Nina Krinitsina, a pensioner from the Russian village of Makarye, around 850 kilometers east of Moscow, has been decorating her modest house with colorful bottle cap mosaics for the last seven years.

The amateur artist, who currently has over thirty plastic mosaics nailed to the walls of her house – some numbering over 1,000 bottle caps – was originally encouraged by her nephew. He would provide her with grid designs downloaded from the internet, and she would piece them together. She used peas at first, but quickly switched to a more suitable material – plastic bottle caps. She obviously needed quite a stock of caps of various colors to create all the designs, and she didn’t shy away from visiting the local landfill in search of them.

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The sweet art of painting with caramelized sugar can be witnessed in China’s Sichuan province. Although not as popular as it once was, this ancient craft still manages to amaze tourists lucky enough to stumble upon a skilled street artist.

According to experts, this type of Chinese folk art originated from the Ming Dynasty when sugar animals and figures were created as part of sacrificial rituals. During the Qing Dynasty, it gained even more popularity and the techniques were upgraded, which resulted in an increased number of patterns, most of them inspired by nature, wildlife and religion . In the beginning, people used molds to shape the caramelized sugar, but they were gradually replaced with a small bronze spoon that had to be wielded by talented artists who were usually well versed in the art of normal painting as well. “Painting” artistic pieces from melted sugar is very different than regular painting. Because the hot sugar cools down very quickly, the painter has to work swiftly, making sure he follows the correct order of strokes to get every shape just right. In order to get familiar with the process and the technique, it’s recommended that artists practice normal painting first.

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Many people don’t realize it when they first walk into Roman Yerokhin‘s apartment, but many of his beautiful pieces of furniture are decorated with some of the most unusual materials – burnt matchsticks and broken tiles.

But as soon as they sit at the large monolithic table in his kitchen and notice its decorative patterns are actually made from thousands of burned matchsticks, their jaws instantly hit the floor and then the questions start. The first thing that pops into their heads is that his family used these common materials because they were poor, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. In fact, Roman says his ancestors were wealthy jewelers before the communists came to power, and even during their regime, his parents made a decent living as graphic artists. The main reason they resorted to matchsticks as decorations is that any other materials were scarce, and having lived under a communist rule myself, I know just what he means. Communism put a roof over your head, provided you with a job and put some food on the table, but it did absolutely no toleration for exercising cultural and spiritual freedom.

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As I see it, pillows are designed to help you sleep better. They’re soft, they smell nice, and they make nice hugging material, if you’re by yourself. But that isn’t always the case.

Take for example this pillow created by Sandy Mastroni, a true master of folk art I discovered the other day. Now is this the kind of pillow you’d want to rest your head on, or wake up next to, in the morning? And that photo,with it peaking from the drawer, too creepy for me. That cat doesn’t seem too bothered, though…

Unfortunately for all you bizarre lovers out there, the pillow has already been sold, but I’m sure Sandy can whip up new ones for you, if you ask her nicely.

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