Jewel artist Jackie Kaufman has sniffed out a way to help pet owners keep they’re beloved companions close even after they’ve left this world. She creates beautiful sterling silver jewelry based on molds of animal snouts and paws.

Jackie creates all kinds of beautiful accessories, all of which you can see at her Etsy shop, but she’s best known for her unique series of animal mold pieces. She got the idea after she was approached by a client who owned a terminally ill dog, and has been creating them ever since. First, Jackie sends her clients special molds with which they can take highly detailed impressions of their animal’s noses and paws, and when she receives them she hand-casts them in sterling silver rings, pendants, bracelets and other accessories. The pet’s name or a special message can also be engraved on the back.

Owning such unusual jewelry is definitely a sign of love for your pet, but how does one get a dog or cat to wear a mold on its nose, even for a short while? My dog barely lets me touch his nose, let alone grab it and cover it with something. And how does the animal breathe when his nose is covered?

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A full-scale replica of the iconic house from the movie “Up”, complete with small details from Disney/Pixar’s animation, is being built in the city of Herriman, Utah.

Utah fans looking to feast their eyes on some real-life Disney magic won’t have to take the trip to California anymore, as a real masterpiece starts to take shape a lot closer to home, in Herriman. Blair Bangerter, one of the three brothers in charge of Bangerter Homes – a custom home building company – said: “I was just watching the movie, and thought, ‘We build houses kind of like that, ’” So after getting the go-ahead from Disney, they started recreating Carl and Ellie’s house from “Up”, while making some modifications of their own.

While the laws of physics may not apply to cartoons, they do apply in real life, so in order to make this house safe, the Bangerters had to make some changes: the house is now a narrow rectangle rather than a square, and the chimney and fireplace have been modified so they actually match up in real life. But, according to Adam Bangerter “ff you see it in the movie, you are going to see it in real life here”. The outside is painted in sherbet shades and there is even a replica of Carl and Ellie’s hand-printed mailbox and custom-made garden hose reel. And the movie details continue inside: the upstairs nursery has the same mural Ellie paints in the film, her and Carl’s armchairs have been custom ordered to match those in the animation, and there is a painting of fictional Paradise Falls over the mantle and a custom-made fireplace.

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As you probably know, weddings these days aren’t cheap, and a big part of the budget is reserved for the bride’s wedding dress. But for the last few years, the guys at Cheap Chic Weddings have organised a contest to show a beautiful dress can be made from the simplest, cheapest materials, even from toilet paper.

Almost 1,000 toilet paper wedding dresses were designed and created for the 7th Annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, many of which were so well executed most people would have a problem telling them apart from expensive fabric creations. Participants were allowed to use as much toilet paper as they needed, as well as glue, tape and sewing thread. Dresses were judged on creativity, originality and the use of toilet paper.

This year’s first place went to Sussan Brennan, from Orchard Lake, Michigan, for her nature-inspired gown. She used just 4 rolls of toilet paper, hot glue and packaging tape, but managed to snatch the $1,000 grand prize.

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Ahans 76, member of the Playstation Collecting Community, probably deserves the title of King of PS2 Collectors, after he managed to acquire a brand new, sealed copy of every game ever released for the PlayStation 2.

We’ve featured some pretty impressive collections on Oddity Central, bust as a fellow gamer, I find this one particularly awesome. What I can’t understand is how someone can just collect these games and not be tempted to open one of them and just pop into the console, to check it out. But that’s just the kind of self control and ambition that describes a video-game completionist (a person who goes after every title ever released for a console) and that’s why we don’t see that many of them. The PS2 game library is particularly large, with 1,850 original titles released, and many would have said trying to collect a copy of each is impossible, but not anymore.

Ahans 76 says his passion for collecting video-game related items can be traced back to when he was 16 years old. He saw a Sega Game Gear handheld, in the window of a Game Crazy shop, and since he had always wanted yo own one as a kid, but never got the chance, he bought it on the spot. This awakened his collector’s spirit and made him consider collecting more video games and consoles. As far as his unique PS 2 game collection is concerned, he didn’t go for the full library from the start, he more like fell into it. He was buying a lot more games than he could play, and at one stage he had about 300 to 400 sealed games, so he looked on the Internet to see how many other games here were and landed on a website where it said the PS 2 had 800 games. Seeing he was already half through, he decided to go for the whole collection.

