Featuring a 10-inch tall platform, made out of elephant poop, these crazy stilettos stink, for real.

Created by London-based designer, INSA, the elephant dung shoes are a response to the famous work of Chris Ofili, who used elephant dung in all of his paintings. INSA retraced Ofili’s footsteps, from over 15 years ago, and used dung from the same family of elephants Ofili preferred. Just to be clear, we’re not talking about dung taken directly off the ground and slapped on the shoes.The material is treated to avoid putrefaction.

If you thought those hoof-shaped shoes were weird, I’d love to hear your thoughts on these elephant dung stilettos. I wonder if they still stink, though…

via designboom

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Printed circuit boards (PCB) are one of the biggest environment threats of our time, and recycling them, instead of dumping them in a landfill, should be a top priority.

Artist Steven Rodrig took PCB recycling to another level, when he created a series of sculptures made entirely from circuit boards and other electronic parts. His collection includes a series of pieces he calls “Organic Life Forms” that depict various insects, animals and plants.

Very Similar to the ASUS Motherboard Mona Lisa, Steven Rodrig’s entire PCB art collection can be admired at xactstudios.

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46-year-old James Kuhn uses his face  as canvas, to create some of the most eccentric face-paintings you’ve ever seen.

Kuhn says he has always been an artist, drawing in his oatmeal, as a child, but found his passion for face-painting, one day when he was snowed in, and couldn’t get to work. He is famous for taking on a project that implied drawing a different thing on his face, every day, for an entire year.

His “self-portraits” include different animals, foods, cartoon characters and pretty much anything you can think of. Kuhn himself admits he is addicted to face painting, always thinking about what his next design will be.

Because he found the first 365 project fun James Kuh decided to go through it one more time. You can track his progress and check out the rest of his rich face-painting portfolio on his Flickr stream.

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Ms Liu, a 90-years-old woman from China is the current record holder for the smallest feet in the world.

Foot binding was an important tradition in China until the early 20th century. There are several theories regarding how a gruesome custom like foot binding became so popular, but regardless of which one is true, the outcome is still the same: women suffer excruciating pain, infections and disabilities.

Basically, young girls’ toes and foot arches were brutally broken, without any pain relief, and then bound in tiny shoes that prevented the feet from growing normally. Women with bound feet were actually considered “intensely erotic”. One of these women was Ms. Liu, a 90-year old woman, from Yunnan province, China. Her feet were bound when she was just 5 years old, and she has been living like this for the past 85 years.

Although foot binding was banned in China, and she doesn’t need to wear her tiny shoes anymore, Ms. Liu finds it makes her feet aesthetically pleasing. She may be 90-years-old, but her feet are the size of a 10-year-old girl.

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Featuring a truly unique design,  Hang Nga’s Tree House Hotel is, without a doubt, one of the most bizarre buildings in the world.

Located in Da Lang, Vietnam, Hang Nga’s Tree House Hotel, better known as Crazy House, features giant tree trunks and branches that try to trick you into believing this is an actual tree house. In reality, it’s built from conventional construction materials. But there’s nothing conventional about the architectural principles used by Hang Nga, the woman behind Vietnam’s Crazy House.

Daughter of a former president of Vietnam, Hang Nga was confronted with almost no restrictions at all, when she decided to build her wacky hotel. The Vietnamese government simply looked the other way and allowed her to let loose her imagination, without considering rules and regulations. And you can witness the end result in the photos below.

The interior of Hang Nga’s hotel is just as unusual as the outside. It’s filled with unexpected twists and turns, narrow hallways, bizarre rooms and dotted with strangely shaped windows. This is probably why Crazy House is more successful as a tourist attraction, than a hotel. Hang Nga, who lives in her “masterpiece”, tries to convince people to stay at least a night, but most prefer to take some photos and look for a more conventional hotel.

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Glenda Ewart, a very talented artist, from Castlerock, Ireland, creates hyper-realistic dolls of newborn babies.

A former chef, Glenda Ewart discovered her talent as her doll-sculpting artist while she was pregnant with her first child. Now she creates realistic baby dolls, using multiple coats of paint, to recreate a newborn’s soft skin. After the skin is cured in the oven, the most strenuous part begins: implanting over 20,000 fine strands of mohair into the doll’s scalp. While others might find this process difficult, to say the least, Glenda Ewart says she loves every moment of it.

You know how most parents say babies grow up too fast,and they wish they could somehow keep them young and adorable forever? Glenda Ewart’s reborn babies are the closest thing to fulfilling this dream, and she sells her creations to parents all around the world. She spends a long time working on each and every one of them, specifically because she tries to make all of them unique.

Panting the dolls, implanting the hair and scenting them to smell just like newborn can take several weeks for just one baby, but Glenda Ewart enjoys making every one unique. You can witness her incredible talent, in the photos below, but make sure you check out her official site, for more information and details. Also check her Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Photos are copyright of GLENDA EWART and YELLOW COTTAGE NURSERY

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John Lamouranne, also known as The Egg Man, has been creating celebrity egg sculptures, for over 30 years.

His career as The Egg Man begain 1978, when, during an Easter vacation to Disney World, John Lamouranne was inspired to paint a Disney character, on an egg, for his daughter. At first, he painted one egg sculptures, but after a dream, in which he himself was a tiny egg man, he began using more than one egg for his artworks.

The 63-year-old artist, from New Orleans, uses wooden or ceramic eggs for the bodies of his celebrity sculptures, and hollowed goose eggs for their heads. When needed, he builds entire sets for his creations. John Lamouranne charges between $37 and $300, and can be bought through the artist’s website, or on sites like eBay.

