10 Ridiculous Kitchen Gadgets

I love watching infomercials because they are a reminder of how complicated our lives have become. They leave me wondering how humanity has survived without such useful inventions as the battery-powered battery charger and the bottom wiper? For this post, I am specifically focusing on the gadgets that were designed with the intention of making our lives easier in the kitchen.



Octodog Hot Dog Shaper
If you are not skilled with a knife, the Octodog will help you squish a tube of subpar porker parts into a shape resembling an octopus.



Spaghetti Ice Cream Maker
If 8-legged frankfurters do not persuade your kid to eat, surely transforming ice cream into the shape of spaghetti, lasagna or asparagus will do the trick. The Spaghetti Ice Cream Maker, which appears to be a re-branded pasta maker, will disguise your cold sweets to appear hot and savory.





Twirling Spaghetti Fork
Hog Wild, the makers of the Moo Mixer, have come up with a solution for the strenuous work that is required to eat spaghetti.
Please note: To install the batteries, you will have to unscrew the lid from the battery compartment with a twirling motion. If this task is cumbersome for you, you may need to enlist the help of a friend.


Banana Guard
Safely transport your banana in this phallic plastic carrying case. From the banana guard website:

Remarkably this device fits over 90% of commercially available bananas. How? Highly curved bananas can be straightened slightly to fit into upper curve and very straight bananas can be bent ever so slightly to fit into the mold.

Just remember to eat the banana quickly after smooshing it in the case because it is likely to bruise.



Battery Powered Flour Sifter
For those of you who cannot be bothered with turning a crank, but are okay removing the batteries come cleaning time, the battery powered flour sifter is sure to make your life easier.




In-The-Shell Electric Egg Scrambler
Let's face it, whipping an egg is hard work, so the folks at Ronco have introduced an Electric In-The-Egg Scrambler. At first, I didn't understand how this product worked, but this video explained it all. If you have trouble getting the whipped egg to drool out the hole, the next tool is for you.



Mechanical Egg Cracker
If you have the patience to clean this contraption, but cracking an egg is a real nuisance for you, then you will love this Egg Cracker.



Handy Peel Instant Peel Gloves
The days of peeling veggies will be far behind you if you purchase these easy-to-clean spud exfoliators.


The Magic Bullet
This simple, 21-piece, single serve blender contraption, will certainly make your life easier. The magic bullet "does ANY job in 10 seconds or less," and only costs $99.



Solid Flavor Injector
For four easy payments of $39.95, you can get the solid food injector, which will save your fingers from the labor of pushing a garlic clove into meat.

This article was originally posted on technorati.com by yours truly.

Audiovox Earbudeez Packaging

How freakin'cute are these earbud packages? Made me smile.

Gecko Stickers: Decal Home Decor

Leo from Gecko Stickers sent me the above photos of his new product line. I love the clever use of decals on acrylic to create side tables, lamps, and candlesticks. This will fit in nicely with the decor I have in mind for my future studio.

Yummy Ice Cream Packaging

Love this scrumptious ice cream packaging concept from Joao Ricardo Machado.

Originally posted on The Dieline:

"This is a project for an ice cream identity and package family for kids. It was a final college project created for the Graphic Design Project class in the College of Arts and Design Caldas da Rainha, Portugal. The faces expressions interacts with the kids by showing how fun and delicious is to eat ice cream and turn the package into a collectible and reusable object for kids fun. Particularly, i always feel like laughing when i look at theses happy faces."

Pigs

I am in New York visiting a friend. Here are two funny pig items I spotted in SoHo. Pig Mug and Pig Cooking Lid.

Amputee Support Group

Made me smile. By Brett Weber (flickr).

The Refined

Big thanks to the folks at The Refined for selecting Old Glutton as one of six "Refined Blogs." The Refined is a new blog that showcases refined design and ideas. My favorite posts so far: relieving the knots and Uniqlo blowing me away again. I look forward to more posts from them.

Etsy Find: Nana Company

Check out these cute fruit inspired vintage cases available from Nana Company (Etsy).

Sweet! Affordable Art

This limited edition Donut Print is available from Japan LA for $24. It was created by 64 Colors. You can see more of their super fun food inspired artwork here.