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One of the most bizarre concepts introduced this year, AutoWed is essentially a wedding vending machine that will get you and your loved one hitched in minutes, for just $1.

Sure, an automated wedding machine pretty much takes all the romance out of the whole deal, but with weddings getting more and more expensive every year, people seem to be welcoming any cheap alternative with open arms. Such was the case with Concept Shed’s latest project, AutoWed. The English company managed to create what can best be described as a wedding vending machine that will do the job quicker and cheaper than a priest, minister, rabbi, or any other religious figure.

It’s part parking meter, part pink Cadillac, part cathedral and part steampunk installation, and the ceremony isn’t exactly on par with what you’ve seen at conventional weddings, but it gets the job done and for just $1. The 8-feet-tall piece of machinery features wedding music and a weird robotic voice that prompts you to press a bunch of keys in order to keep the weeding going, after you’ve inserted the mandatory coins. You start by choosing between a straight, gay or lesbian marriage and a friends forever ceremony, then you input your names and can press 1 for “I do” or 2 for “Escape”. At the end, AutoWed lets you kiss the bride and even dispenses a receipt and two plastic rings to commemorate this special day.

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Cacao, a 16-year-old mixed-breed dog, from Milan, Italy, has become somewhat of a celebrity after he appeared in local papers for his weird habit of taking the bus to his favorite spot in the city.

A true “Milanese”, Cacao knows the city by heart, some would say even better than some of his fellow human inhabitants, and his weekend antics  are clear proof. Almost every day, for the last few years, Cacao leaves his master’s home and heads for the bus stop on Arrgone Bouleverd. There he sits on his backside, alongside the other human commuters, waiting for bus 54. As it approaches the station, he prickles his ears and takes a good look at who’s sitting in the driver’s seat. You see, this four-legged rascal only takes the bus when it’s driven by the driver he’s known since he first started his secret trips. After he makes sure he’s got the right driver, Cacao leaps on the bus and waits quietly until he reaches his destination – Lambrate Station, in north-eastern Milan. You’d think he has a certain reason for taking the bus here, but Cacao just loiters in the public garden for a few hours, then when he’s tired, takes the bus home. Luckily, his old friend the bus driver always ignores regulations, at his own risk, and allows to ride on the bus.

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Heidemarie Schwermer, a 69-year-old woman from Germany, gave up using money 15 years ago and says she’s been much happier ever since.

Heidemarie’s incredible story began 22 years ago, when she, a middle-aged secondary school teacher emerging from a difficult marriage, took her two children and moved to the city of Dortmund, in Germany’s Ruhr area. One of the first things she noticed was the large number of homeless people, and this shocked her so much that she decided to actually do something about it. She had always believed the homeless didn’t need actual money to be accepted back into society, only a chance to empower themselves by making themselves useful, so she opened a Tauschring (swap shop), called “Gib und Nimm” (Give and Take).

Her small venture was a place where anyone could trade stuff and skills for other things and skills they needed, without a single coin or banknote changing hands. Old clothes could be traded in return for kitchen appliances, and car service rendered in return for plumbing services, and so on. The idea didn’t really attract many of Dortmund’s homeless, because, as some of them told her to her face, they didn’t feel an educated middle-class woman could relate to their situation. Instead, her small shop was assaulted by many of the city’s unemployed and retired folk eager to trade their skills and old stuff for something they needed. Heidemarie Schwermer’s Tauschring eventually became somewhat of a phenomenon in Dortmund and even prompted its creator to ask herself some questions about the life she was living.

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Harry Potter fans around have crowned their king and his name is Steve Petrick. The 22-year-old, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has won the title of World’s Biggest Harry Potter Fan after entering an online contest, last year, and posting a video of why he should get first place.

