Dork Adore » House + Home

VHS Tape Notebooks: two obsolete media combined!

Emma Cossey — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:00:02 +0000

When I was little, I had a VHS tape that I used to record all my favourite snippets of programs.

If memory serves me, it was bright pink with “Please keep off, this means you!” scrawled across the top to warn off my family. Rocking the passive aggression note writing from a young age there.

If you’ve ever spent the Sunday Top 40 with your fingers hovering over the record and pause button on your cassette player to cut off the tape before the DJ spoke, you’ll relate to how immensely time-consuming and yet satisfying it was to record the best bits of TOTP and SM:TV (remember Chums?)

Clearly, these were the days before Sky+ and TiVo. And possibly a social life. And thankfully way before the time-suck that is Facebook.

I miss the days of VHS tapes and cassettes, as inconvenient and clunky as they were. While they might not fit into our ultra-busy, always-connected lives, these VHS tape notebooks will (unless, of course, you’ve evolved beyond writing in notebooks and now insist on using your freakishly over-developed typing thumbs to store all your thoughts in your smartphone.)

They’re from Mocha, and they’re just £11.50.

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Five essential shops to browse this Christmas

Emma Cossey — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:00:53 +0000

Christmas shopping is hell.

Actually, scratch that. Christmas shopping on the high street is hell. Why on earth would you choose to spend several hours being elbowed, standing in mile-long queues before collapsing in a sweaty, tired mess under a bundle of panic-bought gifts.

Just don’t. You deserve better, as do the people you’re buying gifts for.

Instead, we suggest you browse some of the sites below. If you start now, you can give yourself some time in case we get another one of those delightful snow storms or strikes that send the Royal Mail into a tizzy.

So, get browsing the following

ThinkGeek

You all know about ThinkGeek, right? We tend to feature its products on a regular basis. Safe to say, if you like Dork Adore, you’ll love ThinkGeek.

If you’re not familiar with the site, it’s a US-based shop filled with geeky stuff. We’re talking Captain America Hoodies (remember us drooling over them a few months ago?), an eco-friendly Grassy Lawn Charging Station and a Doctor Who Sonic Screwdriver.

Not On The High Street

Not On The High Street is my favourite website for thoughtful and special gifts. It’s like a glossy, high-market version of Folksy, with different designers and stores featured from across the UK.

We like the ‘I Love Geeks Wallet‘, the retro camera iPhone cover and a range of stamps from an old favourite of mine, Skull and Cross Bones. I’ve got my eye on the Candy Cane stamp for creating my own wrapping paper this Christmas.

Achica

If you’re looking for gifts for a homemaker, Achica is well worth a visit.

It’s a bit like BrandAlley in that it’s a members-only site with sales that last only a couple of days, but it’s filled with stuff for the home.

In the past, I’ve picked up a bargain slow cooker, a French mannequin and some pretty art prints. They’ve also added a kids’ section filled with toys and clothes; a food section so you can pick up something gourmet; and a section for new artists to showcase their talents.

The Little Tree Company

I heard about a business that offered to rent you a Christmas tree, then pick it up and replant it at the end of the festive season. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, I didn’t know what it was called. So I tweeted about it.

And a LOT of people tweeted back. Most wanted to know who offered the service; a few told me that The Little Tree Company did a similar service. Judging by the feedback on Twitter, it’s a really popular idea, which makes it an excellent (and eco-friendly) Christmas gift.

Topshop Fashion Hamper

One is for the fashionista in your life now.

If money isn’t an object, Topshop has introduced a fashion hamper service filled with goodies sourced by its personal shoppers.

You’ll need to spend a minimum of £200, and the final hamper is presented for your approval before being wrapped and sent to your chosen recipient for Christmas Day.

Give us your tips for the best online shops for Christmas!

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Doctor Who Christmas Tree Decorations

Tamsin Worrad — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:13:34 +0000

The organised ones among you will already have your tree up and raring to go for Christmas. But if you’re more lax in your festive arrangements, you might like to cast your eyes over these trinkets.

These Doctor Who tree decorations are available from the BBC Shop. You can choose from a Tardis or a Dalek and they’re priced at £13.99 each or £27 for both.

This may seem on the expensive side for a tree decoration, but they’re made from mouth-blown glass and are hand painted. You can justify the investment since they’re a collector’s item rather than just an annual novelty item (that’s the story we’re telling ourselves, anyway).

You can also get them in various sets with DVDs and t-shirts, which would make the ideal present for the Whovian in your life.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that putting a Tardis on your tree will result in an ability to time travel or a Matt Smith in your stocking, but a girl can dream.

Christmas is magical, after all.

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Dork Adore Gift Guide: Masterchef marvels

Emma Cossey — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:30:03 +0000

As you might have guessed from our Home + Home section, we love us some kitchen gadgets here at Dork Adore.

Sure, some might be slightly pointless and sit on the shelves gathering dust after one use (hello fondue and bread maker). But others will actually come in useful time and time again.

Here are six of our favourite gadgets that we know cooking fans will actually use.