Photos by JEFF MOORE PHOTO via Telegraph.co.uk

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46-year old Vipula Athukorale spends tens of hours creating some of the most intricate food-art masterpieces in the world.

Mr. Athukorale has worked, as a chef, in high ranking restaurants in Grece, Cyprus, Bahrain, Iraq and England, creating amazing works of edible art, out of butter. Actually, he uses pastry margarine, but “margarine sculptures” doesn’t roll as smoothly off the tongue. This fancy chef won two gold medals and a silver one, at the international Salon Culinaire Awards, in London, last week , for his detailed Rolls Royce, and scenes from Pinocchio and Pied Piper stories.

According to the artist, the Rolls Royce took around 90 hours to complete, and features detailed interior and underside. In order to get everything right, Vipula Athukorale doesn’t even breathe, when sculpting margarine. To keep his hands from shaking, he leans in toward the artwork, takes a deep breath, does some sculpting, then leans back and breathes out. He also washes his hands in ice-cold water, to prevent his hot fingers from damaging the artwork.

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One of the most offbeat attractions in the United States, the Seattle Gum Wall is also one of the most germ infected tourist spot in the world.

Located in Post Alley, under Park Place Market, the Gum Wall has its beginning in the early 1990s, when people, irritated that they had to wait in line to get tickets to the theater, stuck chewing gum on the wall. At first, they would use the gum to stick small coins to the wall, but in time, the tradition of the coins disappeared, and the gum remained.

Theater attendants scraped the Gum Wall twice, but gave up in 1999, when it became a certified tourist attraction of Seattle. Now it is filled with thousands of pieces of chewing gum, of any color imaginable. And, as the wall grows, the chewing gum art becomes more sophisticated. You’ll find names written with pieces of gum, and symbols like hearts or the peace sign.

But, the Seattle Gum Wall is also one of the germiest tourist destinations on Earth. In a ranking made by Trip Advisor, it came in second place, after Ireland’s Blarney Stone.

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A Chinese hospital has released images of a 6-year-old boy who was born with 15 fingers and 16 toes. Since more isn’t always better, he’ll soon undergo surgery to have the extras removed.

With a total of 31 fingers and toes, the boy, who’s identity hasn’t been revealed, has beaten the previous record of 25. According to scientists, the excess of fingers and toes is a result of gene mutation.

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Now this is what all chocolate eggs should look like: huge! I remember, as a kid, I was nuts about those Kinder chocolate eggs, with the toy in the middle, but looking at these babies…I was a dumb kid.

These beautiful ornate chocolate eggs are made by Tim Fonseca, executive pastry chef, at the Four Seasons Hotel, in Boston. There’s not much else I can tell you about these chocolaty masterpieces, except that all chocolate eggs should be like these.

via ThePastryChannel

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Spread all over Diquis Delta, and on the Isla de Cano, the mysterious stone spheres of Costa Rica have fascinated scientists ever since they were discovered, in 1930.

Known as “Las Bolas”, by the locals, the spheres range from a few inches to meters, in diameter, and reach weights of up to 16 tons. Researchers believe they were sculpted before 200 BC and 1500 AD, but since the only way of establishing their age is stratography, and most of the balls are no longer in their original locations, it’s difficult to say for sure.

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They’re probably going to end up in someone’s burger, but at least these guys can say they’ve lived a happy life.

A Russian farmer learned that happy cows are more productive, so he decided to buy some state of the art LED TVs (not sure if they’re HD) so the cows can have something to watch. The TV’s play an endless loop of images taken in the Swiss Alps, showing green pastures, lakes and trees, stretching as far as the eye can see.

The reaction of the cows wasn’t as spectacular as you might expect. These are high quality displays, a human would have probably jumped for joy, but the cows simply ignored their expensive gifts. Now the farmer is measuring the results of his investment, by comparing the productivity of these television-watching cows, to a group deprived of television.

I tell you, these cows better step up their game, or they might end up with a hole in their stomachs. And that’s no joke.

via EnglishRussia

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It’s amazing how many incredible artistic wonders go unnoticed, simply because they’re so well hidden that no one knows about them.

This particular artwork is set up at the 13th floor of an Ukrainian apartment building, in Kiev. It’s really hard to describe, and even looking at the amazing photos below, it’s hard to understand the meaning of this installation. The man who took the photos described it as the entrance to a fairytale land, that made him feel like he didn’t belong there. So he just quickly took some photos and quickly got out of there.

To protect the tenants of this Kiev building from some unwanted attention, the photograph didn’t reveal the address of this abstract masterpiece. Intricate colorful moulds cover the walls of this 13th floor, from floor to ceiling, and  the light coming from the ceiling windows creates a truly fantastic atmosphere.

via holy-mozart

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Liu Changfa, a retired automation engineer,from China, needed only one year to create a robot cook, using only rudimentary tools, like hammer and axe.

The Chinese inventor connected his robot cook to a laptop computer and a cellphone that allow to choose preset menus, or program it to cook certain dishes. Vinegar, salt, sugar and all other seasoning is stored in the robot’s chest, and the cooking takes place in its belly, where an induction cooker is installed. With the help of some dedicated software, the dedicated robot can be programmed to add a certain amount of seasoning, or stir a dish a certain number of times.

All Liu Changfa has to do is put the raw ingredients into the pot, and wait for the beeping sound, made by the robot. He has already contacted a Chinese restaurant, which will test the robot cook in its kitchen, and add robot dishes on its menu. More restaurants will shortly follow, says Liu Changfa.

Well, I’d wait a while before adding cooking to the list of automated fields, but this is definitely a step in that direction.

Photos via CNS Photo

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