decorations

Last week in New York, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair showcased the tip-top of modern design. More than 600 exhibitors displayed contemporary furniture, flooring, lighting, and accessories and included a fair share of tech-oriented, futuristic and energy-saving devices. To see what they had to offer, click here.

Now you can put a big, impressive-looking tome about the Age of Enlightenment on your bookshelf without having to wade through any Descartes or Voltaire.

Dutch design studio Studiomeiboom has come up with The Enlightenment, a lamp that poses as a book on the 18th century intellectual movement, but really just enlightens your room and not your brain.

The $130 lamp is made of white Plexiglas, with "The Enlightenment" etched onto its spine and cover. It's about 9 inches tall, 6 inches wide, and 3 inches deep, and comes with a 9-watt energy-saving light.

Studiomeiboom says 10 … Read more

At first glance these "Budclicks" might just seem like the latest gimmick to customize your earbuds, an accessory to an accessory. But lest you write them off, consider the history of the "Jibbitz," the wildly popular doodads that kids love to stick on their Crocs.

That idea was started by a stay-at-home mom, who created the decorations with her three children in the basement of their Colorado house--before selling her business to Crocs Inc. for $10 million. Budclicks, as far as we can tell, is essentially the same thing for earphones, at $10 to $15 a … Read more

Most of the year, shoppers seeking to be ecologically correct worry about the age-old paper versus plastic bag dilemma (The answer? Bring your own bag.). Around this time of year, those who celebrate Christmas worry whether they should get an artificial or real tree.

Fake firs from the middle of the 20th century that once looked high-tech have made a retro comeback. Dressing up an old one can be relatively eco-friendly, whether it sports flocked snow, aluminum branches, or ceramic gumdrops. The Doris Day aesthetics might irk some neighbors, but at least you'd do the planet a favor by … Read more

And you thought your dark, cramped, dusty workspace was depressing. Have a look at the winners of the Wired News Saddest-Cubicle Contest, and get ready to appreciate your own scrappy little cube anew.

After all, it doesn't get too much worse than David Gunnells' cubicle (or does it?). The first-place winner of the contest, an IT guy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, spends his days in a windowless conference room, his desk hemmed in by heavily used filing cabinets. He sits near a poorly ventilated bathroom and shares a wall with a parking garage. His mother-in-law was … Read more

Want a conversation starter? Just toss a pillow that lists off terms like "Orlando Bloom," "podcasting," and "bankruptcy" onto your couch, and your guests du jour will likely be so curious that they won't even notice you forgot to dust the top of your TiVo box.

This is, for the record, the Google News Cushion from Spring Design & Art. Those seemingly mismatched list items are, in fact, the top ten Google News searches of 2006. The company also sells a few other years' worth, too. (What do you want to bet the '… Read more

If you've ever had the sick fantasy of wanting to throw a lamp into a body of water, here you go. Fortunately, it won't electrocute anything. It will, however, make your pool look eerily pretty.

As far as floating pool lights go, these are nowhere near as cool as the fiber optic jellyfish. These are rechargeable, floating lamp-shaped lights sold by lighting-design company Metalarte, known by the name "Waterproof," and they'll cost you $450 apiece. (Yikes! And I thought the $60 jellyfish were extravagant!) But if you've got that expensive in-ground pool, I suppose … Read more

When I was a kid, my family put a life-size plastic owl near our house to keep birds and squirrels away from the porch. (At least, I think that's why they had a life-size plastic owl near our house.) Unfortunately, I don't think it worked all that well, because last I heard, the cat had mauled it and thrown it into the hedge. I suppose it really wasn't that scary.

Consequently, the next time I'm desperate to scare away animals, small children, or the IRS, I'm going to get one of these instead. Because this … Read more

I don't think you want to light up your house with this--but decorators in charge of restaurants, nightclubs, and hotel lobbies might want to take note. This is called theANEMIX, and it's a freaking 3D lighting-effect system. Yes. Wow. theANIMEX is the product of Chilean designers Ximena Munoz and Paulina Villalobos, who used the uber-efficient OSRAM LED technology to create panels that use dual layers (one luminescent, one reflective) to give off a lovely, bioluminescence-inspired 3D glow.

Really, really cool-looking stuff. It's far classier than the glowy stuff we typically post about here.

(Via CubeMe)