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is the most successful film series in history, grossing billions of dollars at the box office and influencing the lives of millions of children around the world. But Steve Petrick was a die-hard fan of the fantasy world way before it was cool, and even though it pains him the movie series is coming to an end, he’ll be a fan even after its popularity wears off. A freshman fine arts major at Kent State, Petrick has been striving to become Harry Potter’s biggest fan since he first discovered Rowling’s books, and even though it took him 12 years to get the recognition he deserves, it’s never too late.

Steve Petrick got hooked on Harry Potter when he was just 11 years old. He had failed English class and his parents banned him from playing outside, so he found refuge in the wonderful world of Harry Potter. He has learned from the Harry Potter books than anything or anyone else in his life, and says “they might not mean something to everyone else, but they mean something to me.”

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Having a baby is a blessing, but taking care of a toddler is a full time job and hitting the gym on a regular basis gets pretty tough. Thankfully, Joshua Levitt’s book, Baby Barbells, teaches fathers how to spend time with their babies and stay fit at the same time.

Modern life makes it almost impossible for people to get everything done by doing one thing at a time, and for Joshua Levitt, a naturopathic physician, husband and father of three, going to the gym to do his works out was pretty much out of the question. Six months after his first baby was born, he realized that by trying to be a good father, husband and doctor,  he was neglecting his daily exercises; he was getting out of shape and he was feeling it. One day, after trying all the usual tricks to calm his baby daughter, he was lying down on his back and he began lifting her “baby up, baby down” and, apart from the fact that she appeared to enjoy it, Josh felt the burn in his triceps, and that’s when the idea for Baby Barbells was born.

It was multitasking at its finest, and thrilled, so thrilled by his discovery, Mr. Levitt began searching for other ways of incorporating fitness exercises in his fathering activities. He invented routines like Peek-a-boo Pop-ups, Lullaby Lunges or Tot Squats and included them all in a clever illustrated book called “Baby Barbells: The Dad’s Guide to Fitness and Fathering” that helps dads tone their muscles while interacting with their kids.

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Brendan Jamison is a young contemporary artist who creates arguably the sweetest sculptures in the world, literally. His designs are top notch, but its the sugar cubes he uses as building material that make his works irresistible.

31-year-old Jamison, from Belfast Northern Ireland, first started using sugar cubes as building blocks for large scale buildings in 2004, when he created a series of 9-foot-tall minaret-style buildings. They caused quite a stir in the art world, and even caught the eyes of building developers, many of which commissioned him to create sweet models of their architectural projects.

Although he has worked with a variety of materials throughout his artistic career, including  bronze, wood and wool, it’s safe to say it was his sugar-cube creations that brought him international recognition. “Sugar is a beautiful material to work with, it can be cut and carved into organic shapes, and the sugar crystals can provide a sparkling surface in natural light”, Jamison says about his favorite medium.

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Peter Lardong, from Berlin, Germany, was the first man to produce a playable chocolate record that could be listened to and eaten once you got bored with it.

67-year-old Lardong invented his world famous chocolate records after he was fired from a local brewery. He tried using cheese, butter, beer, cola and sausages as materials for his unusual records, but none of them worked very well, but chocolate was a whole other matter. He uses cocoa, cocoa butter and lecithin to make his special chocolate, heats it in on the stove and pours it in specially made silicone molds. Once the disk is hard enough to be played, you can play it up to twelve times, and then it. I’m not sure you’ll be able to use the record player’s stylus after playing a chocolate record, but hey, at least you’ll have listened to the sweetest music on Earth.

Apparently, the chocolate record isn’t the only brilliant thing Peter Lardong has invented, in fact he’s been a regular at Berlin’s Patent Office for the last 30 years.

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English graphic designer, David Meldrum, also known as The Food Illustrator, has kept a record of everything he has eaten and drunk for an entire year, by creating 365 illustrations.

Wanting to create a historical record not only of what he ate, but of today’s food related trends, packaging, design and typography, David Meldrum began his Food Illustrator project on June 15, 2010, and kept track of every little thing he consumed by drawing his every meal in a sketchbook he kept on him at all times. It was a pretty tough challenge, but he never missed a day, as that would have meant cheating himself and his work. David used acrylic, collage, watercolour, pen and ink to create his illustrations.

