Playable Guitar Made with Popsicle Sticks

Actually making a playable guitar is hard enough, but making it using just popsicle sticks, some glues and basic house tools seems nearly impossible. Still, someone managed to do it.

Instructables user busupholstery managed to leave everyone speechless when he uploaded photos of the guitar he made, using posicle sticks. He bought 4,000 of them, worth $900, and ended up using 2,000 to create his DIY masterpiece. Using his own Gremlin parlor size guitar as a pattern, he spent 240 hours gluing and cutting popsicle sticks, until his unusual guitar was completed.

The most amazing thing about this man’s achievement is that he managed to build a popsicle stick guitar, somewhere in Costa Rica, basically using just a handsaw, some clothespins, rubber bands and glue. Let’s face it, most of us wouldn’t be able to make something like this with the latest power tools available.

And though it may not sound as good as the best guitars on the market, the popsicle stick guitar is playable. Before you even ask, it’s not for sale.

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Embroidered Bread – The Latest Trend in Food Art

It may seem strange, but embroidered Wonder Bread can be used as regular paintings, as it can last for years.

Catherine McEver is well known in the odd art world, particularly for her Wonder Bread creations. Her latest artworks are embroidered slices of Wonder Bread that look like famous paintings (Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’, for example). They might look silly, but these things are pretty difficult to make, considering how fragile Wonder Bread is. Just like paintings, these Embroidered slices can be hung on a wall,  and will last for years.

Check out more of Catherine’s bizarre artworks on her blog, StuffYouCantHave.

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The World’s Largest Violin Is Almost Complete

Twelve luthiers, from Markneukirchen, eastern Germany, are working around the clock, adding the final details to what could be the world’s largest violin.

Markneukirchen is already famous for the quality violins made there, but this extraordinary instrument will definitely get its name into the record books. The world’s largest violin will be 4.28 meters tall, 1.45 meters wide, and weigh over 100 kilograms. It’s an exceptional achievement, but there’s just one problem: who’s going to play this thing? Even Sultan Kosen, the world’s tallest man, will have a tough time handling this giant instrument, especially since he’s not a very talented violin player.

Photos by AFP via Xinhua

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Superhero Gathering Sets New World Record

1245 people dressed in superhero costumes gathered in Melbourne’s Federation Square to set a new Guinness World Record for the most people dressed as superheroes, in one place, at one time.

No villains dared even come close to Federation Square, on Saturday, when Batman, Superman, the Flash, Wolverine and dozens of other comic-book superheroes, of all ages and sizes, gathered to set a new world record. The event was part of the 75th anniversary of DC comics, and people showed up to honor the superheroes they grew up with.

Just last week 1091 people dressed as superheroes gathered at a rugby tournament, at Twickenham Stadium, in London, but their record only stood for seven days.

Photos by Quinn Rooney/GETTY IMAGES

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The Adorable Adoptabots of Brian Marshall

Adoptabots are cute little sculptress, created by Delaware-based artist, Brian Marshall, using various discarded objects.

Brian Marshall is a middle-school teacher, from Delaware, who creates these lovely Adoptabots, in his spare time. The fact that he’s not even a full-time artist makes his work even more impressive. Instead of leaving old kitchen utensils, cameras, and all kinds of other stuff rot at the landfill, this talented artist decided to offer them a second chance at life, by transforming them into Adoptabots. Now they live happily in his workshop, and can be viewed on Brian’s Flickr stream, or bought adopted from his Etsy shop.

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Vienna Vegetable Orchestra – Playing with Food and Making Music

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra makes unique organic music, using instruments made from vegetables.

Pepper trumpets, leek violins, celery bongos, cucumberphones, pumpkin drums – these are just a handful of instruments used by the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra to entertain audiences everywhere, with their organic music. This one-of-a-kind music group was born when its current members were students. At first they started playing vegetable instruments, as a joke, but quickly realized they might be on to something, and took their work more seriously.

The dozen members of the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra carve their instruments themselves, using whatever vegetables are available, at the location of their performance. After 12 years of making vegetable music, the group has learned what type of vegetables sound better in every country, judging by a range of factors, such as temperature and water content.

