French street-artist Thierry Guetta, also known as Mr. Brainwash, has created a series of portraits of international pop icons, out of broken vinyls and CDs.

Mr. Brainwash, rumored to be friends with legendary street artist Banksy, has probably smashed thousands of old vinyls into pieces, to create the artworks for his latest collection, entitled “Icons”. Though they all look like they’ve been drawn with a stencil, each of them is made exclusively out of broken pieces of vinyl and CDs. The intricate facial expressions were achieved by using quarter inch vinyl cuts, while chiseled CDs were used to reproduce the shine of sunglasses.

“I had to find something that nobody in the world of art had done. I wanted to take singers that spent their whole lives singing for us and make them live forever with what they sold.” Mr. Brainwash said about his incredible vinyl portraits.

His unique portrait of Jim Morrison reportedly sold for $100,000, and others had a price tag of three times that much.

Read More »

Michigan-based artist Laura Bell has created a unique replica of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, exclusively out of colored laundry lint. The fluffy masterpiece measures 14 feet long by 4 feet tall.

The amateur artist from Roscommon, Michigan, was inspired to create this amazing artwork 10 years ago, when she saw a laundry lint portrait at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Wisconsin Dells Odditorium. In 2009, encouraged by her husband, Laura began working on her one-of-kind replica of The Last Supper, for the 2010 Art Prize competition, held in Grand Rapids.

As you can imagine, making a painting from laundry lint couldn’t have been easy. Laura Bell spent seven months just collecting the laundry lint she needed for her special project. The lint she collected from her own dryer was always the same color, so she tried laundramat lint, but that always had shades of gray. Eventually, she ended up buying different color towels and washing and drying them separately, to get just the right colors for her masterpiece.

Laura estimates she spent 700-800 hours just doing laundry to collect the needed material, plus another 200 hours putting it together in her unusual replica of The Last Supper. The artist says most people who see it are amazed it was created out of basic laundry lint that hasn’t been colored or dyed, while for some, seeing such a unique work of art is a spiritual experience.

Laura Bell’s The Last Supper made from lint was recently acquired by Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, and will soon find its place in one of the company’s 32 odditoriums around the world.

Read More »

A 700-feet-long knitted ski hat, made in 1977, by Ginny Woodward, was recently showcased during Sandpoint’s Winter Carnival.

The Guinness Book of Records official website the record for the longest knitted hat is held by Germany, for a giant Santa Claus hat 22-feet-long and 49 feet in circumference. But the people of Sandpoint, Idaho have recently submitted an application for what they claim is truly the world’s longest ski hat, and to show they’re serious about their claim, they took the 700-meter-long ski hat for an outing, during the annual Sandpoint Winter Carnival.

According to press clippings at the Bonner County Historical Society & Museum, the hat was knitted back in 1977, by locals Ginny Woodward and Scott Hadley, who were looking for something to distract them from the long winters in the Panhandle. It was made using a punch card-operated knitting machine and weighs an impressive 80 pounds.

The world’s longest ski hat features 539 advertising panels of local business from around Sandpoint and Bonner County, in 1977. Out all these, only 25 are still around today.

Read More »

Now here’s an invention with a lot of potential – an ATM full of plates, glasses and porcelain figurines that you can break to calm yourself down.

If you haven’t done it yourself, I’m sure you’ve seen it in movies – breaking stuff to calm the nerves. Most housewives prefer kitchen items, like plates or glasses, but porcelain decorations work just as well. Pick them up, smash them into the floor/wall and feel yourself calm down almost instantly. It’s called destruction therapy, or destructotherapy and it really works (trust me on this one). The only problem is you can’t really practice it wherever you are, unless you fancy carrying a bunch of plates with you wherever you go.

Luckily designers Ronnie Yarisal and Katja Kublitz at Yarisal & Kublitz have come up with an ingenious solution – an ATM machine filled with whatever item you feel like smashing to calm down and release the pressure. Just like with other dispensers, all you have to do is punch in the product code, insert some coins, and there you have it – instant anger management session.

Brilliant idea, home someone actually starts producing these things.

Read More »

Sadie, a four-year-old Terrier-cross has learned to do pretty much everything her paralyzed owner can’t do anymore, including shopping and washing laundry.

Sue Line was paralyzed from the waist down, 40 years ago, after she was thrown from a car during a New Year’s Eve smash. Her family has always been very supportive, always helping her with daily chores, but four years ago she thought about getting a dog, for companionship. She brought Sadie home when she was just a few weeks old, and noticed her intelligence right from the start. But it wasn’t until she received training at dog charity – Dog AID (Assistance in Disability) that Sadie reached her full potential.

In just two years’ time, this amazing canine learned an almost endless list of ways to help her owner and improve her quality of life. When they go shopping together, Sadie always carries the bag, picks up groceries, and even reaches for the money in Sue’s purse, and hands it over to the store clerk. She also fills the washing machine, separating the loads into whites and darks, and locking the machine door before the washing cycle begins. She gets Sue her phone whenever it starts ringing, brings her the mail and even helps her undress.

