These Can Be Yours

Flower Frame

horticulture

Get some living art for your wall. Just hang your Flower Frame, add some plants, and you’ll have a leafy conversation piece for your living room. A unique system makes watering simple. We recommend you use ivy, since a row of pointy cacti would not only look funny, but would be potentially dangerous.

$3,000; coya.ch

Phonofone II

low fidelity

It’s a common conundrum. You have an iPod. You have friends. You and your friends can’t listen to your iPod at the same time. The Phonofone II can help. In the vast sea of iPod accessories, it stands out for both its striking design and its low-fi wonder: Simply lay your ear buds in the center of this old-timey device and it will amplify the sound so everyone can rock out, no batteries or power cord needed. It’s party time!

$850; scienceandsons.com

4Mula

hygiene

Started as an art project about obsessive washing, 4Mula products—body and face washes, moisturizers, and more—are made from natural ingredients combined using the company’s “Periodic Table Of Essential Oils.” Into chemistry? Then you’ll love the 4Mula Saltglo: Its formula: 3Ppm2Rsm1Euc(+). It’s science, trust us.

from $16; 4mula.com

Dissolving Paper Shampoo

TSA workaround

If you’re traveling somewhere without hotels to provide things like shampoo and soap, the Transportation Security Administration’s anti-hygiene policies can be seriously problematic. But this dissolving paper shampoo comes in sheets—think Listerine breath strips—that will be allowed past security, at least until some new plot to use dehydrated soap products to attack planes is exposed.

$13; spoonsisters.com

Flocks

woolens

Every time you wear a wool sweater, it’s important to remember the sacrifice of some poor ovine fleece-donor, now shivering in the cold of early spring. Flocks—which offers a selection of wool cardigans and hats, each knit from the fleece of one individual sheep—helps connect you to the chain of supply by including a picture and short bio of the sheep that produced your sweater, so you can look at it and say “Thanks, sheep.”

$475; theseflocks.com

Tankbooks

vices

Books, unlike cigarettes, will not kill you. Also unlike cigarettes, carrying around a book all day can be a drag (that’s a cigarette pun), because books are often heavy and do not readily fit in your pocket. Enter the British creative agency Tank, which, in response to England’s new ban on smoking in public places, has made a range of classic literature—including Heart of Darkness and The Metamorphosis—that fits into cigarette-like packaging. Think of how edifying your smoking breaks will be now.

$14; tankmagazine.com/tankbooks

Zink

instant publishing

There still aren’t flying cars, but we have advanced far enough into the future that we have been graced with the Zink, a normal-sized digital camera with a printer inside it. Imagine the possibilities. Now, instead of having your beautiful pictures live on your computer, you can print them out the moment you take them. It works by embedding dye crystals in the paper, instead of using ink, which is apparently now about as laughably antiquated as film.

$199; zink.com

Gaiam Power Strip

conservation

Did you know that even when turned off, many of your electronic devices continue to suck power from the socket into which they are plugged? Probably, because you are an informed and conscious consumer. Knowing is half the battle, but are you doing anything about it? Probably not. Consider the Gaiam Smart Power Strip. Just plug your TV—or computer—into the strip, along with all its accessories (DVD player, TiVo, cable box, etc.) When you turn your TV off, the strip cuts power to everything, saving you 72 percent of the money you’ve been paying to power your set.

$39; gaiam.com