The Food Illustrator ended on June 14, 2011 and the result was a shockingly realistic food diary of an average person’s diet, with 1,360 consumed cups of coffee, 305 pints of Peroni lager, 122 Freddo chocolate bars, spaghetti, salads and McDonald’s fast food. All of his 365 colorful illustrations were on display through June 26, at the Arch 402 Gallery, in London, and art lovers could buy them.

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In the Spanish town of La Otorava, Tenerife, the festival of Corpus Christi Festival is celebrated by lining the streets with beautiful themed carpets made from flower petals and colored volcanic sand.

Featuring some of the most fragrant art displays in the world, the feast of Corpus Christi attracts thousands of visitors from all around the world, eager to see what the skilled alfombras (carpet makers) come up with every year. In the Canary islands, Corpus Christi has been celebrated for the last 300 years, but the first person to ever create a flower carpet is believed to be Leonor de Castillo Monteverde, who in 1847 decided it would be a good idea to decorate the road in front of her house with flower petals, for the procession to walk over. It measured only three square meters, but made a strong impact on the community, and eventually became a local tradition. In the 164 years since then , La Otrava flower and sand carpets have only been suspended twice, in 1891 and 1897.

The tradition of making large carpets with scented flower petals and volcanic sand from the foothills of Mount Teide has come a long way since its humble beginnings and the artworks are becoming more spectacular with each passing year. Several days before the celebration, local families and even design companies draw the carpets on paper, and on the big day, men and children draw the outline on the streets, while women fill the designs with various flower petals. All the locals get involved in this beautiful celebration and create a truly pleasant atmosphere.

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Every year, the small town of Haro, one of the biggest wine producers in Spain, hosts the traditional “Batalla del Vino”, the Wine Battle, where participants throw tons of red wine at each other.

Part of the Haro Wine Festival, the annual Wine Battle takes place on June 29, the day of the patron saint San Pedro, and is attended by thousand of people from La Rioja region of northern Spain. The day starts early, at 7 am, with the town mayor parading through the town, on horseback. The procession of people old and young, dressed in white clothes, wearing red scarves and carrying all kinds of wine-filled recipients, follows him on foot through the nearby Mountains of Bilibio, all the way to a small chapel of San Felices. It’s a 7 km walk from Haro, but the fun everyone has after the short mass performed there.

As soon as the mass ends, the wine battle begins. Some people pour buckets of red wine on each other, other sprinkle it from water guns, or throw bags filled with wine. It’s really up to the participants what kind of “weapons” they choose to bring to the Haro Wine Battle, as long as they don’t cause injuries and are full of wine. After a few hours of bathing in wine, the whole mountain smells like a regular bodega, and everyone’s clothes go from white to purple. It’s estimated over 50,000 liters of wine are used every year, during this unique event.

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The last “world’s largest hamburger” weighed a massive 590 pounds, but that didn’t stop Brett Enright from blowing it right out of the water with an even bigger calorie bomb.

Enright, CEO of Juicys traveling barbecue catering service, first thought about attempting to make the world’s largest hamburger last December, while on vacation. He looked up the Guinness Record for the world’s biggest burger, and after a talk with Nick Nicora, co-owner of Ovation Food Services, he decided to try and beat it, at this year’s Alameda County Fair.

On July 2, at 5 am, Brett and his helpers started working on their fast-food monster, by preparing 600 pounds of meat, which they expected would shrink to 400 pounds, after cooking. Then they molded 340 pounds of dough into two buns, which after baking were covered with 50 pounds of cheese, 20 pounds of onions, 30 pounds of lettuce, 13 pounds of pickles and 20 pounds of mustard and ketchup (10 of each). The burger itself was cooked on a giant, mobile barbecue called The Outlaw Grill. This mean contraption spends most of the year on the road, traveling from NASCAR events to concerts and fairs, cooking up a storm wherever it goes. This huge burger was its biggest challenge yet.

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