Awesome Living

Books and fire are a terrible combination (except as the premise of Fahrenheit 451), but reading and candles are perfect partners. Digital reading service, Scribd, teamed with Dorothy B & Co. on a fragrant candle scented with teak, sandalwood, patchouli, amyris, and dark musk. Includes a 3-month Scribd subscription.

Plan Station’s ingenious invention lets you add a desk anywhere you have some wall studs to hang it from. Simply load two 24″ x 48″ sheets of plywood into its nylon sleeves, and you’ll get a work surface and more than 20 pockets for pens, papers, and more. Great for construction sites, garages, or temporary work at home spaces.

Acebeam’s chunky handheld flashlight blasts out a retina-burning 32,500 lumens at its top setting. It’s machined from aircraft-grade aluminum, waterproof to IPX8 standards, and has a built in tripod mount. It’s so powerful at its highest settings that you need to wear gloves to protect from the heat it throws off.

Handmade by Taiwan’s 22STUDIO, this unique writing instrument features a body made from high-density concrete. This gives the pen and its matching desk stand an artful, modern look while adding heft and substance. Available in grey or red.

This handsome A5-size journal helps keep you organized and focused on your goals. It includes a number of planning templates for tracking ideas, timelines, budgets, personal health, and more. Its exterior features an elastic pocket for carrying your phone or other flat items, as well as a pen loop. It also has two page markers.

Accessory maker YSMART London updates its TIPEN compact titanium pen, refining its case design, and bestowing its rollerball with a durable silicon carbide tip that doubles as a tool for opening packages and prying lids. Its refill is custom-made, so we suggest ordering one of the kits that comes with spares. Available in four textures.

This premium carry-on bag features a durable polycarbonate shell and has multiple interior compartments for organizing clothes and accessories. It also has compression straps, a garment loop, a separate laundry compartment, and a TSA-compliant lock. An optional battery pack can charge devices via its two USB ports.

From the Beverly Hills bakery that invented the 24-hour cupcake ATM, Sprinkles is shipping cupcakes from coast-to-coast. Sprinkle a little love with the flash-frozen Holiday Box: Four Red Velvet, Four Vanilla, and Four Chocolate Peppermint cupcakes decorated with green trees, gingerbread, snowmen, and sprinkles. Order by 12.14.20.

This rubberized vinyl floor mat lets you create your own custom patterns. Each mat comes as a blank white canvas, along with 150 black hexagonal tiles which easily snap into place. The tiles are removable and repositionable, and you can buy additional tiles in a variety of colors.

Pairing sake with sushi is eight times better with this swimmingly fine sake set. Artist Kim Rody converts her marine paintings onto fine porcelain tableware such as this 5-piece, 8-legged charmer based on her original painting “Out of the Blue Octopus.” Confession – we can’t resist serving calamari on the matching platter.

Gazillions of packages are nabbed by porch pirates, especially during the holidays. The Yale Smart Delivery Box solves the problem with brains and brawn. When a package is placed inside, the Smart Cabinet Lock bolts the lid, notifies you, and remains locked until you open it with the Yale Access app, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri.

This versatile set of tools includes Off Grid’s Survival Axe, which incorporates 31 functions including a saw, hammer, glass breaker, belt cutter, and wrenches, plus the Survival Companion, which combines a knife sharpener, emergency whistle, firestarter, compass, and thermometer. The bundle includes a nylon axe sheath.

CruxGG’s slick red and black kitchen appliance looks like the official waffle maker of the Empire. It has dual, non-stick cooking surfaces so you can cook two large restaurant-style 7″ Belgian waffles at the same time. It offfers six browning settings, and rotates for evenly-cooked waffles every time.

This pocket-sized flashlight emits a high-efficiency 365nm ultraviolet beam, perfect for charging up glow-in-the-dark items, as well as looking for dust, dirt, and other things not always visible to the naked eye. Features a waterproof body with a unique double-helix knurled texture. Note: Staring directly into UV light is not recommended.

Do you love the fruity flavor of Swedish Fish but want something that lasts longer? Well now you can get that same taste and brilliant red color in candy cane form. Forget boring old peppermint when the holidays roll around, and hand these out instead!

These super-sharp kitchen knives make quick work of cutting, chopping, and slicing. The set of four knives is made from high-carbon Japanese steel and feature a non-stick ceramic coating. By reducing the blade’s angle, they’re designed to slice more smoothly than other knives. Save 35% in The Awesomer Shop.

Do you or your kids digging into your piggy bank and take money out too often? The Lusen safe will help you resist that temptation, because it has no openings other than its money slot. This stainless steel cube must be cut open with power tools if you ever need to get money out. Measures 5.9″ x 5.9″ x 5.9″.

If you’re going to park your butt on an outdoor bench in the winter, it can be a jarring experience. HomeMadeModern wanted to improve upon the basic design, so he embedded a heated rubber mat in a DIY concrete bench. Heated seats are great in cars, so we imagine they’d be just as pleasant outdoors.

Was somebody on your list naughty this year? Insist that they clean up their act with Duke Cannon’s 10oz. bar of black soap. It’s formulated with activated charcoal for its cleansing properties and scented with black pepper and bergamot. We suggest pairing it with the Tactical Scrubber to really scour away misbehaviour.

Need a getaway from the daily grind? We’ve always wanted a custom-built cabin in the woods to escape the world. This 256-page book by Sofia Borges and Sven Ehmann offers a visual catalog of some of the world’s most bucolic hideouts. It’s a great source of architectural inspiration and relaxing thoughts.

Working from home doesn’t seem to have reduced the number of unnecessary work meetings. If you’re spending way more time on Zoom calls than you should be, then you need this mug from artist Will Bryant. The 14oz. diner mug says “I Survived Another Meeting” on one side, and “That Should Have Been an Email” on the other.

The James Brand’s pocket tool offers a smooth-spinning, magnetic hex-bit driver at one end, and a storage chamber at the other. Use it to hold bits when not in use, or use it as a cache for pills or rolled up cash. Made from aluminum with a black anodized finish, and includes Phillips, Torx, and slotted bits.

With today’s giant game consoles, it’s time to upgrade your media furniture. BDI’s cabinets look fantastic, hiding electronics on removable/movable shelves, with flow-through ventilation, cable management, and remote-friendly doors. Our faves are the Align 7479, Corridor 8179 and Elements 8779 with its artful laser-cut doors.