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra needs 70 kilograms of fresh vegetables for every concert, and three hours to carve the instruments they use. But their music wouldn’t exist without modern technological equipment, like amplifiers or sophisticated microphones. Combined with the squeaking of cucumbers, crackling of cabbage leaves and banging of aubergines, they create a hypnotic type of music, described as something between techno music and whale songs.

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British Fan Shows Off the Ultimate Movie Car Collection

Mark Perkins has spent the last 25 years putting together an unmatched collection of vehicles from famous movies and TV series.

Mr. Perkins says owning a Ferrari or a Bentley is nice too, but he’s just not that type of guy. He’s rather interested in finding and acquiring famous vehicles that everyone recognizes. After a quarter century of scouring for this definitive movie motors, he’s now the proud owner of the original Flintstones car, Del Boy’s Reliant Regal, Batman’s Batcycle, Mr. Bean’s Mini, Starsky and Hutch’s Ford Torino, and the Aston Martin James Bond drove in Goldfinger.

He also owns replicas of the Batmobile, the Ghostbusters’ Ectomobile and Noddy’s Toyland car. They’re all stored in his basement , in Ascot, Berkshire. Aware of their value, Mark Perkins has insured them for a hefty sum, 500,000 pounds.

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Julia Gnuse – The Most Tattooed Woman in the World

With various tattoos covering 95% of her body, Julia Gnuse has been acknowledged as the world’s most tattooed woman.

What started out as a desperate solution to cover up lesions, caused by a severe skin condition, turned into a true passion, that earned Julia Gnuse a spot in the Guinness Book of Records, for the most tattooed woman on Earth. Miss Gnuse, also known as the “Illustrated Lady” suffers from porphyria, a disease that causes the skin to blister when exposed to sunlight. When doctors told her the only medicine that could help her, could also induce blinding, she decided to turn to tattoos, to cover the blisters on her legs.

A plastic surgeon suggested she tattoo her body the same color as the blisters, but since that was so hard to reproduce, she settled for some really colorful tattoos. At first it was just her legs, than she moved up to her stomach, arms and back, and be fore she knew it she was hooked on ink. She just kept adding tattoos, ranging from cartoons, film characters to jungle scenes.

All of Julia Gnuse’s tattoos were done by the same artists.

Photos by Seth Wenig/AP via DailyMail

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The Unique Wood-Chip Sculptures of Sergei Bobkov

53-year-old Sergei Bobkov has patented a unique technique of creating amazing sculptures out of Siberian cedar wood-chips.

“It’s not very interesting to do what others can. To create something out of nothing in a completely new way is far more inspiring”. This is how Sergei Bobkov explains the unique form of art that he created. He says many people compare his artworks to taxidermy, because they both look so much like the animals they replicate, but Sergei believes they are as different as light and darkness. Whereas taxidermy is all about death, his wood-chip art symbolizes life.

This resident of Kozhany, Russia, has developed his very own technique, that prevents wood-chips from falling apart, in time. After creating about 100-150 chips, from 2-3 inch long cedar stick, he puts them in water for several days. Then, making use of his surgical precision, he carves the chips into any shape he needs.

Sergey has been doing this for some time now, but he has only created 11 wood-chip sculptures. That’s because just one of these incredible artworks takes around six months t complete, at a work rate of 10 to 12 hours a day, with no days off. Sergei Bobkov focuses on wildlife creatures, and he studies their anatomy for months, before starting work on a sculpture.

Even though he was offered $17,000 for his wood-chip eagle.Sergei’s Bobkov declined, saying his rt is not for sale.

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Walking on Water at Dixon High School

The “Walk on Water” challenge of Dixon High School has reached its 8th edition. Just like every year, since this event was started, students had to walk on water, without falling in.

Over 120 physics students, in 27 groups, tried to cross a 50-meter-long pool, in the 2 minute time limit, without getting wet. To complete this task, they were required to build mechanical gear that would keep them afloat and moving, at the same time. From giant hamster wheels, to floating skis, the students tried everything.

A few of them actually succeed in walking on water, and thus won the big prize: the chance to skip a final exam. Now that’s worth getting a little wet, over.

Photos by Renee C. Byer/Sacbee.com

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2-Year-Old Kid Smokes 40 Cigarettes a Day

Seeing him rest on the steering-wheel of his toy truck, smoking a cigarette, you might think he’s a truck driver stuck in the body of a toddler, but Ardi Rizal is really just a two-year old boy who loves to smoke.

