, right?

Well the answer is, you don't need to eat it straight away, it won't melt and it's not cold so it can't get warm either. Sounds strange? The truth is even weirder.

NASA figured it out, probably because their astronauts got sick of squeezing puréed carrots out of tubes. 'Yes it's cool in space', they'd say, 'but the food sucks'.

Take a block of Neapolitan ice cream and put it through a freeze dryer. You know, those things that give us coffee granules. What comes out the other side is smaller than what went in, but still recognisably strawberry, vanilla and chocolate striped. But now the ice cream is a solid.

Bite into it and it crunches. But then the water in your mouth rehydrates the ice cream and it's like you've got a melted mouthful of Neapolitan ice cream, but without the cold.

Definitely a different snack sensation and just the thing to take with me for my next lunar landing.

Astronaut Ice Cream - £2.99 from ShinyShack.com

LED Keyring Light

I was very grateful I had one of these in my pocket at the weekend. Leaving a friend's house late at night, I suddenly realised they had absolutely no outside lighting and that their garden gate was flanked on either side by a drainage ditch.

It could have been a recipe for disaster as it was a moonless night and the chances of ending up in the ditch seemed quite good. Luckily I recalled I had a tiny LED keyring light hooked onto my house keys. For something so tiny with a single LED light, it puts out an amazing amount of light, and the light toggle allowed me to switch it to permanent 'on' and focus on navigating my way safely.

The LED keyring light is essentially just a single LED and a button cell battery inside a translucent polycarbonate case. Squeeze on, and let go for off, or push the toggle up for permanent on. It may not look like much, but the fact that it's so tiny means you can just keep it in your pocket and forget about it until you unexpectedly need a light.

LED Keyring Light - £1.99 from 101Gear.com

Giant Retro Spacehopper

This Spacehopper is the exact replica of the one I had when I was a kid. We had an orange and a blue one and they both had that weird face on them.

What I really love about this is that it's adult sized. So it's exactly the same experience of bouncing along that I had as a tiddly person, but without the scabby knees and the waterpistol in my back pocket.

It isn't a dignified way to travel, but it is fun! Great for racing against your friends, especially when you find that some of them have completely lost the ability to space-hop, and you haven't. Eat my dust!

MonKeys

This is a very cute idea for telling all your keys apart. Six little silicone monkey heads, each a different colour with a different expression. The stretchy little heads are hollow, so you can slip them over the round head of the key and instantly tell which key it is at a glance.

The purple one with his tongue stuck out is my favourite. That's my front door key. The grey unhappy one is a work key. Says it all really.

MonKeys - £3.99 from ShinyShack.com

Uvee Portable Solar Charger

It's official, these days we are no longer wedded to the nearest mains power socket. Isn't it amazing the way battery life has just grown and grown?

I can remember my first mobile phone, way back in the early 90s. It was the size of a brick, came with a special bag to carry it in, and if you had any kind of decent conversation on it, it had to spend the rest of the day on charge.

These days even a laptop can give you hours of disconnected connectivity, allowing you to surf constantly as you blithely wander about the city or chill out in a meadow somewhere. Ah, the freedom!

Of course we're all drawn back to the mains at some point, the batteries, however long-lasting still need a recharge eventually. That's why I like the Uvee. Not only does it look like a rather cool flip-phone, but it'll give you a whole load more extra freedom from those pesky mains sockets.

You can charge it up from the mains, from your car or even by the Power of the Sun! Then just as the little battery icon is flickering on your phone or ipod, whip out the Uvee, and give yourself some more charge. Bingo, another step towards emancipation from the National Grid.

Uvee Portable Solar Charger - £24.99 from ShinyShack.com

Scrapyard Rose

Recycling. We all try to do it, it's not always fun, but sometimes you just have try and be an environmentally responsible person.

One thing you don't associate with recycling is beauty, which is why this Scrapyard Rose is so amazing. It's made completely from bits of old scrap metal and yet has a real elegance about it. The petals look incredibly delicate and shapely for something that's been welded.

Using whole screws to represent the rose thorns is a particularly nice touch. It looks like a rose, but it doesn't forget where it came from, the scrapyard is always remembered.

Scrapyard Rose - £18.99 from ShinyShack.com

Orikaso Picnic Set

Paper plates are nice and light, but actually eating off them is not exactly a joy, especially in a picnic or camping situation where you may only have one hand spare. It bends, food slides off, and in the end you'd have been better off with a sandwich.

I was really taken by this novel idea for fold-flat tableware. It's kind of a half-way house between disposable plates and the old fashioned picnic set which basically means carting dinner plates around and forgetting travelling more than a few feet from the car.

Orikaso have developed a folding plastic system which can travel in your bag as a thin flat packet, then assembled at dinnertime into a plate, bowl and mug. Not only is it considerably sturdier then paper diningware, but the heat resistant properties mean that hot drinks are no problem.

Just wash the plastic off and put it away for next time, so there's no waste and very little fuss. A nice example of thinking outside the (lunch) box.

Orikaso Fold Flat Tableware - £9.99 from ShinyShack.com

Talking Yoda

Yoda is perhaps the best known of all the Star Wars characters. Even people who aren't big fans of the films, and yes, there are one or two out there, will probably recognise the reference to the Jedi Master I am making, yes?

Talking Yoda is great. He's got a range of phrases turned out at the touch of the button. There's nothing that lightens the atmosphere in the office like an intense silence being broken with 'May the Force be with You'.

You can even leave Yoda on guard while you're away from your desk. Simply switch him to motion sensor, and if someone moves him while poking around where they shouldn't be, everyone will be alerted by a classic Yoda phrase.

Talking Yoda - £8.99 from ShinyShack.com

Mini Drinking Bird

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the Mini Drinking Bird, as I've always been fond of the Original Drinking Bird, famous from the Alien films, Simpsons and about a million other cameos. But actually, it's very cute. Much smaller than the original, the glass body only measures about 13cm long, but once balanced on the plastic legs it drinks well enough, actually a bit quicker than the original.

Being smaller it's actually quite tough and has the added bonus of coming complete in the box with a little drinking cup, exactly the right height. Finding a drinking cup of the right dimensions was always important for the original, so it is nice to not have to bother. The cup is pretty small though, so needs topping up from time to time to keep the drinking going.

Mini won't replace the original in my heart but the little brother has a charm of his own. So let's dip our heads and raise our bottoms to Mini Drinking Bird!

Mini Drinking Bird - £9.99 from ShinyShack.com