DIY

This Cat Play House (£15.00) from SUCK UK is an ingenious design. The DIY cardboard cutout houses come in 3 varieties; Tank, Fire Truck, and Plane. I don’t know if it is all cats, but my cats love to play in card board boxes. See another picture.

Daniel Schipper designed this lightweight greenhouse for people in urban areas. It has a frameless modular construction and is made of recyclable plastic. The Folding Greenhouse is small enough to be stored almost anywhere. Its too bad there is no info on production nor pricing. Best bet might be to try and make one yourself. See more photos.

The Dixie Chopper Excalibur 3874 ($11,332) is being touted as the worlds fastest lawnmower. This 38hp riding mower has a top speed of 15 mph and can cut 9.2 acres per hour. The greatest feature is not the 74″ cutting deck, its the 12-volt power adapter for you ipod or cell phone. [via]

Do you want an ambient light TV but don’t want to buy a new TV? Illuminaire is a complete LED ambient backlight kit which can be used for a lot of things like setting mood, or party lighting. Not only does it make your TV and speakers look really cool, it also dramatically reduce eyestrain when you are watching TV in a dark room. Their Color changing home theater lighting system with remote. Includes two 23” LED light bars for 32” to 60” TV screens, and is priced at $349.95.  However they do have basic single color kits for 17” to 32” TV screens that cost only $99. [via] Read the rest of this entry.

Now this is something thats truly unique. Drinking straws which you can shape to your desire, or mix drinks mid-straw. Maybe even share a drink…without using separate straws. This fancy drinking straw assembly kit contains 36 pieces (20 flexible rubber connectors, 16 translucent straw pieces). You can hook together as many pieces as you want, as long as you have enough pieces, you could make a gigantic super-straw and conquer the known universe.

Handcrafted in the Iberian Peninsula by Al-Ambik, makers of fine distilling instruments since 1853, this Copper Alembic Perfume Distiller ($350) is reminiscent of those used for over 1,200 years to extract essential oils from plants for use in perfumes. It was invented around 775 A.D. by Jabir Ibn Haiyan (Geber), renowned as the Father of Chemistry. Simply place water and fragrant plant leaves (such as lavender, peppermint, or thyme) into the 2 2/3-quart cucurbit, light the oil lamp and place it under the cucurbit. As the water boils, steam extracts essential oils from the plant and fills the vessel with oil vapor. The oil vapor passes from the cucurbit through the swan-neck tube and, once it reaches the water-filled condensing pot, it is cooled and converted into a concentrated liquid. The aromatic oil is deposited into a copper cooling cup for use in perfumes.

There are so many ridiculous things you can do with dry ice its impossible to even count, so how would you like to make your own dry ice in the comfort of your own home? This The Portable Dry Ice Maker is the perfect solution allowing you to create dry ice anytime, it uses a cylinder of compressed liquid CO2 (similar to the ones used to power paintball guns) to create 1 pound brick of dry ice in around 60 seconds. The only downside is that the price is a lil steep at $499.99 [Via]

The image above looks like a DIY drug lab but its not (unless you consider alcohol a drug). The Home Brewing System does everything from boiling concentrated wort to pouring a nice cold glass of beer. Future plans are to include a third cart to convert raw grain to wort. The brewing process takes about 3 months and costs $4,315 for the Home Brewing System. Depending on how much you drink this thing could pay for itself. [via] More Pictures and a Video.