The 56 pound toddler, from Indonesia’s South Sumatra province, smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day and sits on his toy truck all day long. There’s hardly ever a moment in the day when Ardi isn’t puffing away on a cigarette, and that’s the main reason why he can hardly move by himself anymore, let alone run along and play with other children.

His mother has desperately forced the toddler to quit, but he always got so angry that he started screaming and banging his head against the walls, saying quitting makes him dizzy and sick. He also asks for a specific brand of cigarettes, that costs his family $5.50 a day. While his mother is set on somehow getting Ardi to quit, his father says: ‘He looks pretty healthy to me, I don’t see the problem.’ Now this is what I call a “great” parent.

Although authorities have even offered the Ardi Rizal’s parents a brand new car, if they convince him to stop smoking, the parents don’t dare ask him anymore. Read More »

The Origami Architecture of Ingrid Siliakus

Ingrid Siliakus carefully cuts and folds layers upon layers of paper, to create some of the most amazing origami building designs.

The Dutch artist has been fascinated with paper architecture, ever since she first set eyes on the work of Japanese professor, Masahiro Chatani, who invented this art form, in the early 1980s. She studied his artworks for years, before starting to create paper buildings, herself. Over the years, her skilled improved, and she began making origami replicas of some of the most famous structures in the world, like the Colosseum of Rome, the Sagrada Familia cathedral, or the Palace Del Marques De Salamanca.

Paper architecture is so incredible, because the artist is basically creating a beautiful design, from a single sheet of paper. Ingrid uses 20 to 30 prototypes, before finishing one of her artworks, creating the first layer, with a single shape, and adding layer after layer, until she is satisfied. After the design stage, where the skill of an architect is needed, comes the cutting and folding stage, where she uses her surgeon-worthy precision. Her artworks are between 160 and 300 grams heavy.

Check out more of Ingrid Siliakus’ incredible origami masterpieces, on her online gallery, and her Flickr stream.

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Klunk Garden – Zen Buddhism Meets Nudity

Klunk Garden is a bizarre art installation createt by the Austrian art collective known as Gelitin. It’s basically a Zen rock garden with various human parts coming out of it.

You’ve probably seen some photos of the Klunk Garden before (I know I have), but they never came with some info about what exactly you were looking at. Gelitin is made up of four Austrian artists who like to shock the art world as often as they can. Their Klunk Garden was unveilled last year, in Tokyo, and combined the traditional Zen Buddhist garden, with some human parts coming out of it. The most disturbing thing about it was that those were the behinds, heads, and hands of real people standing below the art installation.

The Klunk Garden was widely interpreted as a bodily attack on Zen Buddhism, as the naked body parts interrupt the fluid perfection of the raked lines of rocks. Read More »

The Amazing Pencil Art of Paul Lung

Lovely black and white photos, wouldn’t you say? Well, can you believe these were actually done completely by pencil?

Paul Lung, a 38-year-old artist, from Hong Kong, needs only an 0.5 mm technical  graphite pencil and sheets of A2 paper to create some of the most unbelievable works of art. Paul has loved to draw ever since he can remeber, and now he does it for 3-4 hours every day, when he comes home from work. He never uses erasers and spends up to 60 hours working on each of his drawings, but the results are simply breathtaking.

Paul says even his friends don’t believe he actually draws his creations, until they see him at work. That’s understandable, considering it’s practically impossible to tell they’re done by pencil, unless you get close enough.

Photos via BeautifulLife

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P-Tree: The Perfect Solution to a Pressing Problem

By strapping urinals on a bunch of trees, a Dutch designer has solved one of the most serious of men’s problems, finding a toilet when you need one.

Sam van Veluw came up with this interesting concept, one night, at a music concertm while he was desperately looking for a public toilet. As soon as his eyes met a tree, the idea of strapping a waterless urinal onto a tree, simply popped into his head.

Named the P-Tree, this outdoor urinal can be hooked up to a central sewer system, or an onsite infiltration system that would dispose of the fluids and nourish the tree with nitrogen, at the same time. I’m sure we’ll probably never see any P-Tree urinals, at least not in countries with indecent exposure laws, but Sam’s idea is definitely refreshing.

via Inhabitat

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