Home ownership, while wonderful, certainly comes with some drawbacks — like maintenance. While staining the deck on my old house one sweaty summer afternoon, I started thinking about all of the hands-on upkeep around a house that can suck the will to live right out of you: cleaning the gutters, painting/staining the exteriors, and, my least favorite ever, mowing the lawn. Sure, you can hire the neighbor kid to wrangle the lawn for you, but when you’re throwing a $20 bill at him every week the expense of this outsourced luxury starts ticking up.

Which is what makes Robomow so great — sure, it’s a bit of an investment off the bat, but imagine this new residential utopia where you never again have to push a mower around for hours, wrestle with a bag of clippings, drip gas all over your shoes or waste a beautiful weekend afternoon trying to tame the wilds of your yard. Now you can leave all the grunt work to a robot; with a wire laid around the outer edges of your lawn, the robotic mower jumps to life with a press of the green “Go” button and travels the grass in a systematic criss-cross pattern covering the lawn several times from side to side to ensure that the entire yard is uniformly clipped. The Robomow features a battery powered 3 blade cutting system with a triple-chamber mulching system, working twice as fast as a typical gas mower, that cuts grass into very small clippings that are buried into the roots of your lawn where they decompose and act like a natural fertilizer. If you’re ready to pick up one of the higher end models with a charging station, you can even set a weekly program for the mower and, whether you’re home or not, the Robomow will diligently get to work at the appointed day and time then automatically return to the charging station when finished.

Robomow has been featured on a slew of programs with plenty of videos and interviews available on the Robomow online store website at robomowerusa.com. Here’s a quick video that shows the Robomow zipping across the lawn — and only the lawn.

With four mower models available, you can choose which version is best for you — the site provides a chart with lawn size estimates to help determine which mower model fits your lawn — and prices from $999 to $1799 with free shipping. Granted, it’s a bit of a jump in price from your standard upright mower, but when you consider the longterm costs and quality time earned by sidestepping this annoying chore, you can see why it’s the best selling robotic lawnmower around.

Sure, digital photo frames are all the rage these days, but what about a more creative (and permanent) way to preserve your favorite photos? If this doesn’t scream “perfect Mom gift”, I don’t know what does — the folks over at Light Affection specialize in turning your beloved photos into working light pieces, from night lights to framed standing lamps.

The technique is based on an old art form called lithophanes, the process of creating a porcelain engraving that comes to life when illuminated from behind. After submitting your favorite image (color or black & white), Light Affection carves an original piece that’s assembled into a photo frame and mounted with a backlight for a final lamp that glows in classic sepia tones.

The standing lamps include the main carved piece (your photo), a frame, a black stand, light bulb and plug-in electric cord. Production can take a couple of weeks, but for a unique gift that will always be remembered patience pays off. Prices vary depending on the final size, but be prepared to pay anywhere from $39 to $239 at lightaffection.com.

Tell me about your childhood… Ever had one of those friends that constantly needs to dump their emotional baggage on your doorstep? Played barstool therapist a few times too many? Take a classic passive-aggressive stab at the problem and start gifting the Wind-Up Freud Pillow to all of your troubled friends — now they can bitch and moan in the comfort of their own home with a silkscreened Freud at their ear. Doubly hilarious: there’s a wind up music box buried in the fluff stuffing that plays “Memories (The Way We Were)”. Made of 100% cotton, the conversational pillow is available from The Unemployed Philosophers Guild for $32.95.

Calling all packrats: do you have a stack of papers slowly building its own city in a corner of your garage? Ever stare at that stack of newspapers and wonder when you might actually get around to carting it all to the recycling center? Here’s a different fix that doesn’t involve any heavy lifting and gives your old papers a second life in the home — the Newspaper Brick Maker, creating recycled paper bricks to keep you warm (and, maybe, give the kids a project for the afternoon).

The concept is pretty straightforward: the Brick Maker takes compressed wet newspaper and drives it into 8 1/2″ x 3 1/4″ bricks that burn at the rate of about 4 per hour. Simply soak your newspaper in a bucket or tub (and mix in any assortment of sawdust, grass clippings, or aromatic chips if desired) and fill the brick maker, then press down on the handles to compact the lot. Once removed from the device just allow time for your brick to dry and use it as you would a log of wood in your stove or fireplace. Made of heavy painted steel, the Brick Maker is available from Harriet Carter for $29.98.

Viva la bottle revolution! I admit I’ve been a Nalgene loyalist for awhile now — sometimes you just can’t help but buy into the hype, and the bottles certainly did fare better than standard sports bottles when it came to preserving taste. But SIGG? SIGG just slam-dunked the market and earned another champion; so long Nalgene, hello sweet SIGG!

What’s the difference? I’m no scientist so the 100 years of Swiss quality and craftsmanship is a little “wizard in a bottle” to me, but their eco-friendly reusable products do away with the plastic (did you know that Americans add over 30 million petroleum-based plastic bottles to our landfills EVERYDAY? horrific!) and offer specially lined aluminum and stainless steel bottles ready to go wherever you do — hiking, biking, camping, the stadium for a tailgate, on the subway, wherever. Even the bottle tops are a stroke of genius with subtle “why didn’t someone else think of that?” add-ons like a loop for easy carrying and a twist-stop on the sports bottle that traps liquid til you purposely unlock the sipper.