Ms. Line says the hardest thing to teach Sadie was to ignore the smell of food when they go into restaurants. At first she was drooling all over the place, but after a few training sessions she’s now in complete control. The 61-year-old retired health trust manager, from Coventry, Britain, says Sadie has helped her regain some of her independence and gave her loved ones some time to breath, knowing Sadie’s on the job.

Read More »

Whether it’s by tuning their cars or driving them like madmen, car enthusiasts are always looking for ways to stand out, and now, thanks to the Cruisin Caskets, they can even go out in style.

However scary and sad, death is a part of life, so if you can’t cheat it, why not make the most of it? For car lovers who want to take their passion for automobiles in the grave with them, the guys at Cruisin Caskets offer the perfect solution – a car-shaped coffin made of fiber glass that can be shaped like any model car, from the 50s classics to today’s futuristic rides.

This “perfect way for the car aficionado to express their love for cars” can be converted into a nice-looking beer cooler, before it serves its permanent purpose, but the idea of seeing what’s to be my final resting place every time I want a beer doesn’t make much sense to me. Read More »

Most entrepreneurs probably think he’s crazy, but a young café owner from the Czech Republic claims scraping the price list was the best move for his business.

42-year-old Ondrej Lebowski remembers just a while ago he was struggling to keep his café business afloat,  but now he says his place in Prague is packed all the time. The secret to this amazing comeback – scraping the price list for customers. Clients simply set their own prices for what they drink, usually depending on the service and how tasty the drink is.

Read More »

Kayla Martell, a 21-year-old beauty pageant contestant, proved you don’t need natural hair to win a beauty contest, when she brought home the title of Miss Delaware and qualified for Miss America.

Young Kayla suffers from alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that attacks her hair follicles and practically causes baldness. Despite her condition, Miss Martell competed in the beauty contest several times, but was finally thinking of giving up her dream of winning the Miss Delaware title. A meeting with five-year-old Lilliana Hakim, who suffered from the same condition she did, changed her mind and inspired her to keep on trying. And this time around, her dream came true as she was named Miss Delaware and got to represent her home state in the Miss America beauty pageant.

Some say Kayla Martell won the title because, unlike the previous times she competed, she wore a wig to conceal her condition. Asked how she feels on the matter, the bubbly beauty queen responded “not at all. I hope the judges picked me because I knew I could fulfill the jobs of Miss Delaware.” She added that she only wears the wig on occasions, because it makes her feel more approachable, but she usually prefers the natural look.

Kayla started losing her hair when she was just 10 years old. She noticed her part was widening, and when that turned into a bald spot, doctors diagnosed her with alopecia areata. Though it wasn’t easy going through her teen years with a disease like this, she handled it with grace, and is now using her position as Miss Delaware to find and help other people who have alopecia.

Read More »

Using only human hair and glue, Seattle-based artist Adrienne Antonson creates realistic insects that are both beautiful and creepy, at the same time.

“Inspired by the bizarre behaviors and ingenious evolutionary developments of the insect world”, Adrienne chose hair as the perfect medium for her little bugs. She has always been fascinated by its historical implications and various uses across man’s history, and as a person interested in sustainable and self-supporting systems, she decided it was perfect for the job. Obviously, the whole attraction/repulsion theme was also very intriguing.

Adrienne doesn’t use any hair to create her intricate insects, she only uses her own and the hair of her close friends and family. This way the meticulous process of creating hair insects becomes much more intimate and makes her feel like she’s connected to her close ones, through her work.

Though it may not appear so, the artist only uses human hair and glue to create her impressive insects, but a look through the magnifying glass reveals their complexity and the amount of work she puts into every one of her bugs. Some of them look so real you’re just waiting for them to jump of fly off, while some are clear figments of her imagination, but all of Adrienne’s hair insects are equally fascinating.

Read More »

Design Panoptikum is a unique Berlin museum featuring all kinds of rare and unusual items collected by Russian-born artist Vlad Korneev.

“A Panoptikum”, Korneev says, “is a collection of extraordinary or rare objects” and he really couldn’t find a better way to describe his quirky museum on Torstraße Street, in Berlin. The moment you set foot in his Design Panoptikum, you find yourself surrounded with all kinds of bizarre things, from funky clocks, to odd-looking medical equipment, and even a life-size Power Ranger brought in from Japan.

Vlad Korneev handpicks the exhibits in his museum, from his secret back-alley store, from eBay and even from the junkyard. He carefully and patiently restores every one of them and then proudly displays them in his panoptikum. Visitors can purchase most of the merchandise shown in the main rooms, but the backrooms hold some truly special exhibits that are not for sale, but can be rented for film or fashion shoots. When asked where can find, let’s say, an old airplane engine, Korneev gracefully avoids a straight answer, as his sources are an important secret of the trade.

Among the rarest objects you can find in the Design Panoptikum are a talking dispensing machine, an old birthing doll, one of the earliest electric sun lamps and many other devices that make Vlad Korneev’s museum look like mad scientist’s lab.

Read More »

Terje Isungset, one of the world’s most talented percussionists, creates ice music with instruments he carves out of pure glacier ice.