Top row, left to right

Tefal Actifry, Debenhams, £140: Great for homemade chips, and also cooks stir fried veg, fish and meat. Great for the new year too with its low-fat option.

Soda Stream, John Lewis, £60: Sure it’s retro, but it’s surprisingly good for making cocktails and it means you get through fewer plastic bottles.

KitchenAid, Amazon, £449: What cook doesn’t want a KitchenAid?

Bottom row, left to right

YumBots robot cupcake moulds, Amazon, £11.99: OK, these have no functional purpose at all. But look at how cute they are! Yup, I’ve become a blogger cliché.

Click n’ Cook, IWOOT, £32.99: Rather than having all your cooking spatulas in a drawer, this cooking set keeps them all at hand.

Digital Measuring Jug and Scales, Firebox £22.99: I love this measuring jug, which has a set of scales in the removable base so you can weigh solids and liquids. Yeah, I never thought I’d get excited about a measuring jug either.

What kitchen gadgets do you want this Christmas?

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Plumen CFL eco-bulbs that aren’t ugly. Was that so hard?

Katie — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:41:50 +0000

It’s about time CFL bulbs had a makeover. Aside from the incandescent war being waged by a newspaper that has a bit of a thing about eco-bulbs, they’re not doing themselves any favours by being so downright plain.

Hulger hasn’t tried to tackle those who fear for the future of their dimmer switches, opting to appeal to the aesthetes instead. And it’s about time! Quite why so many CFL bulbs are designed to be long and lean is a mystery — it just means they end up with their ugly bottoms poking out of the base of your lampshade.

The Plumen bulbs are designed to be pretty enough to go completely nude — in fact, if you don’t get more than a flash of bulb bottom you might feel a bit disappointed.

You can buy them from the Plumen shop. They’re available with bayonet and screw tops and there’s a choice of US, European and UK formats. They cost £19.95 and they last eight times longer than incandescent bulbs.

Plumen [via Jorg & Olif]

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How to skip dive

Nuttycow — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 10:37:11 +0000

It’s amazing the things people throw away: in our transient, must-have-the-biggest-brightest-newest society, the littlest imperfection consigns our goods to the rubbish tip.

And that’s where treasure be found!

I’m a great advocate of making something out of nothing. My little flat is stuffed to the gills with not-quite-matching but very “me” one-offs. My dining room chairs, for example, were found seat-less and on the side of the road and are now, thanks to some handy staple-gunning and market-bought material, covered, comfy and totally unique.

So where to start?

Guide to Dumpster Diving

Search the website of your local council and I’d be surprised if you didn’t find the address of your nearest tip. Here, multitudes queue up to get rid of perfectly serviceable but not-quite perfect furniture and other bits and bobs. Make sure you check with your local site as to their rules on reclaiming. Some have special shops, some turn a blind eye to rummaging and some flatly forbid it.
Scope out up-and-coming areas around you – chances are that if renovations are going on, there’ll be a skip you can have a little look in. If you’re going to do this, best ask permission – and wear clothes you don’t mind getting a bit dirty. Remember to take some gloves and don’t dig into bits you can’t see.
Get on your local freecycle/freegle list. A lot of people would prefer to give away their things to willing recipients than throw them away.
Check out your local listings magazine/website for car boot sales, flea markets and antiques fairs. Practise your haggling skills and bag yourself a bargain.

Do you have any tips for decorating on a budget? Put them in the comments below.

Imogen can be found blogging over at Parlez-vous Moo?

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Five of the geekiest clocks

Emma Cossey — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:56:58 +0000

I’ve never really dedicated much thought process to clocks. I’ve been known to spend quite a bit of time drooling over watches, but their wall-mounted big brothers have passed me by.

But now I’m moving into my own little house, I’m starting to lend a little more consideration to them. And it turns out, there are loads of cool clocks out there. Move past the ‘country life’ (too many chickens) and ‘serious art’ (far too grown up) sections, and you’ve got plenty to choose from.

I’m a fan of this Pixel clock on the right for my office. It’s from Mustard, and it’s £19.99.

Here are four more that caught my eye.

The old school with a twist one

I have a soft spot for old cuckoo clocks, but they don’t quite go with the decor in our kitchen. This contemporary take, the Cucu Wall Clock, is much more suitable and comes in red, pink black or white so it should suit most colour schemes.

While it doesn’t have a cuckoo (which, quite frankly, would send you a bit loopy at 3am anyway), it does have the swinging pendulum.

It’s £44 from John Lewis.

The Sticky Clock

Wall stickers are still a hot homewear trend for 2011, so it makes sense to look at a timepiece that incorporates this look.

The Big Ben Wall Clock is a tall wall sticker of the London landmark, with a real working clock that attaches to the sticker. No DIY required.

This black version is £120, but there are smaller versions in several bright colours which would be suitable for a child’s bedroom.

The smaller ones are £85, and both are from NotOnTheHighStreet.

The bookcase-friendly one

I’m a hoarder, so I’ll be investing in a large bookcase to store all my bits and pieces in the lounge. This book clock will fit in nicely as a centrepiece.

