Retro Game Cases For The iPhone and Samsung Galaxy From Pure Gear.

Retro Gamer Cases are compatible with the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S III or the Samsung Galaxy S4, these fun protective cases also allow for some interactive play.

The newly inspired product line from Pure Gear comes in three options:

Amazing: Navigate the ball through the challenging maze from start to finish:



Groovy: Maneuver the balls until all are in the center at the same time in a game of wits:



Undecided: Hold vertically and shoot the ball for a magically answer to your question



Although only available in the bright colors on their website, they also have more subtle versions in black and grey, but only on
Fab.com and only for the next two days!




The packaging:


•Buy them discounted on Fab through Sunday (if you're not a member, you can use this invite link)

•Pure Gear Website

Qubis - Amy Whitworth's Modern Doll Houses That Double As Furniture.

Wooden modular furniture that functions as dollhouses are the hallmark of Qubis design. The QUBIS HAUS, C Shape Qubis, S Shape Qubis, Qubis Box Haus, Qubis Haus Walls, Qubis Magnetic Oak Furniture and Qubis Magnetic Oak People are new products by Amy Whitworth Design.



The Qubis Haus Coffee table, C-Shape and S- Shape Side tables and Chair are made in solid birch ply wood and have clean modern lines making them beautiful pieces of living room furniture as well as a center for children to play. All are handmade in the UK.

QUBIS HAUS, the first design by Whitworth, was one of the winners of the Boost product design competition, a platform for new design talent and a collaboration between the Observer, the Southbank Centre and Cockpit Arts.


above: Amy Whitworth with some of her Qubis products at Boost.

The magentic toy furniture and people are hand crafted in Wales. The oak blocks have a woody aesthetic, with the knots and imperfections of oak left in to emphasise the authentic feel and character of a natural material.

QUBIS produces transformational contemporary designs that invite play.


QUBIS HAUS - Coffee Table and Dolls House In One




Dual Purpose Dolls House & Coffee Table
A stunning Coffee Table that with the simple addition of sliding walls turns into a Modernist Dolls House.



Comes complete with a selection of Sliding walls and stairs to complete the dolls house. (The table grooves also take an Ipad - please see images of 's' side table as example)



Currently on sale through Southbank Centre, London at a launch price of £400.
Ordinarily offered at £495.00

C SHAPE QUBIS COFFEE TABLE


This sleek single level table can be a Coffee Table or with the addition of sliding walls - you can turn it into a Doll's House. The house is set on Metal legs.

QUBIS 'C' SHAPED SIDE TABLE WITH BLACK LEGS


This style of Qubis table & dolls house can be used as a side table in either the living room or the bedroom. You can order various leg options. It comes with stairs and sliding wall panels.



C SHAPE QUBIS TABLE & CHAIR



A 'c' shaped side table that has a slot cut in the top that allows for a personalised chair back. Any name can be engraved or cut out to order - either of your child or a company logo. Various legs styles available - shown here are metal box legs & casters.

QUBIS S SHAPE SIDE TABLE


The Dual purpose coffee table and dolls house comes in various sizes. This is a neat 's' shaped table that can be used as a side table, small coffee table or a bedside table. This also has grooves in which an iPad can be placed.



500mm wide x 400mm deep x 420mm high.

QUBIS BOX HAUS


A handmade plywood box with a magnetic lid that is used to store the Qubis Magnetic Furniture - yet once opened, the interior is a one room dolls house - the box handles are windows and the lid a garden. A selection of Oak blocks comes with it to make a living room.



QUBIS HOUSE WALLS
Also available are walls that slide into the QUBIS HAUS to form designer rooms, they also click together on their own to make a room for the furniture whenever you are.



A Net and Ball design from the Southbank Centre in London, a series of walls by designer Ella Doran (butterflies, leaves and flowers), Plywood engraved walls and Blackboard walls which come with chalk.

QUBIS MAGENTIC FURNITURE


Magnetic Oak Blocks that click together to make a Dolls House living room scene; a sofa, chairs, coffee table, side board .. or you can snap them together to make a creation of your own.

