Make embarrassing photos a thing of the past, or just make them embarrassing in a different way! Rather than block out the eyes on a photo to protect the innocent, just wear these black bar shades instead for instant anonymity!
Granted they do look a little odd, but you can guarantee that your eyes will be blacked out in every single photo. Of course that just might make you stand out from the crowd even more, but if fear of looking ridiculous means nothing compared to preserving your privacy, then why not go for it?
Black Bars - £7.99 from ShinyShack.com
Black Bars
Pocket Puzzles Book
Great rainy day entertainment this. Arm yourself with a box of matches, some coins and one or two other household bits and pieces and you've got all you need to keep you puzzling for hours.
This clever little book has three sections, one dedicated to matchstick puzzles, one to coins and a third to other puzzles. Each puzzle has a clear instructions and a big picture so you know just how to lay out the puzzle and what you need to do. How to solve it is a different matter! Luckily the solutions are tucked away in the back of the book so you can always take a sneaky peek.
The Pocket Puzzles Book - £3.99 from ShinyShack.com
Solar Powered Keyring Light
Renewable energy sources are making their way into our homes all the time. Some are just jumping on the 'green' bandwagon, but others are actually a really useful addition. Like this keyring light. With the advent of LEDs everyone can have a tiny torch on their keyring for unexpected dark moments. Now you can also top your pint-sized torch battery by leaving it out in the sun.
The tiny solar panel is plenty big enough to top up the charge on the battery, and the three bright LEDs give out plenty of light.
It's practical and pocket-sized, who could ask for more?
Solar Powered Keyring Light - £7.99 from ShinyShack.com
Dinosaur Magic Towel
What is it about dinosaurs? They have this amazing fascination for us from Jurassic Park down to those grey plastic Diplodocus models that are good for chewing or belabouring a sibling with. One thing dinosaurs probably weren't is cute. Huge great leathery things with enormous feet generally aren't, but once you put them in cartoon form, even the biggest monsters can appear cuddly.
Here, the dinosaur motif is displayed on a teeny tiny towel about the size of a biscuit. Drop the towel in water and it'll expand to about 30cm x 30cm with the dino-decoration clearly displayed. As you can see here, Triceratops manages to look quite sweet, although my real favourite will still be good old Diplodocus.
Dinosaur Magic Towel - £1.99 from ShinyShack.com
Chocolator
The ideal calculator for chocoholics to work out exactly how many bars they've got through in a week!
Not only does it look like a bar of chocolate, with each rubbery chunk given over to a separate key, but it comes wrapped just like a big, delicious chocolate bar. The main problem is I get ridiculously hungry looking at it, so definitely not a great choice for dieters.
The Chocolator - £4.95 from ShinyShack.com
Monkey Bank
A bit of a change from a piggy bank anyway. The Monkey Box is a ceramic money box in the shape of a chimp. So, Money Box - Monkey Box, cute. The really nice thing is the ceramic is flocked, so the monkey looks warm and cuddly, even if he isn't.
All the other bits are fairly standard, a slot in the back for coins and notes and a bung in the bottom to remove the stash. The design's the thing that makes it special, I'll take a chubby chimp over a pottery pig any day.
Monkey Bank - £10.95 from ShinyShack.com
Squeezee Tissue Dispenser
Tissue holders and loo roll covers don't have to be chintzy affairs that your Gran would like. This is a very cute design that's made to hold a toilet tissue roll inside and dispense via the glue tube nozzle.
Tissue dispensing aside, I love the idea of having a huge tube of glue on my desk. It's over a foot long and bright yellow, so kind of catches the eye. I guess the only thing you can't do is use it to glue your other giant stationery together.
Squeezee - £11.95 from ShinyShack.com
Garlic Peeler
I was always taught to peel garlic by laying a clove down on the chopping board, and using a wide bladed knife, bang the flat of the blade onto the clove. In theory this should flatten the clove sufficiently to loosen the skin so it could be easily removed. In practice bits of squished garlic clove flew everywhere and it wasn't uncommon to cut your hand on the knife in the process. Getting garlic juice in the cut just added insult to injury.
Granted I am particularly ham-fisted in the kitchen, but this little gadget caught my imagination. It's basically a silicone tube that you pop your garlic clove into and then rub it between your hands. The skin on the clove is removed, leaving the clove intact.
Neat and simple and being silicone it can be easily rinsed under the tap or popped in the dishwasher. Now if only someone could find something similar for chopping onions!
Garlic Peeler - £2.95 from ShinyShack.com
Pint Mug
Tea addicts like myself can really rejoice in a pint sized mug. Having gone through the wrangle of who is actually going to make the tea, and then making it, the enjoyment of drinking it can be pathetically short lived.
With a whole pint of tea I find there's enough in a mug to wake me up in the morning before I have to go for a second round with the kettle.
The other issue is biscuit dunking of course. There aren't many mugs out there that you can comfortably get a chocolate digestive properly dunked in without having to snap the biscuit in half (a real dunking no-no). The pint mug has a nice wide mouth, welcoming little biscuits in... well, you get the picture. Incidentally, I rank Banoffee Crumble Biscuits very highly in the dunking stakes, but you have to be quick as their tea absorbency is quite quick and no one wants the trauma of a soggy biscuit in their tea.
The Pint Mug - £9.95 from ShinyShack.com
Frozen Smiles
Hmmm toothy! A slightly different take on the novelty ice trays that keep us entertained while sipping our favourite beverage. This ice tray produces two realistic sets of dentures instead!
Probably not the type of ice you'd serve up for Granny, but very entertaining to give friends a drink with a set of false gnashers floating in it. I think it would look particularly fetching in a tumbler with G&T and a slice of lemon.
The pink colour of the tray is exactly the same colour as denture cream, which is a nice touch.
Frozen Smiles - £4..95 from ShinyShack.com
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