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.

Graphic Designers Gave Us 30 Reasons To Elect Obama & Hundreds More

Above: by Adam Snetman, New York

I know you've all seen the Shepard Fairey poster for Obama:

Above: Shepard Fairey's popular Obama Poster

But he certainly wasn't the only one who designed a beautiful poster in support of Barack Obama. Nor the best poster. Tons of graphic artists, illustrators, painters, typographers and more have done so, just take a glance below:





However, I'm singling out "30 reasons" in this post because I liked the use of their 'email' campaign as a way of communicating the support for Obama. And their artwork was more communicating the 'reason' to vote for the Democratic candidate rather than just a poster of him.


30 Reasons was a 30-day email and internet campaign to encourage people to vote for Barack Obama. Their goal was simple: Use design to build a logical, multi-faceted argument for Obama and make it easy to share each reason with another person.



They enlisted 30 graphic designers to create posters that represented a reason to vote for Obama. Starting on the October 5th, they posted a new poster online each day and emailed it to those signed up on their list. Recipients could easily share the email with other supporters and friends who were undecided.

Here are a few of them:

Above: by John Klotnia, New York

Above: by Scott Thares, Minnesota

Above: by Milton Glaser, New York

Above: by Julia Zimmerman, New York

Above: by Chris Thomas, New York

Above: by Chaz Maviyane, Massachusetts

Above: by Matt Dorfman, New York

Above: by Luba Lukova, New York

30 Reasons featured posters designed by these designers:
Andrio Abero, Elizabeth Amorose
Jesse Arneson, Seymour Chwast
Frank Chimero, Andrew Degraff
Neil Donnelly, Matt Dorfman
Megan Forb, Milton Glaser
Dan Ibarra, Melissa Jun
Jason Kenevich, John Klotnia
Andrew Lewis , Luba Lukova
Chaz Maviyane-Davies, Lenny Naar
Woody Pirtle, Adam Snetman
Scott Stowell, Michael Strassburger
Dustin Summers, Scott Thares
Chris Thomas, Brett Traylor
Rick Valicenti, Ryan Waller
Larkin Werner , JP Williams
Brett Yasko, Julia Zimmerman

Curated by Julia Zimmerman, Chris Thomas, and Jesse Arneson. Go look at all 30 of them. They are all worth seeing and available to download as pdfs here.

Like to see Obama posters? well, the you MUST check out Design/ers for Obama, where all the amazing work on here is visible as well as links to various sites with artwork for Obama.



Design/ers for Obama was created when Design Observer essentially asked the question, “how can graphic designers best support Barack Obama?” The answer ended up extending the question to cover visual communicators at all levels. In addition to supporting Obama for America they jumped at the opportunity to bring the spirit of grassroots style organizing and collaboration to poster design which, to them, meant not only forming communal bonds but sharing the fruits of their efforts equally and in such a way that anyone can enjoy and benefit from (because most of us do not own our own printing presses).

Design for Obama was created by Aaron Perry-Zucker, a senior studying graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design, and was built by Adam Meyer, a senior studying industrial design at said school. The site was inspired and is supported by Design Observer.

Design/ers for Obama

30 reasons

Nothing Standard About These T-shirts: 3 Great Designs For The Standard Hotels

Three contemporary legends, Jose Parla, Eric Haze and Natas Kaupas from Miami, NYC and LA have created a set of 3 limited edition T-shirts for The Standard Hotel's 3 properties (owned by Andre Balazs) in those cities. Incorporating black and white typography, each style gives a different the vibe and brings out the feeling and culture of each cosmopolitan city.

The shirts, besides being beautifully designed, come in special little pouches. Available in either black or white and in small, medium or large sizes. Each is limited to 1, 500 of each design, costs $55.00 USD and is available for purchase through the Standard Hotel's online store here.

Orders before 18th Dec will be received before the holidays using regular shipment. Orders before Dec 22 will arrive for holidays.

Natas Kaupas Los Angeles shirt:




Eric Haze New York shirt:




Jose Parla Miami shirt:





About The Artists:
These 3 impressive artists have a rich body of work - each with a style that represent the 3 cities where Standard Hotels are located:

Jose Parla - a contemporary artists with graffiti roots whose work looks like kaleidoscope of layered colors and textures. It's totally incredible to watch him at work - you can watch him on a CoolHunting video from last year here.
•His first solo exhibition in NYC just opened at Cristina Grajales (from Nov 8 to Dec 20)
•He has had many exhibitions around the world in USA, UK, Australia, Dubai, Japan etc. etc. - including ones at Christies during art basel and with Takashi Murakami in Tokyo.
•His first UK solo show called "Adaptation/Translation" opened in October at ELMS LESTERS PAINTING ROOMS
•He was also one of 6 young artists who went to China for an artists' tour - the other artists on this trip include with artists like Suitman, Rostarr, Deanne Cheuk, Davi Russo (photographer), Mark Foster (filmmaker) See more about that here.

Eric Haze - legendary graffiti artist and graphic designer from New York City and is known as one of the earliest designers of streetwear clothing
•Eric has collaborated with a number of brands such as Porsche, Sony, Stussy, Mountain Dew, Nike, G-Shock, New Balance
•Some of his works include the now iconic early hip-hop logos for Public Enemy, EPMD, and MTV as well as album covers for the Beastie Boys and Tommy Boy Records. His handwritten text for the cover of the Beastie Boys "Check Your Head" album is probably one of the most imitated handwriting styles to this day.
•His customised Lotus "Exige" to help celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Sony / Playstation video game "Gran Turismo" received a huge amount of attention globally -car is currently being auctioned on ebay to benefit Studio in a School, a New York non-profit that pairs professional artists with children.
•Earlier this year Haze completed a major solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Hong Kong

Natas Kaupas - accomplished artist and skateboarding legend - He is often referred to as one of the first true professional street skateboarders during the "Dogtown Era" - there are loads of amazing videos about him on YouTube.
•In early 1990’s, Natas began to do art direction and graphic design for such companies as Santa Monica Airlines, Element, Vita, Etnies and his own board company, Designarium - and later became global creative director at Quicksilver.
•Natas was profiled in one of the most famous skateboarding films of all time "Streets on Fire”


Buy them here.