House Industries and Hugo Guinness Goodies From Chronicle Books.

Chronicle Books has just released two terrific collections for lovers of typography and contemporary art. Affordable, functional notecards, notebooks, postcards and journals.

Summer Is Coming, Gotta Get The Chillsner.

I spotted this over at the awesome site, Cool Material. As an owner of the corkcicle, I was pleased to see they've adapted the genius idea for beer drinkers - or anything that comes in a smaller bottle and is served cold.





The Chillsner is the first ever in-bottle beer cooler you can drink through. Simply toss it in the freezer for 45 minutes, take a sip out of the beer you’re going to put it in, then pop in the Chillsner and you’re good to go. Staying cool for a long time, the Chillsner will even keep that gross last back-washed bit nice and cold.




Each purchase includes two Chillsners, a freezer storage case, and two instructional coasters. No more warm beer and no more funky koozies.

$30 USD. Buy it here at Cool Material

The Key To A Great Housewarming Gift. Actually, Four Of Them.

The Goodworth & Co. makes four different specially designed brass keys that are made to fit all Kwikset K1 locks. Each key measures 1" x 3" and is decorated on both sides. At only $8.00 each (and available to order online) they make awesome housewarming gifts. All they have to do it take it to any hardware store or key cutter.

The Sweet Leaf Key for your 420-friendly friends:



The Best Wishes Key For Those Who Favor Their Middle Finger:



The Heads and Tails Key For People Who Like To Take Chances:




The Six Shooter Key For Pistol Packing Mommas and members of the NRA:





Shop for them here.

This Year's 10 Hippest Stocking Stuffers For Pop Culture Enthusiasts.

My picks for the ten most fun (and functional) stocking stuffers for fans of popular culture. Most are under $10 and all are creative, imaginative and most definitely hip.

One Up Designs' Printed Pencil Sets:

The $6 pencil sets from One Up designs are a great gift for lovers of pop culture and trends. Pencils printed with quotes from books, movies and music, the #2 pencils come in several colors and lots of options. Buy them here.

Tattly Temporary Tattoos:


The coolest (and safest) way to get inked. Tattly temporary tattoos are fun and imaginative gifts for everyone from designers to children. At only $5 a set, they are the perfect stocking stuffer for those who like to change their body art without a needle. Buy them here.

AJ's Toy Boarders:


Green, little and cool, Toy Boarders are an urban take on the classic plastic toy soldiers that promote action sports over violence. The designers at AJ's roots are skate, surf, & snow so when they design each rider they use real moves that would be used by today. Each Art Piece is hand molded with attention to detail and style. Toy Boarders now offers two sets of skateboarding figurines, the newest set of thrashers even includes a girl and a videographer (shown above). You can get a good look at the first set here.
Buy Them Here.

Archie Grand's "[BLANK] I Met and Liked" Notebooks:

Colored blank notebooks are embossed with titles of various occupations and characters that "I met and liked." With tons of options (From Models to Capitalists, Gardeners to Politicians, Brits to Architects and Fashionistas to Bloggers), these make hilarious and useful stocking stuffers. They have a rigid cover, are tread sewn and have a mate leathery lamination. The size is 160x115 mm to fit the pocket of a suit or a small evening bag. The notebooks / journals / scrapbooks contain 120 blank pages of high quality paper with a low emission signature. They are individually shrink-wrapped to keep the clean and protected. €9.95 each. Buy them here

Bandages worth cutting yourself for:

Okay, so I realize that was insensitive to self-mutilators. However, these bandages and the tins they come in are wickedly funny and worth giving yourself an intentional papercut.

Each tin includes between 15 and 25 flexible bandages, depending on the selection.
buy them here

Blue Q's Breath Sprays are packaged in hilarious blister packs with promises like "Enjoy Yor Job", "Understand Men" and "Accept The Fact That you Are Aging."

With 11 to choose from at only $5.49 each, you'll want to buy them all. Buy them here.

We Are Dorothy's Movie and Song lovers Maps:
The Film Map is based on the style of a vintage LA street map, but is made up entirely from film titles. The Map, which features over 900 films is the second in their series of 'Map' prints and is available to buy as a signed and stamped Limited Edition print and an Open Edition print.

The Song maps:

Two new editions of their Song Map are now available. A Special Edition Large Format print which is over twice the size of the original Map and a Saint Etienne Edition which is a print of the artwork they did for the band's 'Words and Music' album cover. buy the movie and song maps here.