I would love to have some of these prints for my future design studio.

Slab Sheriff

I love the name of this font.

Capital One Custom Card

It is old news that you can customize a capital one card, but I finally got around to personalizing mine with this photo of mine. I got tired of looking at the swooshy blue one. Now at least their ugly logo is confined to the upper left corner, but I still wish I could remove it all together.

Birds of Paradise

Here is my newest Holga creation. This is an endframe/burnframe (the last frame on a roll), which explains the grainyness on the right. When I took this shot, I loved the formation of the birds, but knew I was towards the end of with no time to swap out the film. Conceptually and aesthetically I am happy how this turned out. I like that the birds look like they are following a path to another realm.

Collage Characters: Men of Parts

I made these characters from a cut up old Gray's Anatomy book. I am taking a printmaking class right now (which is why I have been away from this blog). I may use these characters for a silkscreen project.

Wine Cork Display

My husband has collected the corks from all of the wines we have consumed. He was keeping them in a brown paper bag. Since I have an aversion to nonfunctional clutter, I decided to update the wine cork storage to something more appealing to the eye. I filled two, 6" diameter, 20" tall glass hurricanes with the corks. I feel so Martha Stewart. And, yes, we are winos.

I must confess. This was not entirely my idea. I saw something similar in a pottery barn catalog a few years back. It was a tall glass hurricane, maybe 5 feet tall. They had wrapped strings around the hurricane with a tags for each year. It was a nice idea to see how much wine was consumed in each year. I have no record of this, though, since we have been throwing them in a brown paper sack for years.

Some other modern DIY wine cork projects I have seen:
*Coasters and Trivets
*Placecard Holders.
*Bulletin Board Kit
*Serving Trays
*Mud Room Mat
*bowling ball (or art for your home)

A google search will also lead you to many cheesy, horrendous, and fuddy-duddy diy cork projects.

Enjoy!

Super Fun Keyboard Drums

Super Fun Keyboard Drums.

Mistakes

A few works inspired by mistakes.


Untitled (Let's make better mistakes tomorrow) by Mike Monteiro. Prints available at 20x200.


I love this (I've learned so much from my mistakes...I'm thinking of making a few more. ). Anyone know who created it? I ffffound it, but no artist credit.

Personified Buger Illustration

Hamburger graphic by Philip Grisewood.

Design Help!

Ryan (my husband) and I are in the process of redesigning this family room. I would love feedback/ideas anybody has on potential wall colors, drapes, art, lighting, and accessories.


On our ideal weekends, Ryan and I spend time in this room watching a movie by the fire with wine and some fantastic home cooked gourmet food. I want this room to feel warm, cozy, and modern (but organic/natural rather than industrial).

We are keeping the couch/chair/side table/coffee table as it was given to us by our very generous uncles. The lamp is temporary and goes with another setup. The TV trays are functional only and will be put away when we are not using them.

This is the view from the kitchen.

I removed the floral wallpaper and am painting over the bottom marbled looking wallpaper. Yes, those walls are sponge painted. Every room is.

There is 10 feet in between the back of the couch and the kitchen. We use this space for yoga and it is also a walkway from the living room which has the front door to the house.

It would be nice to incorporate a reading nook to the left of the hutch with a low level lounger chair. I love the zoe chair, but am looking for something smaller/cheaper.



We ordered the Loop Media Center and Loop File Cabinet/Hutch from Crate and Barrel (partly paid for with gift cards that I have been holding on to for four years). We also ordered a black LCD TV and have all black speakers and media consoles/units. We plan to put the left surround speaker on top of the Loop File Hutch behind the sofa seat and the right one in the built-in room divider.

This room/tv setup was our Christmas present this year, but we are just getting around to it. The rest of the design has to be economical since we have exceeded our budget on the tv/furniture.

I would love feedback on the paint colors, wall art (placement, size, and specific pieces or frame colors), accessories, window coverings, and lamp(s). I am also looking for black fireplace tools and firewood holder; something sleek.

Update 03.14.09: A huge thank you to Kim for featuring my design dilemma on one of my favorite blogs, Desire to Inspire. Her readers have already provided useful suggestions. This will be very helpful for me. Join the discussion here.