You could always use it as a bookend too.

It’s from Amazon, for £20.32.

The Wild Card

Y’know what would make a Monday morning slightly better? Tea, without having to get out of bed.

OK, it’s not a wall clock, but this white tea maker alarm clock is a great option for the bedroom. It’ll wake you up with a lovely mug of tea, so you don’t have to bicker with your other half about who’s going to get out of bed to make a brew.

It’s from Debenhams for £60.

Is it time you got a new clock?

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Ultra Motor Fast4ward electric bicycles

Judy Johnson — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 11:12:17 +0000

Yes, cycling is great exercise and yes, it’s far better than using a car, but what if you prefer to take it easy while still getting to work faster than you can on most public transport options?

Well, it turns out cycling doesn’t have to be hard work.

Ultra Motor‘s range of Fast4ward electric bicycles mean that you can still keep your carbon footprint reasonably low (once you’ve cycled off both the carbon debt of the bicycle and the electricity) without the unsightly sweat patches.

Foldable electric bicycles!

The new bikes are compact, foldable and versatile, and make a great alternative to a regular bike. With a 250w motor, you needn’t break a sweat when it comes to riding up those hills because the bike will put the power in for you.

An environmentally friendly alternative to commuting via train, car or motorbike, the bikes are easy on the planet as well as the purse strings thanks to their rechargeable batteries; just 7p of electricity will take you 40 miles.

As well as all the benefits of your usual bicycle, the Fast4ward range gives you the chance to go a little faster; the motor can take you up to 15.5 miles per hour, which is 50% above the average cycling speed. So there’s no need to be late to that Monday morning meeting…

The beauty of the range is that you can pick your pace; cycle all the way if you want to or if you’re tired after a long day of work you can switch it on and give yourself a break. You deserve it, after all.

If you’re not sure you want to take the plunge but would like to give it a go, Ultra Motor has recently teamed up with Hertz, the world’s largest car rental company to allow Londoners to hire the electric bikes for just £20 a day from the Marble Arch branch.

Try before you buy – can’t argue with that…

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Make your own Iron Man, Thor and Captain America cakes!

Emma Cossey — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 09:00:30 +0000

I love cake. Who doesn’t? And I have a soft spot for Marvel movies (yeah, even Thor. For very, very shallow reasons). So this Marvel Cakelet pan is right up my street.

This cake pan has moulds for three of the characters from next year’s mega-movie, The Avengers, (Iron Man, Thor and Captain America), so it would be great for a bit of comic book-inspired afternoon tea before you hit the cinema. All you need is a bit of practice with an icing bag.

You can get the Marvel Cakelet pan from Williams Sonoma for £25.45.

The bad news is, it’s not eligible for international shipping, so you might want to get a kind friend in the USA to ship it over to you.

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Kitchen Wizardry with the Ice Cream Ball

Tamsin Worrad — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:55:58 +0000

Apparently, it’s summer and nothing goes with hot weather quite like ice cream (and if you’ve not had any sunshine, ice cream will help cheer you up!) Throw a game of catch into the equation and you’ve got the perfect park-based pastime.

Step in, the Ice Cream Ball from Firebox.

The Ice Cream Ball, £26.49, allows you to make your own ice cream without the need for any power sockets, so you could use it on camping trips or at festivals. Put your ingredients in one end of the ball, ice and rock salt in the other, and then start tossing!

Not too violently though, nobody wants a smashed up gadget and mess all over your carpet.

Twenty minutes of this gets you a pint of ice cream. If the texture/consistency isn’t to your liking you can simply roll it around a bit more. It seems like magic but it’s even better: it’s science.

Here comes the science bit!

The ingenious device uses the rock salt (don’t worry, this doesn’t go into your ice cream!) and ice to produce a substance with a freezing point below that of water (just ice would make the process too slow and reach an equilibrium before it completed). Therefore, the ice/salt mixture must draw heat from it’s surroundings to melt and therefore lower the temperature of your ice cream mixture quickly to freeze it into a delicious treat.

Who knew the Second Law of Thermodynamics could be so fun?

I’ve wanted to make home-made ice cream for ages but am frankly just too lazy, so this gadget offers quite the creative solution. It also gives you a chance to play around with ice cream flavours; it’s basically an experiment and you owe it to science to do it.

That’s an order.

Ice Cream Ball

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Dork Adore » House + Home

VHS Tape Notebooks: two obsolete media combined!

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Five essential shops to browse this Christmas

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Doctor Who Christmas Tree Decorations

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Dork Adore Gift Guide: Masterchef marvels

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Plumen CFL eco-bulbs that aren’t ugly. Was that so hard?

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How to skip dive

Guide to Dumpster Diving

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Five of the geekiest clocks

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Ultra Motor Fast4ward electric bicycles

Foldable electric bicycles!

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Make your own Iron Man, Thor and Captain America cakes!

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Kitchen Wizardry with the Ice Cream Ball

Here comes the science bit!

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