Our friends at JamFactory have updated their line of Droplets to five new designs. As always, these toys are sold blind box (same box design for each toy) because we can’t all be the purple king.

In Bristol, UK on the 6th of February? Go to the launch party:

Fifty Fifty Store
8 Park Street
Bristol BS1 5HR
Saturday 6th February 6pm – 9pm

The Empire Muggs Back: Art for a Mighty Good Cause:

Artists, comic book creators, toy designers, and celebrity fans are getting out their markers, paint brushes and glue guns to transform blank Mighty Muggs into one-of-a-kind Star Wars art to be auctioned by The Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Almost as awesome as Wookieepedia. Via BB

Super one man design house Gavin Strange has caught our eye for his pumping fresh t-shirts, skateboards and these amazing little toys, Droplets. Droplets are little drops of high-gloss vinyl with personalities. They remind us of some character we created in Spore, probably of the vegetarian and social evolution chain. Each box comes signed with stickers and badges, but you won’t know which color you’ve got until you open the box. To make that magic moment of cracking open the box even more exciting some droplets are rarer than others, the black one is the hardest to get of all. Droplets like friends and for £5 friends are likely. Check out Gavin’s design house site (JamFactory) and his store for the Droplets.

While some of us play our records, others play with them in a completely different way. After coming across dishes made from molded, reappropriated LPs on the Internet, Carol Furlan and her partner at Ideia & Companhia stopped at the used record store, picked up a bunch that were attracting dust and made ‘em into these neat wall pieces. The duo won’t cite any rhyme or reason to which shapes they put under the laser cutting knife, but they do say they could care less whether they’re slicing into a Barry Manilow Greatest Hits album or Chicago record — it’s the color of the vinyl label they care about. Contact them directly through their site if you’re interested in ordering one.

I’ve been a massive fan of dVider for a while now — we spent some quality time at ICFF last year and I always check in to see what is new in the world of non-committal wall decor. Their endless parade of vinyl goodness continues with the dVider Guest Artist Series, this quarter featuring Brooklyn wallpaper goddess Jill Malek. Drawing inspiration from organic, repetitive pattern in nature, Jill’s decals are available at the dVider store through April 30th. There’s never been a better time to remedy your white-wall syndrome than now.

It’s about time that the rumors about a new Tristan Eaton Dunny coughed up something tangible, and now — after almost two years of speculation — we can finally say that an actual Dunny (designed by the actual co-creator of Dunny and founder of Thunderdog Studios, Tristan Eaton), will be released in the middle of January. The gas-masked, 8-inch Tag Team Dunny comes in either pink or black, and will be accompanied by his own Fatcap mini assistant in a matching color. Two signings for the new Dunny will go down in New York and Miami, respectively; head here if for more deets on either event.

Mike and Katie are TADO, the UK based duo whose darkly adorable characters have taken the design and vinyl worlds by storm. Only a few years out of university, the pair has already parented a unique aesthetic — one that everybody loves, young designers emulate, and clients the world over hope to associate with. This sort of acceptance has made Mike and Katie a busy pair, so it's a good thing that drawing monster mushrooms and pirate marshmallows is something they're rather adept at. Of course, it's an even better thing that it's also something they just happen to love, because from the looks of it, slowing down isn't much of an option.

JoshSpear.com: Everything TADO works on — including emails, it seems — is given the signature of “Mike and Katie.” Is everything that the two of you do really such an even collaboration, or do each of you specialize in certain areas?

TADO: Yes! Pretty much everything is done 50/50 -– it's really quite odd. We’ve barely spent a day apart since we first met so we guess we’ve slowly become one 2 headed creature. These days, we draw pretty much identically (although Mike presses harder and ruins the pens), and share all the work. One of the things that is important to us is that each piece of work has input from the both of us — we often pass files back and forth and bicker about what works best. READ MORE…

Mmm, smells like Canada. I mean — new vinyl — it smells like new vinyl. Not that I’m sure about Bax Bears even being vinyl (the Thee looks primarily plastic-y, I think), only that the two, newish designer toys are collectible figurines straight out of the arms of The Great White North. Created by OSO Design House owner and designer Michael Zhu, Bax Bear (a bear) and Thee (a very Canadian-looking leaf) have been getting some sizable press coverage from Hong Kong’s Milk Magazine, meaning that it’s only a matter of time before the toys sail back across the ocean to line our own monstered shelves. Artists like Winson Ma of Brothersfree, Tim Tsui, TOUMART, Camilla d’Errico, Alice Chen, and Jason Pultz contributed to Bax Bear Series 1, making the first run collectible enough to make you one wish you got some while you had the chance (hint, hint).

Via joyengine

Chuck Anderson Prints: Read JS Review | Buy It ($35 – $65; shown as 2)

Holy kaleidoscope! We’d paper maîche our houses in these were they a bit more weatherproof. Until that day, we’ll just enjoy their sparkly-ness from the comfort of our climate controlled living rooms.

20×200: Read JS Review | Buy It ($20; shown as 3)

Jen Bekman’s affordable art project let’s you choose from a wide variety of wonderfully curated print, photographic and mixed media limited edition offerings — and at 20 bucks a pop, there’s nothing snooty about it.