Not convinced there could be a difference? Take your favorite drinking bottle, fill it with filtered water, and leave it on the window ledge for a day — then take a swig and you might be surprised to find a peculiar, slightly plastic, aftertaste. That’s where SIGG rises above; with fully opaque and brilliantly designed exteriors, your hot and cold fluids are kept perfectly protected, and easily cleaned with soap and water (or baking soda and vinegar for your more stubborn goods).

Here are a few of our favorite things — do your holiday list lovelies a favor and upgrade them this season to a wonderful new travel bottle, available in 144 designs and 22 interchangeable lids directly from mysigg.com. Read the rest of this entry »

KitchenAid mixers are one of those culinary must-haves that seem to find their way into cupboards generation after generation — your grandmother was right, these things are the best. but they’ve also got their little quirks, like constantly needing to stop the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl when working with especially gooey goods, which (if you’re trying to really beat up some fluffy goodness) can compromise your timing and end product.

So the folks over at SideSwipe took a swipe a the problem and have released a new mixing blade that wipes down the sides of the bowl as you mix — the mixing blade that also works as a spatula. Perfect for normal and heavy mixtures like cakes, cookies, peanut butter, cream cheese, frosting, and mashed potatoes, the SideSwipe features food-grade silicone wipers with blue angled fins to guide batter off of the side of the bowl for fast and thorough mixing.

I gave it a go with my own favorite molasses-based cookie recipe (if there’s ever a foil to clean-sweeping plans, molasses is it) and was glad to find that I never had to stop the mixer to scrape down the bowl with all of the batter neatly collected and mixed at the bottom. Note: this is a total killjoy for any kids standing by that are eager to lick the bowl clean when you’re done, so be nice and warn them ahead of time. Read the rest of this entry »

Created by Swedish interior designer Caroline Löwgren, the Unstashed Noteboard took a long hard look at our standard corkboard and gave it a fabulous twist by turning scrap notes into a circular work of art. Forget about random stickies and “where’d I put that number?”, here’s an eye-catching catch-all for whatever random bits are floating around your home and need a place to land. Strings radiate from the center of the circle to form quick clasps for your phone numbers, postcards, and photos with Unstashed, and it’s available in a handful of color combinations to match your aesthetic (red with white strings, red on red, green with white strings, black with white strings, even a transparent circle with either red or white strings). Available for £69 ($138) from Funktion Alley.

Growing up, a true hallmark of the holiday season was finding that my mother had gone through the dining area and changed all of our standard bulbs to red and green novelty bulbs from Target. Because nothing quite says Christmas like not being able to distinguish the true color of your food. Apparently the charm of colored lighting is still in demand, and is taking on a new environmentally-aware guise.

The Multi-Color LED Lightbulb replaces your standard lightbulb and ups the ante with adjustable color and brightness levels — it even has 4 transitional effects if you’re into strobing lights. With the included IR remote, you can turn the bulb on/off and select any of the 16 available colors for immediate mood lighting. The light is generated via a 5 Watt LED and can be yours from ThinkGeek for $49.99. If you’ve been holding off on switching out your old-school bulbs for an eco-friendly update, this’ll give you some options that’ll make your friends green… or blue…. or pink… you pick, you’ve got the remote!

If you are a fan of having crunchy cereal morning instead of soggy mush than the Eat Me Crunch bowl is for you. This is one of those why didn’t I think of that, fake rock hide-a-key, inventions that you just have to love.

This hi-tech bowl was developed to have a unique shelf design that keeps your cereal dry so you’ll never have soggy cereal again. The shelf covers 70% of the base, holding the cereal above the milk all while giving you a little section where the milk and cereal can mix together. The shelf also has a ledge that stops cereal getting underneath all while allowing the milk to flow freely.

This is the perfect gift for any cereal addict, check out EatMeCrunchy for more details.

OCD or not, chances are pretty good that you’ve been sitting at work before and wondered “did I turn the coffeemaker off before I left this morning?” or “the back door was locked… right?” and, if you’re a neurotic nut like some of us, you may very well have finally uncoupled from your desk to run home and double check just to be sure the whole place didn’t come crumbling down in your absence. It’s frustrating, an annoying way to start the day, and now totally under control.

With the Home Heartbeat™ wireless sensors you can “check the pulse” of your home from a keychain-sized controller or even your cell phone. There are no long-term contracts with monitoring companies, no need for a tech charging $90/hr to come in and install, and, provided you’ve got a solid head on your shoulders, is a system you can install and modify yourself to keep an eye on your house or apartment while you’re out in the world. Every Home Heartbeat system starts with three basic components: the Base Station, Home Key device, and sensors. The Base Station acts like a wireless relay, taking information from the sensors and reporting it back to the Home Key device, or to your cell phone via text messaging for when you’re outside of the home. There’s also a broadband gateway package that will let you check your home’s status from a secured webpage. The Home Key is a control panel for the sensors and lets you use pre-programmed commands to set up and control all of the sensors in your house. The sensors are as varied as your needs — the starter pack comes with a normal open/closed door sensor, but their expansion packs allow for all sorts of monitoring, including water valve shutoffs, water sensors, garage door and motion sensors, power, attention, and even reminder sensors.

As you start flipping through the available applications, you can’t help but start wondering if this isn’t the first affordable step to “the smart home of the future” without having to be some multibillionaire kook. The starter pack is available from the product site for $224.95, along with all of the extended options for customized monitoring.