I recently discovered de.licio.us, a popular social bookmarking website while looking for a way to promote my online store. At the time (this was about a year ago) I found the concept very innovative, but never really got into the whole social bookmarking scene. Recently, I re-discovered social bookmarking through my sister.

One of the sites she introduced to me was StumbleUpon, a very active community of social bookmarking addicts such as myself (I admit, I am definitely obsessed and totally addicted). StumbleUpon also has photo-blogging available. For those of you that love uncovering weird and interesting new sites I would recommend registering at their site now. The stumble! button is addictive and oh-so-fun to click on and discover new sites. A few days ago while I was ’stumbling’, I came across a Japanese store selling some very intriguing products – one of which is the topic of this blog post.

These cute dolls aren’t just for decoration. They’re called Hanakotoba and they are plant communication dolls. You can use them with any of your indoor plants by putting the stem of the Hanakotoba into either your plant’s soil or water. The Hanakotoba has a 200 word vocabulary (Japanese) and can communicate your plants needs (e.g. when it needs to be watered).

I often think Japanese products don’t really meet an actual need (I can’t imagine anyone would need one of these in their home!) but instead try to create demand for unnecessary wants. Although I really can’t think of anyone I know that would buy one of these dolls to remind them to water their plants!

Source: Japan Trend Shop

Price: $69.00