Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the work of Italian artist Dario Tironi is evident proof. While most people look at discarded objects and see only trash, he sees precious materials for his beautiful sculptures.

Old toys, discarded computer components, broken calculators, even plastic bottles, they’re all part of Tironi’s recycled universe. Similar to Robert Bradford, who uses old toys for his sculptures, and Leo Sewell,  the young Italian artist manages to glue together various junk items and create detailed sculptures of people and animals, and gives everyone who sees his art a whole new perspective on the concept of recycling.

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Although relatively new, book carving has become on of the most popular art forms of our time, with masterpieces of acclaimed artist like Brian Dettmer or Long Bin-Chen exhibited in galleries around the world. Kylie Stillman cuts new life into old, outdated books, by sculpting them as slabs of stone and turning them and giving them a second chance as veritable works of art.

Using a scalpel, Stillman cuts right into the stack of books, creating beautiful inverted reliefs of trees and the birds that once inhabited them. Her works remind us where the paper for the books came from, by turning the thousands of pages into versions of their original tree form.

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Ed Jarrett first built the world’s tallest sand castle in 2003, then broke his own record in 2007, and now his back with his third consecutive record, a 37-foot, 10-inch sand marvel.

As you can probably imagine by looking at the photos below, Ed used more than just a sand bucket and shovel to complete his masterpiece, In fact, he needed the help of 1,500 volunteers, who worked a total of 2,500 hours turning 1.6 million pounds of sand into a record-breaking castle.

Work on the castle began on April 1st, and the completed structure was ready for official measurement seven weeks later, on May 20. According to Laura Ward, public relations official for Jarrett’s Castle, the work was initially supposed to be even taller, at 38 feet and 75 inches, but after a blue bird decided to scrape the top of the castle and meteorologists announced hostile weather conditions, the team hurried to get the sand castle certified before it got even shorter. Still, at 37 feet, 10 inches, Jarrett’s Castle is still easily the tallest sand castle in the world.

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I know what you’re thinking, so do those fashion companies making real fur coats, but Jess Eaton only uses the remains of animals that died of natural causes, have been hit by cars, or that have been killed for food.

Jess’ Roadkil Couture collection features weird items and accessories, like a necklace made from with the skulls of 12 dead pheasants, a bolero jacked made from the furs of 50 white rats eaten by her friend’s reptile, or a hat made from four magpie wings, but the designer claims she’s not out to shock the world. Sure, some of her pieces look like something only Lady Gaga would dare wear, but Jess Eaton says her creations are only meant to be beautiful, not outrageous.

While other women would probably flinch at the sight of a dead animal, Jess is more than happy to pick it up, skin it herself and use its various body parts in her unique fashion item. She recently received a dead horse’s head, which she carved and used in various pieces, proving she’d definitely not squeamish when it comes to working with her material of choice. Her seven-year-old son, Norton, however is sick of the smell of flesh-eating bugs in their Brighton house, and can’t wait until Jess finally opens her own studio, away from home. If there is an advantage to working with dead animals, is that the “fabrics” for her works are always free.

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To tell you the truth I often wondered why no one bothered to create a portrait of the Black Eyed Peas using black eyed peas, before. We’ve seen all kinds of weird portraits, like those made of toast, broken vinyl or bottle caps, so a black eyed peas portrait of the Black Eyed Peas seemed almost logical.

English artist Lee Mericks finally rose up to the challenge and created an 85 cm by 60 cm portrait of BEP singer will.i.am using nothing but thousands of black eyed peas. The artwork was commissioned by Alton Towers, to celebrate the Black Eyed Peas’ forthcoming concert at the Staffordshire resort, and took 24 hours, over a four-day period, to complete.

According to Lee Merricks, the black eyed peas portrait of will.i.am contains approximately 5 kilograms of black eyed peace, each of which were painstakingly placed by hand. If you’re curious to know the exact number of peas used, feel free to count them yourself.

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They might look like computer-generated images, but Shi Jindian’s works are so real you can touch them. Using simple steel wire, the Chinese artist is able to create almost perfect replicas of anything from musical instruments to motorcycles.

