Archive Category: Arts & Crafts
Ugliest Product of the Year Contest
The Oops Design Awards have taken it upon themselves to do something that should have been done a long time ago -they have created an award for the ugliest, silliest and most useless product designs of the year. As you may have guessed, the lamp above is in the running for ugliest. It is the Oswine Lamp designed by Johanness Hemann. The nominees gallery actually has a few items I like, but for the most part it’s brimming with hillariously hideous items.
Geek Rug Mimics Circuit Board
This latch hook rug was obviously made by a computer nerd. On the page is an image of the circuit board it is based on -it’s amazingly well-replicated.
Felted Jabba The Hut
Never before has Jabba looked so sensitive with his deep brown eyes and sweet little stuffed bunny. He’s part of the Star Wars Exhibit previously mentioned on Neatorama.
Stunning Papercraft Castle
This stunning castle was created by Japanese art student Wataru Itou. It took four years of dedication to bring to fruition. It is complete with electric lights and a working train. The exhibit is called “A Castle On The Ocean” and is on display in Tokyo.
Link Via BoingBoing
Cardiovascular Paper: Printed Anatomy by Laurent Champoussin

No, not a tattoo though undoubtedly it would make an excellent anatomically-minded example that would rival this famous skull face tattoo we had before on Neatorama. The gruesome painting is actually printed paper by Paris-based photographer Laurent Champoussin.
Vanessa Ruiz of Street Anatomy asked Laurent what inspired his art series titled Cardiovascular Paper:
I’ve always been interested by the écorché model. I was inspired by the classical representations of Andréas Vesalius, Charles Estienne or Adrian Van Den Spieghel. My idea was to play with the partial, the uncovered (open/discover) of an essential part of ourselves. I also wanted to work on the propagation, the invasion. My will was to design the model, to file down it like a texture and I hope, somewhere like a poetry.
More at Street Anatomy Blog: Link | Laurent’s website and blog - via Cakehead Loves Evil
Nails Have Feelings Too -Nail Art
It’s easy to fall in love with this photo series from Vlad Artazov. With only bent nails and some basic sets, he is able to convey a whole spectrum of human emotions. The result is beautiful and surprisingly, sadly touching. View the whole gallery to get the full effect.
Video Games In Legos
This is a really creative stop motion video using Legos to play out our arcade favorites. Only 8 bit could look this good in block form.
Metrocard Recycling Projects

Taking public transportation is good for the environment, but used-up Metrocards aren’t -unless you find something useful to do with them. The Infrastructurist found nine wacky things people have made out of the cards, including this lovely suit. Link -via Everlasting Blort
3D Graffiti by Sander van Heukelom

Sander van Heukelom combines typographic design, graffiti and sculpting into unique pieces of 3D graffiti (He uses styrofoam, plexiglass, synthetic resin and wood).
This one above, Quod dubitas, ne feceris - Latin for "when you doubt, do not act" - is probably a concept most graffiti artists do not recognize.
Check out the rest of Sander’s artwork here: Link [Flash] - via Rue The Day!
Time Wastes Too Fast

Author and illustrator Maira Kalman took a trip to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson and was moved to write a travelogue. But this is no ordinary travelogue. Kalman writes about Jefferson’s life and philosophy as well as his home, with whimsical pictures that drawn you in to her experience. Link -via Everlasting Blort
How To Crochet An Eye Ball
These are not only unique and cute, but they’d make a great gift for Halloween parties…of course, if you’re like me, it may take until Halloween to actually figure out how finish a few of them.
Pootre Art From Plum Trees
Peter Cook and Becky Northey started making what they call Pooktre, the shaped plum trees into art and furniture. They started by making trees into a coffee table and a mirror frame. The chair above is one of the greatest. They harvest the trees in the fall and make new art from the stumps, which make new growth.
10 Sand Sculpture Faces
Women’s Day has a fantastic collection of sand sculptures all of which have interesting faces carved into them. I think sand sculpting is so amazing, it’s so much work for something that will be destroyed so quickly after its creation. While the one above is my favorite, I think they are all work a second, even third, look.
“Alan” Wrench by Pete Dungey

