Sanrio will be working with Mimoco, amongst others, in the celebration of Hello Kittys 35th anniversary this fall.

In time for Hello Kittys anniversary on November 1st Mimoco will have designed and produced several different USB flash drives, and Hello Kitty® will be the first to hit the stores, in early September.

Soon thereafter Badtz-Maru®, My Melody®, Kuromi®, Keroppi®, Chococat®, and TuxedoSam™ will also show up in MIMOBOT form.

The line will be available for purchase at MIMOBOT.com and SANRIO.com, select SANRIO boutiques and other specialty retailers.

The Jumping Brain is a cross between a brain and a frog. Boys are going to love it! Especially because you’ll be able to divide the two half’s of the brain.

This brainy toy is designed by Lapolab/Emilio Garcia, and will be available in a few months. There will only be made 12o figures of each color, but they will all be signed and numbered. The Jumping Brains will cost about $45-65 USD each.

Via Vinyl Pulse

First time I saw Figments I was “cruising” through all the articles that had been piling up in my feed reader. Not so interesting articles usually gets about 1 sec. of attention while interesting ones get around 20 sec. (if they do not have a lot of text to read). The article about Figments had very little text, but it got about 1 min. of my time!

It was like the Figment characters were alive, and of course I was attracted to the high level of detail put into these characters. One can truly tell that these are one of a kind characters made by the hand of an artist who uses his art to express himself. These artists leave a small piece of themselves in every product, and I believe that’s how the characters end up so very alive and full of soul!

Figment was born out of the artists love for shoes, and that’s clearly visible by the major role the tiny baby sneakers serve in the characters. All the characters are made from carefully chosen fabrics and accessories, and through the process of their making their personalities take shape little by little.

It is a truly great “toy” for those of us who love designer plush with a whole lot of soul.

Figments will be available online when they get their web store up and running, and until then the characters can be found at Lower Haters (San Francisco), The Reed Space (NY) and Acycle (Tokyo).

Via Blog Clops

DaMinci is one of Tim Tsui’s creations, which has been released in several different versions, all which have been limited editions. The black and silver version shown above was released yesterday, and is a BeyondGoodNEvil exclusive.

The DaMinci figures have several movable parts, a removable spray can, a mask, and two belt buckles. All DaMinci versions are great, with nice details and color combinations, but this version might be the coolest of them all. The face color and the base color of the mask is the same, which gives the figure a superb look when the mask is placed on it.

Any interest in seeing pictures of other DaMinci versions? If so, have a look at Vinyl Addiction.

BeyondGoodNEvil’s DaMinci is a limited edition and there is only 100 pieces available. To celebrate their exclusive version Tim Tsui has designed a T-Shirt for them, which also was released yesterday at the BeyondGoodNEvil store. The T-shirts are hand printed by BeyondGoodNEvil.

Via Toysrevil

I can imagine many of the little boys out there, who haven’t even seen any of the Star Wars movies, would love to have a robot trashcan like the R2-D2 Trashcan, . Not that it really matters if it can aid them in keeping their rooms tidy.

The big size and the incredible details of the trashcan makes it more of a toy and a cool figure than a simple trashcan.

The Star Wars R2-D2 Trashcan is 24″ tall, has a durable vinyl construction, a removable interior can and a foot pedal for easy opening. It is available at ThinkGeek. Unfortunately the first shipment sold out really fast, but they are getting a new shipment in June or July.

If you are thinking about getting one, I suggest joining the “e-mail me when available” function at their website, because there is no way of knowing how fast they will sell out, and if there will be more after that.

Via: Uncrate

The Dutch artist Selwyn Senatori is the brain behind Arttops – laptops with an artistic touch.

Arttops comes in two versions, blue King and pink Queen, both are decorated all over the top and has decoration around the keyboard and screen too.

The Arttops are limited edition. Only one hundred are available of each and all have been signed by the Selwyn himself. They look to be a great alternative to the usual plain business like black, grey and white minimalisticly designed laptops and might make a great confirmation gift for an art loving teen.

Both “King” and “Queen” comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz processor, 1024MB DDR2 memory and 120GB(King)/100GB(Queen) hard drives. The “King” has a 15.4-inch screen while the “Queen” has a smaller 14.1-inch screen.

Via BornRich

Rehabilitated Dishware is the brainchild of Sarah Cihat and was a part of her thesis project at Parsons School of Design. By re-designing and re-surfacing used and unwanted dishes she gives them a new and much longer life.

The ceramic plates, which she finds at places like Goodwill, Salvation Army or the reject piles at retail stores, are transformed from their old look to modern, stylish and colorful plates that would make any dinner table look amazing, especially at parties. This way of renewing used and unwanted things is of course also a great way of helping reduce the strain on the environment.

Many of the plates have colors and illustrations which make them great gift ideas for children. Not only would the dishes be great to eat from but they would also work well as decoration in a child’s bedroom. After all, the dishes are valuable and collectible designer pieces.

Sarah Cihats Rehabilitated Dishware has been featured in magazines like Elle, O at Home, Food & Wine, Nylon and Metropolitan Home and you can read more about the dishes at Sarah Cihat.

Red Magic makes some really cool and very sweet vinyl figures named C.i.Boys. They come in many different series. The ones pictured above are from the Gladia Sport Series.

The C.i.Boys figures are simple and their expressions are made by just a few simple creative strokes. In contrast the rest of the figure is very detailed. The C.i.Boys series, like many other vinyl toy series, are collectors items and you will not know which one you will receive when you order one. In the Red Magic Shop you can find information on how many of each version they have in stock so you it is possible to calculate your chances of getting the one you want.

Red Magic also makes a really cute vinyl series called Lala Couple which are without small parts and great for young girls. The C.i.Boys figures are not suited for small children as the arms are detachable and can easily be swallowed.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Automoblox is not your normal toy car. These cars have a unique, simple and very cool design. They are made out of parts and can be taken apart and put together just like a real car. This allows you to design your own cars by taking existing cars apart, switch the parts around and put new cars together. For this you will of course need more than one of the Automoblox cars. The more cars you have, the more design possibilities you will have.

The body of the Automoblox car is made out of wood and under the hood you find the engine parts. These parts will help you combine any car that you would like to make. The engine parts and the car as a whole was made in cooperation with a child psychologist which has resulted in fun toys with a high educational value. Automoblox inspires creative and imaginative playing and helps develop skills as shape recognition, color matching and fine motor skills.

At Automoblox you can see the specifications for all the Automoblox car models. Each car has their own Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) just like real cars. This will surely increase their collectible value and it also allows you to register your cars online! The VIN contains information about your car. It can tell you the make, year, model, color, place of manufacture and what number your car was to roll of the assembly line.

It is possible to buy extra accessories that allows you to make any car into a 6 and 8 wheeler. This makes building Automoblox cars even more fun.

Automoblox has quite an unusual philosophy when it comes to the durability of their toys. It is unusual for mass producing toy companies to want anything other than cheap and effective production. Durability often gets very little attention. Automoblox’s philosophy is to make heirloom toys with a great durability. “It is better to have one great toy instead of 10 cheap ones.”. Automoblox wants children to bond strongly with their toys and hopes that they might want to keep them as they grow up and pass them on to their own kids. All the Automoblox car parts are incredibly strong. The wheels for example are nearly impossible to break. They are literally bulletproof!

You can read more about the Automoblox toy cars and purchase them at Automoblox.