Month: December 2016

If you’re still searching for the perfect new addition to this year’s holiday tree, it’s time to give up the hunt for the elusive Perfect Ornament and build your own. To get started, check out The LEGO Christmas Ornaments Book: 15 Designs to Spread Holiday Cheer by Chris McVeigh. The colorful, hardcover how-to features 15 easy-to-build designs to get you into the swing of crafting LEGO ornaments. Because LEGO bricks aren’t just for building houses and vehicles—they can be decorative too. 

McVeigh has crammed this seasonal book with plenty of festive ornaments, like a poinsettia, snowflake, wreath, present, Christmas tree, gingerbread house, and more. There’s even year-round designs like a lantern, arcade, computer, camera, and cheeseburger. Each tutorial provides step-by-step instructions with photos and diagrams to help.

The guide is a great first step to starting your ornament-making career, but if the LEGO Ideas forum has taught us anything, it that it probably won’t take long for you to start building your own original designs. 

If anyone needs a great holiday gift, it’s a broke college student. Give them something they’ll love (and use). May we suggest one of these?

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1. KEURIG® K55 COFFEE MAKER; $99

College kids may not have time between classes to make—or drink—a full pot of coffee, making them perfect candidates for single-serve pod machines. This Keurig machine makes anywhere from 6 to 10 ounces. Plus, it’s compact for easy dorm storage, and comes in several different colors.

Find It: Amazon

2. BANDO “AFTER THIS WE’RE GETTING PIZZA” WORKOUT BAG; $28

Just because exercise is healthy doesn’t mean it’s always fun. Help your reluctant student get to the gym with this cheeky bag, which is sure to help him or her make like-minded friends—who might know where a student group will be giving out free pizza that night.

Find It: Amazon

3. MOLESKINE SMART WRITING SET; $199

Reviewing has never been easier with Moleskine’s smart pen set, a super portable digital tool that converts hand-written notes into digital files in real-time, allowing drafts to be emailed or uploaded to a LiveScribe account with the push of a button. The smartphone app will even convert handwriting into digital text, though it doesn’t always recognize messier script.

Find It: Moleskine

4. UBER GIFT CARD; $25 AND UP

Joy ride: Most students can get from place to place on campus just fine, but they could probably use extra help hitting the town. Make sure they get on route safely with Uber gift cards. 

Find It: Amazon

5. BEYONCILS; $18

It’s hard not to be inspired by the wisdom of Beyoncé, and these nine handmade pencils are sure to remind the writer to be as confident as Queen Bey. They’re handmade and feature lyrics like “fresher than you,” “flawless,” and “I woke up like this.” For every set sold, LZPENCILS donates nine pencils—minus the lyrics—to a school in need.

Find It: Etsy

6. ROKU PREMIERE +; $95

It’s rare to find a college student these days who has a cable subscription, so you might as well give them the gift of streaming. Roku’s Premiere+ streams smoothly in high definition and supports most major services like Netflix and Hulu. The enhanced remote is compatible with headphones, so no roommates need be disturbed.

Find It: Amazon

7. MOPHIE POWERSTATION MINI; $15

Help your favorite student keep smartphones charged during a full day of classes with Mophie’s ultra-fast portable charger. The gadget has the capacity to charge a cell phone about twice. Perhaps they’ll even use that extra battery power to call home.

Find It: Amazon

8. STATE BAGS KANE BACKPACK; $60

Students can carry their books in style and feel good about it. For every backpack sold, STATE Bags gives one to a child in need. And it’s machine washable, just in case it ever ends up at a frat party.

Find It: Amazon

9. DART; $99

Students can ditch heavy laptop chargers for Dart, a portable little device that is four times smaller than the standard laptop charger and has a USB port to charge tablets. It can charge a laptop and any USB device at the same time, too. And the slick, colorful charger makes it easy to pick it out from a crowd of identical computer cords.

Find It: Amazon

10. BRIK BOOKS BUILD-ON MACBOOK COVER; $60

Let your student stand out in the lecture hall—and display their 8-bit fandom—with these customizable laptop covers. They’re compatible with brick-based systems like LEGO and Mega Bloks, making them perfect to build tributes to any pixelated character. There are choices that fit a variety of Macbook Pro models, but sadly, it doesn’t come with any of the LEGOs they’ll need to customize, so you might want to throw those in the gift box, too.

Find It: Think Geek

11. FUJIFILM INSTAX SHARE SP-2 SMART PHONE PRINTER; $190

Most college memories in this day and age are stored in smartphones, not photo albums. But the instaxSHARE lets anyone print high-resolution photos straight from a phone. The printed photos make for perfect dorm room decoration.