Artist Pete Dungey did an unofficial survey to find out who is the most famous Alan (and Allen) in England … and then etched the resulting names onto a set of allen (get it?) wrenches. Here’s the project, cheekily named Alan Wrenches (links are mine):
1. Alan Titchmarsh, Horticulturalist
2. Alan Partridge, Fictional Comedian
3. Lily Allen, Pop Singer
4. Alan Shearer, Ex-Footballer
5. Alan Carr, Comedian
6. Sir Alan Sugar, Business Tycoon
7. Tim Allen, Actor
Link - via Definitive Touch
Previously on Neatorama: Alan-Allan-Allen
Mac Dock Icon Spelling

Mike Giepert noticed that Mac dock icons are often letters, and you can line them up to spell words. So he posted one and asked his readers to send in others. There are 14 screenshots of various words posted so far. I don’t have a lot of programs on my dock right now, but I will look through my applications to see what I can “line up” when I get some free time. Like that will ever happen. Link (via Buzzfeed)
A Well Preserved Painting: Blackcurrant Jam Trees & Marmalade Pavement
This painting, commissioned by a jam and preservative maker, was painted using only the products made in their factory!
Artist Lindi Kirwin was commissioned by F. Duerr & Sons a British Jam Maker to create a work of art to raise money for charity.
Sadly seeing as not many people have ever painted with jam and mint sauce before they have no idea how long it will last, so the winner will also get a full sized canvas print just in case.
Black current jam trees, marmalade pavements, mint sauce buildings and a tartar sauce sky all feature in a mouth watering new painting set to raise funds for The New Children’s Hospital Appeal.
F. Duerr & Sons, makers of jam, marmalade, sweet spreads and condiments commissioned local artist Lindi Kirwin to capture the iconic Central Library building in Manchester using the products available from their factory.
Named ‘Manchester Preserved’, the vibrant and creative interpretation, created at Lindi’s studio in Vernon Mill, Stockport and due to be unveiled at Broadstone Mill, Stockport, is being auctioned on ebay. Duerr’s hope that the painting will raise more than £1,000 for the charity.
Link - via lindi-kirwin
From the Upcoming
ueue, submitted by Jake.
Segway + Marching Band + Fire = Awesome!
What do you get when you put a marching band on segways, then set them on fire? Here’s Glissendo, a street performance by Le Snob at the French art festival, playing "Lightning" by Philip Glass (concept and technical design by Ulik, the Mechanical Clown)
Miss Cellania has the video clip: Link [embedded YouTube clip]
Barbie Foot: Barbie Foosball Table

Photo: designboom
French designer Chloe Ruchon took the manly game of foosball and gave it a decidedly feminine twist: she used Barbie dolls as the foos men!
Chloe’s table, Barbie Foot, was made in collaboration with Mattel and foosball manufacturer Baby-foot Bonzini. It was showcased in the DMY Berlin Design Festival 2009.
Designboom has more: Link - via Inhabitat
Beautiful Rapid Prototyping Art: Chrysanthemum by Michaella Janse van Vuuren

The Chrysanthemum is a centerpiece designed by South African designer Michaella Janse van Vuuren. It’s a combination of bowl/candle holder made with rapid prototyping (and manufacturing) using laser, so it’s a perfect combination of art and engineering:
The centrepiece reflects my passion for the textures, shapes and patterns found in nature. I especially like to interpret those objects that have a repetitive mathematically founded pattern. Some objects are immediately recognisable, such as the Chrysanthemum, others are more abstract. Direct 3-dimensional manufacturing methods, such as selective laser sintering (SLS) used to create the Chrysanthemum allows me to design intricate textures and objects. These textures and objects would have been impossible to execute by hand, yet the centrepiece still retains the beauty and tactile feeling of a natural object.
The Chrysanthemum is directly manufactured with the EOS P380 using the PA2200 polyamide material.
Link - via Why Me Design
20 Types of Art Student, by Chuck Dillon

After 10 years of teaching art at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia, Chuck Dillon has seen just about every type of art student. So, in a post is certainly going to be a classic, here’s Chuck’s classification of the 20 types of art student.
Which one are you? Link - via Laughing Squid
Wikipedia as a Book

What would Wikipedia look like if it were printed out as a traditional encyclopedia? Rob Matthews decided to make it his art project: behold, the 5,000 pages of Wikipedia (featured articles only, mind you) in book form: Link
- via Cliff Pickover’s Reality Carnival
Painfully Obvious Rules of Photography

