Grand Illusion Table – Neat acrylic table that looks like a freestanding draped tablecloth.
Evil Prints – Artist Tom Huck makes all kinds of weird woodcuts, and also teaches printmaking classes. There’s also a video of a recent open house at his studio. (Hat tip to Seigmar S.)
DIY Tie – Tutorial for printing and sewing a custom tie.
Velvet Slippers – Pattern and instructions for making wonderfully decadent house slippers.
A Party in Wonderland – Some great ideas for a child’s “Alice”-themed party, many of which could be upsized for a grown-up party.
UglyDress – Celebrating the worst in bridal and prom dresses. Egad.
Edible Dresses – These art-installation dresses are made of food, but some of them are attractive enough to serve as inspiration for fabric versions. I particularly like the lines of the Eggplant Dress.
Mandrake Root – Instructions for making a nice-looking prop mandrake root for a wunderkammer or conversation piece.
La Brea Tar Pit Wedding Invitation – The La Brea Tar Pits in California are enormously rich in fossils. I’m quite taken with these clever invitations for a wedding held there.
Deriana is a crafter with “an unbridled passion for History and costumes,” which she combines to create ridiculously adorable felt dolls. They’re tiny–only about 10 cm (4″) tall–and although their basic body plans are all similar, it’s astonishing how much personality she works in by changing out the details.
A number of her photo captions indicate that the items were commissioned, so if you’ve always had a hankering for some particular historical figure rendered in felt, now’s your chance.
Her Flickr photostream is here, and there are additional dolls and design notes on her Livejournal page. A quick bit of googling also turned up a presence on DeviantART, an Etsy shop (which is the only place I’ve found prices, but they actually seem quite affordable), and a site noting that it will be the “future home” of her work.
These things are just all kinds of cute. Go take a look and prepare to be inspired.
Let me explain…no, there is too much, let me sum up.
Ethan Nicolle is a 29-year-old comic artist who has a 5-year-old brother, Malachai. One day Malachai was playing a truly epic game of pretend which involved a character named “Axe Cop,” and Ethan decided to start illustrating the storyline.
Thus was born Axe Cop, whose tagline is “I’ll chop your head off!” and whose cast of supporting characters includes Avocado Soldier, Uni-Baby, Bad Santa, Ghost Cop, and Vampire Man Baby Kid amongst many, many others. It is every bit as weird as one would expect something springing from the imagination of a five-year-old to be, and the illustrations are just wonderful.
The amusingly-monikered AngryRedhead put up a wonderful tutorial on Instructables, describing how to “hack” a pair of inexpensive pumps using spray paint and a substance called Sugru. I’d never heard of the latter, but a quick search tells me that Sugru is a type of silicone that can be used like modeling clay. It’s waterproof, self-adhesive to lots of materials (including metal, glass, ceramic, and plastic), self-curing, and dishwasher-safe. Suddenly I can think of a lot of uses for this stuff beyond adding horns to shoes.
Regardless, I just adore the shoes, particularly given the relative simplicity of the technique. I’d never considered using spray paint to decorate shoes, and I love the idea of customizing a boring pair of pumps so easily.
The Sugru appears to be fairly lightweight and won’t crack like polymer clay, so you could probably use it all over the shoe to create something like trailing vines (or tentacles).
I like the idea of pumps decorated with stenciled spiderwebs and a couple of Sugru spiders. You could also use primary colors and trick your shoes out to look like Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls.
Incidentally, the end of the tutorial also includes a brief look at adding horns to a pair of men’s sneakers, so guys can have fun with the concept as well. (Some matching his-and-hers shoes would be fun to wear out clubbing.)
Coffin Sunglasses – Rimless sunglasses with lenses shaped like toe-pincher coffins. (It seems almost superfluous for them to mention the UV rating; who’s going to wear them in the sunlight?)
The Indifference Engine – Steampunk British comedy hip-hop by Professor Elemental. It’s…niche.
AmysNotDeadYet – Etsy seller specializing in weird little cartoons, coloring books, and other art. I particularly like the tentacly little heart on the Valentine’s Day cards.
Joshua Hoffline, the photographer who specializes in horror vignettes, is also one half of a team of wedding photographers. Although the portfolio at the site is all fairly standard–although undeniably very well-done–wedding photography, the photo above is their splash page so I’m assuming he might be induced to bring his vignette skills to a wedding as well.
Their prices (which I would link to directly if their site were not all Evil Flash) don’t seem outrageous compared to other wedding photographers, and their talent would certainly be worth it.
If you’ve already got a gothy wedding in the works, you might consider commemorating it with some wonderfully spooky photos. These guys should certainly be able to deliver.
Etsy sller marywibis sells these elegantly spooky cloth napkins,* and though they might seem rather expensive at $50 for 6, given the cost of a basic silkscreening kit (Amazon | DIY) the price is more or less a wash.
I do like the look of custom napkins, and it might be possible to do simple designs using a stencil and fabric paint rather than silkscreening them. This would make it easier to do several designs in the same set, although given how frequently napkins tend to be laundered I do wonder how long the paint would hold up.
I’d never really considered the notion of silkscreening napkins; if you’re considering silkscreening as a hobby, a reasonably simple project like this might be a good introduction. (Or, y’know, just buy ’em pre-made.)
(No prizes, but if you can answer them all without googling you get bragging rights.)
What is the name of the character killed in the famous shower scene in Psycho?
A male priest of the Voodoo religion is called a “houngan.” What is a female priest called?
Taphephobia is a fear of what?
Chris Sarandon did the “speaking” voice of Jack Skellington in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Who did the “singing” voice?
In Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, Morpheus is mistakenly captured by a cult that is actually trying to capture who?
What band is a spinoff of Sisters of Mercy?
This author wrote of vampire-stricken knights who were, “Pale warriors, death pale were they all.”
Absinthe is traditionally flavored with what herb?
From what novel comes this (enormously run-on) sentence? “It was already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs.”
In Stephen King’s Christine, what type of vehicle was Christine?
Deriana is a crafter with “an unbridled passion for History and costumes,” which she combines to create ridiculously adorable felt dolls. They’re tiny–only about 10 cm (4″) tall–and although their basic body plans are all similar, it’s astonishing how much personality she works in by changing out the details.
Just look at these beauties.
Etsy sller marywibis sells