Serve up some stylish cake

Entertaining season is upon us, and I'm starting to scope out the perfect serving ware to share sweet homemade treats -- whether I actually succeed in baking them, or end up picking them up at the local grocery store.

And, I can't help but appreciate this stunning cake server from Magisso.

The Finnish-designed server is made from a single piece of mirrored stainless steel and is pretty enough to display with all your holiday goodies. 

You press down on the cake with the server to cut "a perfect piece", then by squeezing the handle you can lift the slice and serve it to your guest.

It is definitely a splurge - retailing for almost $70.

And, some of my Twitter folks have expressed concern about how difficult it would be to clean. It certainly would require a thorough, and near-immediate, wipe to handle all that frosting!

For more information and retailers, visit Urban Butik's website. And check out some more goodies to entertain your holiday guests here!

The appliances of the future?

Ever wondered what the kitchens of the future would look like? The 2009 Electrolux Design Lab contest asked designers just that, asking them to send in their home appliance ideas for the next 90 years.

The winning concept, designed by Sweden's Rickard Hederstierna, is a "fish and meat maker."

Cocoon would essentially "create" meat and fish from a pre-packaged sachets using radio frequency identification (RFID) signals - which the program describes as similar to making popcorn in a microwave.

How that works exactly isn't entirely clear, but for more details you can watch the YouTube video. The jury said Cocoon was imagined to help ease the environmental burden of intensive farming and fishing.

And, it's awfully pretty - or in their words: "An inviting, tactile design, the Cocoon resembles a gemstone with a metal accent reflecting the heritage of the Swedish art-glass industry. Cocoon meets all of the brief's criteria: it is daring, cutting edge and truly innovative in its focus on social and environmental issues."

Hederstierna wins approximately $8,000 CDN and a six-month paid internship at one of Electrolux's design centres.

Runners up included flying rain catcher and water purifier "Water Catcher", "Renew" a smart steamer, and the "Teleport Fridge" which teleports food.

What do you think? Could these kinds of items really be in our kitchens within the next century? And, for a kitchen that's more of our own time, check out this stylish, hardworking family hub.

Pretty patterns for your walls

Whether it's a punchy pillow or a great accent wall, I love seeing bold and interesting patterns in people's homes.

And lately, I've been eying the stunning lines from Marimekko and Jannelli & Volpi, launched in Canada by New Wall last month.

I've been admiring textiles from Finland's Marimekko (known for their bold colours and graphic geometrical patterns) for a while now, dreaming about hanging swatches like canvas or even redoing my dining room chairs with a bright shot of colour.

But now I could hang it on my wall! I especially love the Stilla pattern, shown at right, which is also available in a red and silver versions. It's a bit of a splurge at $149 per roll, but isn't it just oh so pretty?

Janelli & Volpi, meanwhile, are an Italian wallcovering and furniture fabric production company, who recently launched their own line with J&V Italian Design. Their rolls run from $265 to $330.

Here's a bit more eye-candy from the lines:

A designer's tea mug?

Those who know me know that I take my tea very seriously. Without it, my days would be quite bleak!

As a result, I'm always poking about online for new tea ideas, and was quite smitten with the Pantone tea mug set (found via dwell).

Pantone is the colour authority for designers, and with this set of mugs, they're creating a guide for how milky you'd like you morning cuppa! (Mine would be the third one in, by the way.)

Made by Whitbread Wilkinson (and yes, they do ship to Canada), the set costs US $50.

And, if tea's not your thing, they've also got a colour-coded espresso set, as well as cheerier, non-beverage derived hues.

Going green, in more ways than one

I've been intrigued by Boomerang Paints for a while: an eco-friendly, and ecologo certified, low-VOC recycled paint, which retails for about $15 a can.

It's made using leftover paints and stains, which are donated through Rona stores and other retailers. (Find a drop off near you here). They use about 1 per cent new material in the paint to try to keep colour, thickness and drying times consistent.

It sounds promising, but I've always wondered, does it work? How does it stack up to regular brands?

Luckily, I had the chance to give it a test run, using a pretty shade of green called "moss", in my mud room.

My first challenge? Getting the lid on the new, eco-friendly plastic pail open. It took some help from Mr. Speedy and a roofing tool, but, eventually, we outsmarted it.

Once we actually got to the painting part, it worked pretty much like all the other paint I've been schlepping home from the hardware store. I did, however, find it a little runnier, and needed to stir it more vigorously, than the paint and primer combo I've been favouring lately.

Painting over a seriously banged up beige took two coats, plus touch ups.

And,be warned, the colour choices aren't huge - 16 shades in the eco-certified latex line, with earthy names like "wheat" "shore" "moonlight" and "cotton."

Read more about Boomerang, and find local retailers, at the company website.

Kitchen envy

Lately, I've been experiencing a whole lotta kitchen envy. My kitchen is relatively functional, but not so fabulous. (Read more about it here).

And, in case those lush spreads in the fall magazines weren't enough to have me shopping for my imaginary kitchen makeover, Frigidaire has just introduced a new line of lust-worthy appliances.

