Awesome Living

If you’ve seen the Coen Brothers’ film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, you’ll immediately recognize the song I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow, made famous by The Soggy Bottom Boys. Singer Geoff Castellucci sang all parts of the American folk classic and embellished the track with his impressive low bass vocals.

This teensy flashlight from CountyComm is great for a keychain, zipper pull, or lanyard. It features a 6500K cool white ORAM LED and can output up to 610 lumens in turbo mode. Despite its size, it can throw a beam up to 490 feet. Runs on a USB-C rechargeable 10180 lithium cell battery. Just don’t expect long runtimes.

You might not think a bandana could save your life, but this one could. Colter Co.’s clever Stayin’ Alive survival bandana is printed with tips to help you build shelter, find water, make fire, and hunt and gather food. Its bright orange background and reflective ink help mark your location too. They also make a knot tying and animal track identification bandanas.

This old-fashioned stainless steel ice cream scoop carves out perfect cylinders instead of spheres, resulting in larger, taller scoops, and a unique presentation for frozen desserts. Just press into ice cream, and pull the trigger above your cone or bowl.

Is your day feeling like a dumpster fire? Embrace the chaos with this desktop organizer from Fred. It’s made from MDF wood done up in an authentic dumpster color scheme. It offers a place to store pens, pencils and includes 100+ flame-shaped notecards. Just don’t actually light it on fire.

Peeling stickers off of surfaces can be a pain. Dreamfarm’s Cleana is a plastic scraping tool that won’t scratch your stuff and gets underneath stubborn stickers without using your fingernails. It has a flat front blade and a flip-out hook scraper for cleaning crevices. A built-in sharpener in the handle refreshes its main blade 1000+ times. Sold in a 2-pack.

The Better Together Daily Bag is a great size for carrying small electronics, accessories, passports, notepads, and other everyday items. It’s made from water-resistant nylon and has a front compartment with card and gear slots, a larger main compartment, and a side pocket. It has a built-in carrying handle and comes with a removable shoulder strap.

Kizen’s compact LED lantern is perfect for campsites, or anywhere you need a little extra light. It collapses down to about the size of a hockey puck and can juice up via USB or a built-in solar panel, and its rechargeable battery can be used as a phone charger in an emergency. It comes in blue or yellow.

Following in the footsteps of their Indigo Gin, Empress 1908’s Elderflower Rose Gin pays homage to the distillery’s home city of Victoria, BC, AKA the City of Gardens. Inspired by Victoria’s flowers, Empress Elderflower Rose Gin has a bright floral bouquet of nine botanicals, including red rose petals, elderflowers, lavender, and black carrot.

This unique desk clock combines vintage tech with natural looks. At its center is an exposed circuit board with vintage IV-9 Nixie tubes. A hardwood frame complements the warm orange glow of its tubes. Its circuitry includes a DS3231 clock chip and an ESP8266 wi-fi module to maintain accurate time via the internet. It measures 4.92″ x 4.92″ x 2.12″.

This substantial folding utility knife from EDC Monster has a cool cyberpunk look and a roller-bearing mechanism that opens with one hand. Its handle is made from sandblasted grade 5 titanium and accepts standard SK5 utility blades. It’s also TSA-safe if you remove its blade and install one at your destination.

NEMO’s Moonlite Elite backpacking chair weighs just 1.1 pounds and packs up small. Its aluminum frame holds up to 250 pounds, and its suspension system is made from strong but light HTP and Dyneema fibers. Its adjustable reclining system lets you sit upright for dining, conversing, or relaxing. It comes in Citron yellow, Goodnight grey, and Cipher camo.

The BEAST (Bigfoot Expedition and Survival Tool) from is a compact multitool you can carry on your belt loop, keychain, or backpack. It packs Phillips and flathead screwdrivers, a 1/4″ hex driver, a rope cutter, a wire stripper, metric wrenches, a box opener, a ruler, a box cutter, and the oh-so-essential Sasquatch identification viewfinder.

Sober curious? Wet your whistle during Dry January with the line of non-alcoholic liqueurs by premium French liqueur maker Giffard. Drawing on five generations of know-how Giffard uses the same fruits and plants as their liqueurs, extracting essential flavors — Elderflower, Ginger, Grapefruit, Pineapple — through traditional maceration techniques.

Heat therapy can help you sweat out toxins and reduce stress. Now you can have a steam sauna wherever you’ve got an outlet, and without breaking the bank. The Saunabox features an easy-to-assemble frame, a thermally-insulated cover, and a portable steam unit. The SmartSteam Kit also includes a folding chair, a floor mat, and a carrying case.

This compact cutlery kit is great for dining outdoors and for reducing environmental waste from plastic utensils. It includes a stainless steel spoon, fork, and serrated knife, which stack and hold together using magnets. Each utensil has a handle that folds out and locks securely in place.

Tactica’s compact camping tool is small enough to put in your pocket or hang from your bag strap. The stainless steel multitool was engineered for everyday outdoor tasks and has a ferro rod firestarter, a rope cutter with straight and serrated edges, a tent peg puller, and a bottle opener. Available in orange, silver, or black finishes.

In this video from metalworker Koss, he shows how he created a sleek, modern dagger. He meticulously machined its tapered blade from W1-7 high-carbon steel and crafted its handle and matching sheath from hollow copper tubing. Its shape reminds us of a letter opener, but this is a serious knife. We love the bevel detailing on the ends.

Coppertist.Wu’s brass bottle opener gives you the rare opportunity to hold a scorpion in your hand without the risk of getting stung. The design is based on the deadly Brazilian yellow scorpion and is incredibly detailed, down to the critter’s leg joints, pincers, and terrifying tail stinger.

Keep your small tools, knives, and other everyday items in this mid-sized gear pouch from Superior Threadworks. It’s handmade from hard-wearing Cordura nylon and has straps and pockets for organization, a heavy-duty zipper, and a large Velcro area for displaying patches. Available in a variety of flat colors, woodland camo, and brilliant blaze orange.

You only need to overtighten and break one object in a vise, and you’ll realize there’s value in a vise that can automatically adjust its grip to hold items at a set intensity level. The MakaGiC VS01 motorized vise grips items with the push of a button and holds items up to 125 mm (4.92″) wide. An add-on work light includes a magnifier for working on small parts.

This expansive reference guide from Chronicle Books provides detailed information on hundreds of tools. The 288-page book catalogs their uses and the differences between similar tools, arranged by function: measuring, cutting, fastening, and shaping.