Born in the Norwegian village of Geilo, Isungset grew up surrounded by a family of musicians, and grew up to be one of the most innovative percussionists of our time, Over the years, he has created musical instruments out of natural materials like arctic birch, granite, slate, but the thing he is most passionate about is making ice music, a style that he pioneered through the creation of ice instruments.

Isungset first fell in love with ice music in the year 2000, when the commission for the Lillehammer Winter Olympic Games asked him to compose and play in a frozen waterfall. He was already renown for creating musical instruments out of other primitive materials, but he had never worked with ice. He took it as a challenge and managed to compose a greatly appreciated minimalist composition with just whatever the river provided – ice, water, stone and some wood.

Terje Isungset describes the process of making ice music and ice instruments as hard work and a continuing learning process. Most of his tools are made of pure glacier ice, so clear you can see through meters of it. He just cuts the ice cubes with a knife and carves them into instruments. Most of his creations are percussion tools, but he has been known to make an ice guitar, an ice harp, a trumpet and even a fiddle.

While Terje Isungset’s ice music can’t exactly be referred to as radically new (considering man actually started making using with whatever materials nature provided him with), it’s definitely a breath of fresh air, in this modern age.

Read More »

Jim Woodring, creator of a series of popular comic books, has unveiled a seven-foot-long pen that actually works.

The recently finished writing tool, dubbed “Nibbus Maximus” was recently showcased at the Gage Academy of Art, in Seattle, in front of over one hundred people. Considering this was practically the first time he used the Nibbus Maximus, apart from a few tests he did with the nib, he handled it pretty well and managed to both write and draw with it.

While attaching a 1 1/2 foot-long nib to a 5 1/2 foot-long wooden handle may not seem very difficult to do, there’s a reason most people thought it couldn’t be done. Jim put a lot of effort into making the tip of his giant pen, especially getting the surface tension just right, so it holds the ink and releases it on paper, properly. Eventually, his beautiful hand-engraved, brass-plated steel nib did just what it was designed to do.

But why go through the trouble of making a giant tool, like the Nibbus Maximus, right? Well, because people said it couldn’t be done and Jim Woodring knew that it could, so he just had to prove it to everybody.

Read More »

A Chinese family claims property developers have demolished the staircase in their apartment building to force them to move out.

What do you do when you really need a piece of land, but just can’t talk one last family into giving up their home? That calls for desperate measures, but this developer went a bit too far when it decided to actually destroy an entire staircase, to prevent a family from reaching their home on the top floor.

According to 42-year-old Zhao Yanhong, the Mianyang Yachuan Property Company wants to tear down this apartment building, in order to build a much more profitable factory, and her family is all that stands in their way. Apparently, they hired thugs to “convince” other residents to leave their homes, but there was no forcing out the family on the seventh floor. So, one day, they turned up with machinery that knocked down the entire staircase, all the way to that last apartment.

Now, the remaining residents can only enter and exit their home through ladders and climbing what’s left of the old staircase, which is very dangerous. They’ve already sued the property developer, and judges have ordered that all work be suspended for six months, while they investigate. Also, a new staircase is to be constructed for Yahong’s family.

Read More »

Can you bring dead wood back to life? No, but you can turn them into trees again! This was the slogan that fueled Greenpeace and Ogvily’s campaign to help people realize the dangers of cutting down millions of trees to create disposable chopsticks.

Two hundred volunteers from various Beijing universities answered Greenpeace’s call and set out to gather 80,000 used wooden chopsticks, from restaurants around the Chinese capital. They cleaned them all up and then assisted artist Xu Yinhai in assembling them into four life-like trees. It was no easy task, but Green peace hopes this effort will inspire Chinese people to be more conscientious about their use of resources.

According to statistics from China’s Forest Ministry, the country produces 57 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks, which require over 1.18 million square meters of forests. Since China’s wood resources are very limited (ranking 139th in the world) its people have to ask themselves if it’s worth sacrificing 3.8 million trees a year, for something they just throw away after a meal.

The chopstick trees were planted on December 20, 2010, in one of the most popular malls in Beijing, The Place, in the Chaoyang district, and are planned to be displayed at universities and art venues around the city.

Read More »

The winter holidays are now behind us, but it seems I missed one of the biggest pranks of 2010 – the green river of Goldstream Park.

It happened on December 29, 2010, in Victoria’s peaceful Goldstream Park. The waters of the river suddenly became neon green, and everyone passing by it rubbed their eyes to make sure what they were seeing wasn’t just an illusion. It was very real, but was it that made Goldstream River look so alien-like? After an hour or so, the fluorescent coloring vanished, but the questions about the bizarre phenomenon remained unanswered.

After analyzing the neon-green water, the local Environment Ministry said it was the result of a chemical called “fluorescein”. Neither the substance itself nor its products of degradation are toxic, and experts believe that fish and their habitat were not affected, judging by the concentration and flow rate of the river.

Authorities haven’t yet identified the culprits, but believed the dumping of fluorescein in the Goldstream River was just a holiday season prank.

Read More »