Ice Cream: Read JS Review | Buy It ($69.95; shown as 5)

We reviewed Ice Cream, an awesome (and shiny) selection of 100 of the most significant emerging artists working today…but anything from Phaidon will make the creative people in your life happier than a two-year old with a Snack Pack.

Colby Nichols Prints: Read JS Review | Buy It ($7 – $50; shown as 4)

This up-and-comer is filling my daily monster quotient with his prints, paintings, and sketches of zombies, toothed animals, and one-eyed beasts. His tees are rather awesome as well, but I guess that’s for another post.

Richard Goodall Underground Store: Read JS Review | Buy It (prices vary; shown as 1)

The only place to go for the biggest selection of everything urban artsy. Aside from the tragic exchange rate you’ll experience shopping here (if you live in the US), there is not one bummer about this art and culture superstore. Prints, originals, designer toys, skate decks — it’s a winter wonderland.

The crew at UNKL, famous for their UniPos, SUGs, and everything else they’ve ever done, just released something only the possessor of the finest Ivy-League education could contrive: UniPoker. Like it’s name suggests, UniPoker is a brilliant mix of fun and figurines, landing their owner with two of the four royal UniPo figures and a deck of customized playing cards. Common to anything good debuting this close to the holidays, the UniPoker set comes packaged in a “really cool collectible tin,” perfect for filling up with fifties — er, cookies — to take along to your next tournament. ‘Tis the season, y’all.

What’s that you say, you’ve made the complete switch from vinyl to digital with your music collection but something is missing. Maybe it’s your soul… or perhaps you’re feeling the void left by the lack of album art. What if we told you you could have your precious vinyl back complete with album art and no pesky, bulky, record player? With “Sound” a collaboration between Visionaire and MINI, the album is the art…The 4,000 limited edition case issue contains five vinyls, imprinted with customized images and 100 minutes of audio, from unreleased songs to spoken word recordings. The albums feature music from artists like U2 and Courtney Love and boasts design work from such luminaries as Karl Lagerfeld and Alexander McQueen…but that’s not all.

You won’t have to go to the attic and get out your old Technics turntable because the records come with their very own player in the form of a little MINI Clubman car. That’s right a little miniature battery operated car drives around the record to act as both the player and the sound system. If that doesn’t give new meaning to getting into the groove then I don’t know what does. However, If you can’t see yourself carrying around vinyl everywhere the cases will also contain CD editions of all the audio because you can’t really listen to vinyl on the run.

STRANGEco and Tokidoki just announced new additions to their collaborative collection of “The Cactus Friends” designed by Italian designer/Tokidoki co-creator Simone Legno. The Cactus Cats and Pups, (who, like their predecessors SANDy and Sabochan, wear suits of cactus thorns, to keep the meanies at bay) are three inches and one inch tall respectively, and will both become available in time for Christmas. While the two Cats will be individually sold in window boxes, collectors of the Pups will have to count on the luck of the draw, as all seven of the toys will be mystery-boxed. The Pups also come equipped with tiny doggy accessories, like dog bowls, sausages, and, um- stuff they dig up in the backyard… like skulls. Check out the entire STRANGEco/Tokidoki line here.

Related: STRANGEco/Tokidoki Archive

Tomorrow on oki-ni, a few lucky shoppers will be able to nab a new Evil Invader Dunny. The kidrobot x oki-ni collab, inspired by the 80’s video game, offers eight inches of pixelated love, and will be co-released with an even more exclusive matching hoody (coming to you in an exciting Fair Isle/double colorway print! Wowza!). Only 175 of the Dunnys and 50 of the hoodies will be up for grabs, so if you want to be one of the lucky few who get to wear the hoody while holding the Dunny (a feat which should subsequently land you a very hot girlfriend), you’d best be on your toes for the soon-to-come site update. Don’t forget that oki-ni is a London-based company, and to account for time differences accordingly.

We know being alone in your room at night can sometimes be scary, but owning a night light is not worth the subsequent ribbing you’ll receive from your friends for being afraid of the boogey man. Rather than spend the rest of your evenings cowering in fear with the lights out and the door open just a crack, why not find the sensible solution…something badass that glows in the dark! The newest series of glow-in-the-dark Smorkin’ Labbits designed by San Francisco-based artist Frank Kozik and manufactured by Kid Robot should do the trick; these lascivious light-filled labbits effectively illuminate the evening, giving off a blue or green glow (depending on which color you get) while taking a drag from a cigarette and keeping that monster under your bed at bay all at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking.

Vinyltoys Templates is a website that compiles the plans (blueprints?) for a wide variety of vinyl toys from manufacturers that span the alphabet from All City Style to Woodentoy. There are currently about 40 templates up for your downloading and hacking pleasure, with more to come. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that the information you will find on Vinyltoys Templates means absolutely nothing to this writer. I don’t know much about vinyl toys, nor do I know how to work with vinyl in any sort of artistic way (though I do believe I’ve done a good job of sitting on some vinyl car seats in my day…minus the sliding that takes place during sharp curves). But none of my shortcomings should stop any of you vinylphiles out there from getting high off the fumes and creativity involved in your hobby. If it’s your bag, consider this site your new best friend.