For years, Shi Jindian looked for a material “that was brand new, completely untraditional” and when he worked with steel wire for the first time he knew he had found what he had been looking for. He created his own set of instruments, and by trial and error, he learned how to crochet the two-dimensional strands into three-dimensional models. His incredible-looking masterpieces start out as steel wrappings around the common objects he’s trying to replicate, and when the work is done, Jindian destroys or somehow extracts the object, leaving only the wire frame.

Looking at Shi Jindian’s wire sculptures it’s hard to understand how he gets every little detail just right, but I guess that’s what makes his art so unique and impressive.

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If you thought the balloon animals some clowns make at kids’ birthday parties were impressive, wait till you see what Larry Moss can do. The Rochester-based artist creates Airigami, which translates as the fine art of folding air, and his fragile masterpieces are by far the most detailed balloon sculptures I have ever seen. Moss uses latex balloons to create all kinds of installations, from giant sculptures to wearable fashion items, and even intricate replicas of some of the world’s most famous icons.

Among his most impressive works are recreations of Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. If you like offbeat art, or if you simply want to see something cool today, by sure to check out Airigami.com, Larry Moss’ official site.

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British singer Lily Allen is getting married this Saturday and London florist McQueens wanted to celebrate the event by creating a unique portrait of the artist, using actual lilies.

A team of six flower experts worked nine hours arranging the Asiatic lily blossoms into an Andy Warhol-style portrait of the acclaimed artist. The one-of-a-kind floral masterpiece measures six by ten feet and numbers a total of 1,800 lilies. Asiatic lilies were chosen because apparently they represent romance, femininity and purity. The lily portrait was a collaboration of English florist McQueens and The Flower Council of Holland, and will on display for a week, at one of McQueens’ London branches.

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General Electric has teamed up with London’s National Gallery to create a living version Van Gogh’s A Wheatfield with Cypresses from 8,000 plants. The famous painting, originally created in 1889, was chose for its strong colors that could be effectively reproduced with living plants. 26 different varieties were used for this amazing eco-installation and the result is simply mind-blowing.

The living painting is currently displayed on the side of the National Gallery, in Trafalgar Square, where it will grow throughout Summer and Fall, until October 2011. If you’re in London this Summer, this is one sight you don’t want to miss.

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Inspired by fantasy buildings featured in sagas like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings , LEGO fan Gerry Burrows has built an awe-inspiring giant structure called the Garrison of Moriah.

Ever since he was just a kid, Gerry Burrows dreamed of building something big using LEGO bricks, but it was only after finishing college that he realized he finally had the freedom to pull it off. He began thinking about how he finally had the space and financial freedom to fulfill his childhood dream ‘without a little sister to rampage through my Lego creations’ so he called his realtor and told him he needed a LEGO room. As soon as he bought his first house he unpacked a box of his old LEGO bricks.

Even more impressive is how this LEGO master managed to create his Garrison of Moriah with very little planning. He made no initial plans, on paper or computer, but simply started assembling the bricks, focusing on individual structures. As he kept building he got inspiration on what direction to take to make his masterpiece looks as cool as possible. Amazingly enough he suffered no disasters during the entire building process.

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Grace Robinson, 52, from Cambridgeshire, England, takes used tea bags and sews them into fashionable dresses, shoes and accessories.

Grace has been drinking tea for most of her life and she’s been recycling used tea bags for over 10 years now. The process is quite simple: she drinks tea every day, saves the tea bags and lets them dry naturally with the tea leaves inside. Once they’ve dried, the designer empties them and sews them into whatever clothing item she likes. The color of this unusual fabric varies depending on how long she lets the tea brew.

For many years, Grace Robinson only used the tea bags from the tea she drank herself, but now some of her friends save their tea bags for her, which the designer says is wonderful because she can work a lot faster. A dress can take several months to finish, so she needs all the help she can get.

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Considered to be America’s no. 1 spiderweb artist, Emil Fiore, known as Rocky, collects various kinds of spiderwebs and uses them to create unique artworks which he sells on his website, Whirled Wide Webs.