Living room:


Dining:


Bedroom:


QUBIS MAGNETIC PEOPLE


The Qubis Magnetic People come in a set of 2. The come in a variety of vibrant colours and can be split into 3 sections allowing you to play with how they are made up. You can also use with the magnetic block furniture to create different sculptural people as seen in the images. The cute little wooden people come in a cotton draw string bag.






Shop the Qubis products here

A Great Bottle Design by Karim Rashid and Fabulous Brand Imagery For One Weird Vodka: AnestasiA Sensational Spirit.

AnestasiA Vodka is touted as the world's first 'tingling' spirit. An ultra-premium five times distilled vodka made from Cascade spring water and organic corn from Oregon. It claims to have a frost-like cooling sensation and it is housed in an award-winning bottle design by Karim Rashid.




Let me begin this post by telling you it was my intention to commend the brand on their bold image conveyed through the unique and bizarre photography on their site. However, as I am writing this post, the AnestasiA Vodka brand has since replaced several of the more interesting photographs I've shown here throughout this post with more mundane and unoriginal ones. More on that later.



Back to the vodka.
First off, I shall explain what they mean by tingling. In this particular case, AnestasiA (I'm guessing this is a deliberate play on anesthesia or anesthetic) means a menthol-like numbing sensation. Something that several reviews have found very distateful. Drink Spirits calls it "the Worst Tasting Vodka They've Ever Had" and Drink Hacker claims that "For someone expecting a more traditional vodka, the attack to the palate is jarring."



Not at all universally disliked, the vodka has received some awards for its unique taste: The Beverage Testing Institute 2013 Platinum Medal and Double Gold Medal and the MicroLiquor Triple Gold Winner for Taste, Packaging and Design. And the Food & Drink Magazine blog says it goes down more smoothly than other vodkas when drunk straight.



“AnestasiA Vodka is made from a formula developed by food scientists that reduces the burn inherent in alcohol, especially vodka, making it more pleasant to consume,” Yuliya Mamontova, co-founder of Numbrands, Inc., says. This gives it a distinct tingling or cooling sensation some drinkers have likened to mint, though it does not contain menthol.



As a traditional Vodka lover, the taste does not appeal to me, but I loved the image the brand initially conveyed through their website and social media with bizarre but beautiful photography by Philipp Matt.

I use the past tense because I visited their site again today and was dismayed to see more 'ordinary-looking' photography. Someone in the marketing department must have gotten nervous and most all the wonderful images I've shown here are no longer on their site but instead have been replaced with the more expected images of a blond woman posing in a chair and on a stairwell (see below):


above: these images have replaced the masked bartender, poodle and unicorn images shown in this post on the AnestasiA website

Youthful, hip and funky, the brand's inital image is (was?)  a perfect fit for the award-wining bottle design by Karim Rashid.

The Bottle:

The drawings:

The inital prototype:

The final product:



The Case Design:


On their site they claim "AnestasiA is the culmination of a quest to create the world’s most effortless vodka. After years of research, it turned out that the best vodka can be hand crafted right here in Bend, Oregon, USA —born from Cascade Mountain spring water and locally grown organic corn."



"These select ingredients and hand-craftsmanship make AnestasiA VodkaTM a world-class spirit. It is five times filtered through charcoal and crushed volcanic rock as well as five times distilled."



The vodka is also naturally gluten-free (as if that matters).

Description from their site:
At the laboratory one day, a brilliant scientist eyed the tingling agent he was about to use in an experiment. That night, over drinks with his Russian mistress, they imagined combining the tingling sensation with the exuberance of vodka. In that moment, AnestasiA was born—the combination of a once-dream. Bottled in Oregon from organic corn vodka and distilled 5 times, this concoction only needed one finishing touch: world famous designer Karim Rashid. With everything in place, AnestasiA became the astoundingly unique and unrivaled product before you.


all images courtesy of AnestasiA Sensational Spirit

AnestasiA
You can purchase it here and try it for yourself.

30 Pics, Inside and Out, Of A Breathtaking 9,000 Sq Foot Modern Home Overlooking The Pacific Ocean.

The Ziering Residence in California's Pacific Palisades is a 9,000 sq foot private residence with a three car garage, a swimming pool, evacuated tube solar collectors, radiant floor heating and IPE wood siding.