Photography can be such a serious art, but taken too seriously it becomes formal and boring - at least for folks like Ivar Gravlejs. With 78 exhaustive tips he ranges from humorous to obvious, dead-pan to just plain stupid. Still, some of us would do well to remember the basics when taking pictures - or will at least get a laugh out of his twisted spin on conventional photo tips.
Physical Typography: Brilliant Built & Found Fonts

In a way, typography has come full circle - what started as a physical process of setting type in machines has been rediscovered as a physical art by a number of creative photographers and designers. Some of these unusual real-life alphabetic collections were found and photographed in nature while others were acted out, constructed or assembled from bodies and objects but all ten sets of type yield compelling images.
The Earth’s Delicious Core
This apple is in the portfolio of artist Kevin Van Aelst, along with quite a few other neat visual works. The only problem I have is that he forgot Madagascar.
Currency Collages

Artist Mark Wagner takes one dollar bills and cuts them with an Exacto knife, then reassembles them into works of art that sometimes have no resemblance at all to the original bill.
The one dollar bill is the most ubiquitous piece of paper in America. Collage asks the question: what might be done to make it something else? It is a ripe material: intaglio printed on sturdy linen stock, covered in decorative filigree, and steeped in symbolism and concept. Blade and glue transform it-reproducing the effects of tapestries, paints, engravings, mosaics, and computers-striving for something bizarre, beautiful, or unbelievable… the foreign in the familiar.
Say What? Twisted Cross-Stitching
So you thought that cross-stitching was something only your sweet elderly friends and relatives did? That the themes were always friendly and heartwarming? The example on the left is just the beginning of a vast, disturbing and entertaining collection from Katie Kutthroat. Be warned: adult language is used and the images may not be the best to view at work.
Fallen Princesses

Photographer Dina Goldstein gives a preview of a series featuring Disney princesses portrayed in their later lives, or what happened after “happily ever after”. The complete series will go on exhibit in October. Link -via Metafilter
Secret Russian Army … of Cats!
For years, Russia’s Hermitage museum has employed a secret army to protect over three million works of art dating back to Peter the Great.
Recently, the identity of this secret force has come to light: cats!
Although no longer allowed to roam freely through the galleries, around 60 felines earn a living in the basement of the huge former Tsarist palace.
Maria Khaltunen, Hermitage State Museum: "They (cats) work here. They execute, so-called, preventive activities so that rats and mice will stay away or are kept at a minimum. All the museum visitors can see them in the summer. Generally they walk on the square and on the embankment, and also they come out into the big yard. But these (cats) are only those who like to deal with people. Others who prefer living in their community stay in basement."
The priceless treasures of the museum are under the watchful eye of these cats. These four-footed employees are always on guard against rats and mice that can damage the Hermitage collection. They work in the labyrinths of the basement, hunting by day and night.
Cats have been guarding the museum for the last 200 years since the Tsarist period. They first appeared during the reign of Peter the Great’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth. Fed up with hundreds of rodents running through the palace Elizabeth signed a decree ordering the best rat and mice-catching cats to be sent to Her Majesty’s court.
Link [Flash video]
Leonardo da Vinci’s Nude Mona Lisa
Did Leonardo da Vinci paint a nude version of the Mona Lisa? Maybe so, according to a newly revealed painting, hidden for a century within the walls of a private library:
The lady in the portrait does not exactly resemble the original Mona Lisa, but there is little doubt it has parallels with the painting hanging at the Louvre museum in Paris.
"The frontal look, the position of the hands, the spatial conception of the landscape, with columns at the sides, show a clear link with the Mona Lisa’s iconographic theme," Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the museum, told Discovery News.
Banksy’s Secret Exhibition: Banksy Versus Bristol Museum
After years of pulling stunts on museums around the world, the guerrilla artist Banksy has gone legit. Somewhat. He’s pulled off his most audacious stunt yet: a secret exhibition in Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery.
In a rare statement Banksy said: ‘The people in Bristol have always been very good to me - I decided the best way to show my appreciation was by putting a bunch of old toilets and some live chicken nuggets in their museum. [...]
He added: ‘This is the first show I’ve ever done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my ictures up rather than scrape them off.’
The exhibition - called Banksy Versus Bristol Museum - consists of more than 100 items and will run for three weeks.

