Rocky, 58, says he read about how to catch spiderwebs when he was just a kid. The little Golden Guide suggested to spray the web with hairspray and dust it with talcum powder, and because he learned a spider’s web normally lasts only a few hours, this preservation concept stuck in his head for years. He always loved the outdoors, but he only got the idea of collecting spiderwebs in his early 20s. He was experimenting with stained glass and at one point decided to spray paint one of the webs in his vegetable garden and sandwich it between two pieces of glass. It worked, but after 10 years it began to fall apart, and he switched to using just one piece of glass and varnish.

Rocky Fiore usually collects his spiderwebs from the forests around his hometown, Dumont, New Jersey. He spray paints them silver on a dark piece of glass and sells them as artworks for up to $200 a pop. The pray caught in the spiderweb remains as part of the artwork as it adds to the story of the piece.

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Oksana Mas is a brilliant Ukrainian artist who uses thousands of hand-painted wooden eggs to create incredible mosaics that simply take your breath away.

The first time I read about Oksana Mas was in January of 2010, when she created this unique portrait of the Virgin Mary using 15,000 wooden eggs. It took her nine months to complete her masterpiece and you can admire it first hand inside the Saint Sophia Cathedral, in Kyiv. Apparently, the talented Ukrainian artist has been keeping herself busy since then, creating several other wooden Easter egg mosaics for the Venice Biennale, where she’s representing her country.

Her monumental installation is called ‘Post-vs-Proto-Renaissance’, features 12 separate pieces, measures a total of 92 by 134 meters and numbers an astonishing 3,640,000 wooden eggs hand-painted by people in 42 different countries. From inmates to intellectuals, thousands of people from all walks of life painted the eggs which were later assembled by Oksana, in her studio. The gigantic egg mosaics are currently on display inside the Church of San Fantin, in Venice, where they interact perfectly with the sacredness of the surroundings. When seen from up-close, every painted egg has its own unique design, but as the viewer backs away, they all come together to form a large scale representation of the Ghent Altarpiece, painted by the Van Eyck brothers.

Oksana Mas’ art was inspired by the old Ukrainian folk custom krashenki: wooden eggs covered in traditional Ukrainian designs used to celebrate Easter.

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This is something you don’t see every day – Portuguese beer maker Sagres has recently released a chocolate flavored beer and decided to celebrate by creating a launch website entirely out of chocolate (and I don’t mean the flash kind).

Sagres is Portugal’s no. 1 beer brand, so when they launched the new Sagres Preta Chocolate, a stout beer with chocolate flavor, they really went all out. With the help of a web design company and master chocolatier Victor Nunes, renown in Portugal for his amazing chocolate sculptures, they managed to create the world’s most awesome interactive website made entirely from chocolate. I really can’t think of a better way to launch a chocolate product online.

As you can see in the ‘baking of’ video at the bottom, every element of the Sagres Preta Chocolate site, except the actual beer bottle, was first crafted from chocolate, then photographed and put together into a functional, delicious-looking website. When they were done, they offered their first online visitors pieces of the real chocolate site, and sent them directly to their homes together with a six-pack of chocolate beer. How awesome is that?

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On Saturday, May 28th, a team of 11 writers and 111 designers have created the world’s largest comic strip, stretching 1 kilometer along the banks of the Rhone River, in Lyon, France.

Work on the world’s largest comic strip began Friday night, when students from the Emile Cohl Drawing School, in Lyon, were tasked with drawing up the simple but interesting script of the comic on 1-meter-long sheets of paper. They were coordinated by their teachers, while another 50 students handled the logistics of the project. It all had to be done in 24 hours to count as a valid Guinness Record and everyone involved gave it their all. “Initially everybody thought the idea a little crazy, but we did it!” said Mathieu Diez, director of the Lyon Comic Festival.

The black and white comic didn’t contain any words, but the script and graphics were simple and eloquent enough that everyone who saw it understood the story. It tells the tale of a shaggy Tarzan-like character, with a passion for drawing, who discovers the ways humanity has invented to represent itself (painting, sketching, etc.). 1,000 meter-long sheets of paper, weighing 800 kilograms, and 250 markers were used to create the 1-km-long comic strip. It was installed on the banks of the Rhone River, and passers-by reactions were very positive: “It’s nice to walk while reading. We could go on like this ten kilometers!” a young woman said while her six-year-old daughter was busy checking out the artwork.

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