Mimico Mimbots (USB flash drives):


Most everyone could make use a USB drive. Mimico has become THE company for designer USB drives that capitalize on popular culture. The Mimbots are available in various storage capacities and feature the likenesses of everything from Star Trek and Star Wars to Hello Kitty and Ugly Dolls.

buy them here.

Fred and Friends Keycaps:
Not only cute, but super useful. These fun keycaps will help you to identify individual keys on your overloaded keychain. Some even glow in the dark. Trendy imagery like Luche Libre masks, Sock Monkeys, Unicorns, Robots, Tikis, Skulls and more are affordable and fun.

Buy Fred Keycaps here

Showtime Series Goodies:
Fans of Showtime series Dexter, Weeds, Homeland, Shameless, Californication, Nurse Jackie, The L Word, House of Lies, the Borgias, etc. will appreciate the numerous t-shirts, mugs, caps, bobbleheads and exclusives to the online store.

The Dexter Garbage Bags, Weeds 420 T-Shirt, Nurse Jackie Coffee Mug and Shameless Sleep mask are a few of my favorites:

Shop for many more Showtime gifts here.

And there you have it, a bunch of hip stocking stuffers - most of which are under 10$ - and none of which will be regifted.

Soup For Sluts & Other Rad Ramen Noodles

The folks over at Blue Q have taken the college student's staple, instant Ramen Noodle Soup, and cleverly repackaged four different flavors with hilarious names. The genuine and yes, authentically edible, instant Asian noodle soups come in the following flavors; Soup For Sluts [spicy vegetable], Wasted & Broke [spicy beef], Hello Lazy [chicken flavored] and Din Din Fuk Chow [shrimp] and cost $2.99 each for each 3oz 85g package. Admittedly a bit more that the .39 cent versions you can find at your local market, but the reaction when someone sees them is worth the $2.60 difference.







Sadly, these are no longer carried by BlueQ. 

10 Hip Stocking Stuffers For Under $10.00

Given the many people I know who opted not to exchange gifts during this painful economic downturn, I wanted to post a few very cool items that won't cost you much more than 10 bucks. Because what's Christmas or Chanukah without any gifts? Not nearly as much fun, that's what.

iBend; the world's thinnest iPhone stand

They come two to a pack, one black and one white. A flexible but sturdy stand so you can watch videos and movies on your iphone.

$4.99 - Buy them here.

The Gangsta Rap Coloring book


48 pages of line drawings of "Gangsta" rappers, done with the thick black line we all remember from the coloring books of our youth.
$8.95 buy it here.

Bone Chillers Ice Cube Trays

About as cool as cubes can get.
$5.95- buy them here.

Little Uglys


David Horvath's line of famous plush dolls are also available in miniature. They make great pet toys, too! $9.89 each, choose from the full line here.

Blue Q Tin Savings Banks
BlueQ has a bunch of great and hilarious items for under ten dollars. Some of my favorites are their tin banks with great sarcastic imagery and sayings:


Tons to choose from and only $7.99 each. Buy them here.

Punctuation Page Marks

Set of 5 pads. 50 pages each. Super cute way to bookmark anything of interest.
Each pad is about 1"x 3”

$10.00 - buy them here

Fill Me Up Flower Vases:


Reusable plastic vases that come in various patterns.
$8.oo each- buy them here

Ouch Comic Strip Bandages:

No better way to heal a boo boo.
$4.99 - buy them here

Guitar Key Blanks
available in 2 styles, both come in black or pink


Any hardware store can cut them to your needs.
$4.95 each. Buy them here.

Tattoo-inspired Collar Stays by Collar Ink

Tattoo inspired collar stays that come in a little glass vial.

• 2 1/2" x 3/8" (the industry’s most common size)
• thicker than many other plastic collar stays
• comes with a glass storage vial
• 14 collar stays in each vial—7 pairs
• won’t set off metal detectors

some samples:

Okay, this last one is a little more than ten bucks, but you get 7 pairs of them! So, you could actually split them up and give them to 2 people!
$12.99 for 7 pairs- see more and buy them here

So, if you need to get some little gifts on the cheap and you don't want to do a lip balm or a Starbucks gift card, then go for the above little finds. They will hardly cost you any coin, but will make most recipients smile.