Find It: Amazon

The stories behind Fahrenheit and Celsius. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit’s temperature scale seems arbitrary, until you know the history.
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The First Time John, Paul, George, and Ringo Played Together. The story of how Ringo joined the Beatles.
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Meet the British OB-GYN With the Best Bad Name Ever. Grantly Dick-Read and his weird philosophy popularized the natural childbirth movement.
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This Spider Pretends to Be a Leaf! It honestly does not resemble a spider at all.
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The time has come to understand what the hell is going on in Westworld. A rather complicated plot still doesn’t detract from the cool robots.
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Canadian police threaten drunk drivers with Nickelback. It’s too soon to tell if this will have a deterrent effect.
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How Civil War Soldiers Gave Themselves Syphilis While Trying to Avoid Smallpox. There is no end to the horrors of that war.  
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A Brief History of Closed Captioning. It all started with Julia Child.

(Banner image courtesy of iStock)

In the mid-‘90s, Mattel attempted to represent the lives of kids with disabilities with the release of Share a Smile Becky, the first Barbie doll in a wheelchair. Becky’s wheelchair may not have fit in the Barbie Dreamhouse, and her long hair was likely to get caught in the wheels, but still, it represented a slightly more inclusive world for the dolls and their owners. Unfortunately, the doll didn’t last long.

Nickolay Lamm, the creator behind dolls with realistic bodily proportions, some of which deal with periods, wants to bring wheelchairs back to the popular doll market. His latest Kickstarter is raising money for a toy wheelchair that will fit not just his own Lammily fashion dolls, but also Barbies and other similar-sized toys. Each one costs $18 on Kickstarter, with an estimated June 2017 delivery.

The 3D-printed, blue wheelchairs come with brightly patterned seats and have adjustable parts to customize the size to the specific doll and moveable foot rests. The chairs can fit Bratz dolls, Barbies, Monster High dolls, and more.

All images courtesy Nickolay Lamm

Whether you’re a holiday season fanatic who wants even more to celebrate, or a Scrooge with a burning desire to buck tradition, we’ve got plenty of unconventional observances to put on your calendar. 

1. DECEMBER 2: NATIONAL SALESPERSON’S DAY

Let’s face it: If you want to look like the woman above come December 25, you’re going to need some help. Give a tip of the (Santa) hat on this day to the many salespeople who make your gift-giving look easy.

2. DECEMBER 5: BATHTUB PARTY DAY

There’s a lot to be done between now and the end of the year. Take a minute to breathe, relax, and take in a soak.

3. DECEMBER 10: GINGERBREAD DECORATING DAY

If you’re anything like us, your cookies won’t look like these perfectly-piped confections. Thankfully, it doesn’t matter.

4. DECEMBER 12: POINSETTIA DAY

This day doesn’t just celebrate the festive flower—it also marks the death of its namesake, Joel Roberts Poinsett. The botanist (and first U.S. Ambassador to Mexico) brought clippings of Euphorbia pulcherrima back to the States from southern Mexico, and grew the plant at his South Carolina home.

5. DECEMBER 15: CAT HERDERS DAY

You’re probably a cat herder yourself from time to time. This day is for you.

6. DECEMBER 17: WRIGHT BROTHERS DAY

This day marks the 114th anniversary of the Wright Brothers’ historic first flight.

7. DECEMBER 21: CELEBRATE SHORT FICTION DAY

You don’t have to curl up by the fire with festive socks and your beverage of choice when you take some time out to read a short story on this day, but … why wouldn’t you?

8. DECEMBER 21: FOREFATHERS’ DAY

The Mayflower Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock on this day in 1620.

9. DECEMBER 21: HUMBUG DAY

Get out all your bahs and scowls and growls now—no one will tolerate them come Christmas.

10. DECEMBER 21: PHILEAS FOGG WIN A WAGER DAY

In Jules Verne’s 1873 classic novel Around the World in 80 Days, Phileas Fogg bets that he can travel the entire globe, between 8:45 p.m. on October 2, and 8:45 p.m. on December 21. Keep an eye out for him on this day.

11. DECEMBER 25: A’PHABET DAY

A pun on “noel,” this offbeat ce’ebration is designed to high’ight the arbitrary nature of many of the year’s si”ier ho’idays. Whi’e you’re unwrapping presents and eating your Christmas feast, ‘eave a” the “L”s out of written and spoken communication for a festive activity that wi” sure’y infuriate your ‘oved ones.

12. DECEMBER 29: TICK TOCK DAY

In case you needed another reminder of the inevitable passage of time and/or an occasion to reevaluate how those 2016 resolutions are going!

13. DECEMBER 30: NO INTERRUPTIONS DAY

Things are probably pretty quiet in the days leading up to 2017. Why not take this opportunity to disconnect and get some things done (or nothing at all).

14. DECEMBER 31: MAKE UP YOUR MIND DAY

A day for all the indecisive people out there. This New Year’s Eve, pick a (figurative or literal!) door and walk through it! See y’all on the other side in 2017.

Holidays found in Chase’s Calendar of Events 2016. All photos courtesy of iStock unless otherwise noted.