The 200 (!) revamped appliances look super sleek and offer "time-saving" features, like the ovens' "PowerPlus Convection", which is supposed to reduce cooking time by 30 per cent and pre-heating times of "less than six minutes." 

The new dishwashers offer speedier wash and dry options, while refrigerators have more storage and a fancy new organization system.

The other thing that's got me drooling is the new washers and dryers, which have something called "TimeWise" technology - meaning wash time is supposed to be the same as dry time. I hate waiting for the dryer to finish when I'm doing a serious run on laundry, so my impatient side welcomes this idea!

"Our goal was to build the kinds of appliances that would help families breeze through household tasks to create more time to enjoy the things they love," said Tom Coulman, Director of Product and Brand Development for Frigidaire, in a release. Keep an eye out for the new lines at retailers like Sears, The Brick, Leon's and The Bay. Read more about the new lines on the Frigidaire website.

Not your average extinguisher

Doing double duty as a fire detector and a sprinkler system, the Automist has claimed top honours at the 2009 James Dyson awards.

This nifty product was designed to make fire protection more accessible, with an eye on the space where many fires start: the kitchen.

Automist, which is currently preparing for production, is installed under your typical kitchen tap. 

A wireless heat detector monitors for fire, and in the event of a blaze, triggers a pump that pushes water through the nozzle, filling the kitchen with mist -- and putting out the fire.

"This simple but clever device should become a permanent safety feature in the home. Smoke alarms are essential part of modern life but have remained fundamentally unchanged for forty years. Automist not only detects a fire but can put it out as well," said James Dyson in a statement on the award website.

Automist, which beat out more than 400 projects from 21 countries, was designed by Yusuf Muhammad and Paul Thomas. They win £10,000 (nearly $18,000 CAD) towards product development.

Read more about the contest, and the runners-up, here.

This labeller is 'Plug and play!'

I'm the kind of girl who gets excited over organization. I adore alphabetized DVD collections and Mr. Speedy's habit of arranging CDs alphabetically by artist, then subdividing the artist's works by release date. Pair those systems with a little bit of tech, and, well, I'm over the moon.

So, I was really excited when Brother's new P-Touch 1230PC labeller landed on my desk.

While I may have been mocked for describing it as "Plug and play" (apparently, for some people, organizing and labelling is considered 'work' rather than 'play'), this nifty little device is super easy to use —the software you need is installed on the device, so you just plug it in to your PC (yep, you need Windows XP or Vista to run it, which is sad news for all-Mac households like mine) and start printing away!

Within minutes, my water bottle, phone and filing cabinet were marked as my property, and I even spread the love and made some labels for my colleagues too.

You can use different fonts and sizes, add symbols and even print vertically, on a variety of labels.

The labeller will be available at mass-retailers mid-month and is currently available at brother.ca.

Look cute while cleaning

A mop, broom or pair of rubber gloves rarely brings a smile to my face. After all, these objects normally look as mundane as the tasks they're designed to perform.

So I was excited to see this ever-so-cute broom imported by Jennifer Lyn Corporation. (Lobby broom set retails for $34.99, available at jenniferlyncorp.com.)

The Bradford-based company, started by Jennifer Gruchy along with her husband Justin Gruchy and friend Jay Thatcher, "imports artsy fashion forward household products by the container load."

Goods currently on offer, in a variety of fun and fashionable styles include brooms, mops, aprons, rubber gloves, shower caps and dish brushes.

What do you think — would a cute broom or dish brush make housework more fun?

Banishing the bunny hair

“Wow, it looks like something from Halo 3,” Mr. Speedy exclaimed when I first brought home a tester Dyson DC16 Animal hand vac.

While the champagne colour is pretty, and it does have a certain space age look that would help it fit in to the sci-fi video game world of Halo, I was more concerned about how it would hold up against my pet bunny than evil aliens.

With said bunny Allistair in full-on shedding mode, creating rabbit sized tumbleweeds of hair on a daily basis, I figured I’d give the vac, which is marketed for pet owners, a run for its money.

The lightweight vac, which has suggested retail of $230, comes with a motorized brush bar to help pick up all the hair off your upholstery, as well as a nozzle attachment and brush for dusting, which was perfect for keyboards.

While it did tackle hair as well as advertised, I sometimes found that the air from the running motor was enough to blow dust (or sawdust) across the room, hindering my clean up efforts.

Once the hair, bunny poop, sawdust, dust and any other dirt I could throw in the vacuum’s way were sucked up – surprisingly with no clogs, as the hair and sawdust is often enough to do in my full sized vacuum – I was pretty pleased with the canister emptying mechanism. The bagless chamber has a trigger release, meaning no fussing with all the dirt and grime.

The run time's not great - six minutes after a three hour charge. There’s no plug-in power cable, so if you’ve got a big mess, or a large area to clean, you might find the vac sputtering out before the job is done. But, all in all, it’s a nifty looking vac with powerful suction and would be great for small messes and cleaning up the car after Fido takes a ride.