The folk art of Temari Balls began in China, but it was introduced in Japan roughly 600 years ago, where it flourished and evolved into a true art-form.

Legend has it, the first Japanese Temari Balls were made from old kimono threads, by mothers who wanted to make their kids something to play with. Silk strings would be wadded up to for a ball that would be wrapped in layers of string. In time, Temari makers started making intricate patterns and Temari slowly turned from a toy into a form of artistic expression.

Traditionally, Temari balls are given to children on New Year’s Eve, by their mothers. Inside the balls, women would put a small piece of paper with a written wish for the child. Since the kid could never find out what the wish was without him destroying the toy, the wish had a greater chance of coming true.

Also known as “gotenmari”, some Temari Balls have a variety of noise-makers inside, to make them more fun. They can be used in handball games and it is said the old Temari Balls were so tightly wrapped, they would bounce.

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Make the entire world your disco. I bet that’s what French artist Michel de Broin thought to himself when he decided to create the world’s largest disco-ball.

It might sound like a crazy idea, but Michael de Broin actually did it. Using a 7.5 meter disco-ball, featuring 1,000 mirror pieces, the artist managed to light up Paris on a winter night. He did so by hanging the giant disco-ball 50 meters up, using a giant crane, and projecting light onto it.

The ball was hung up in the Jardin de Luxumburg and the light effects that covered Paris were more than worth the effort of bulding the whole installation. plus now Michel de Broin could enter the record books for the World’s Largest Disco-Ball.

via Lifelounge

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Ukrainian artist Oksana Mas has created an unusual mosaic portrait of the Virgin Mary, using 15,000 painted Easter Eggs.

Unveiled yesterday, inside the gorgeous Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, the giant mosaic weighs 2.5 tons and is made out of 15,000 wooden Easter Eggs. Oksana Mas started working on her masterpiece nine months ago, painting the eggs all by herself, but later children from all across the country got involved and helped out with the painting.

The Easter-egg portrait of the Virgin Mary, by Oksana Mas, measures 7×7 meters.

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Stuart Haygarth uses thousands of spectacles and eyeglass lenses to create impressive-looking chandeliers.

The tiered chandelier made my Haygarth is called Spectacle and is made out of 1,020 spectacles attached to an acrylic frame. The artist believes using spectacles, tools once used for seeing, draws an analogy between their old purpose and the new one.

Optical is another chandelier by Stuart Haygarth, made from 4,500 spectacle lenses hanging on a monofilament line.

Stuart Haygarth via VeryVeryFun

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Michigan based artist Eric Daigh creates incredibly detailed portraits by sticking thousands of push-pins into notice boards.

32-year-old Daigh begins his work with a digital photo of his subject. He uses a computer to turn it into a low resolution, five-color image (red, blue and yellow,black and white). He then uses a grid map that shows him where to stick each needle.

Eric Daigh holds the Guinness record for the world’s biggest push-pin portraits. His largest works are up to 2 meters  tall and number around 20,000 push-pins. They take about eight months to complete and are much more detailed than his smaller portraits.

Photos by ERIC DAIGH supplied by WENN.COM

via Telegraph.co.uk

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Ah, these knitted artworks take me back to my high-school biology classes. Come to think of it, these memories are kind of gross…

The Crafty Hedgehog,  a skilled knitting artist, decided to immortalize one of the most exciting moments in the life of a high-school student, the dissection of a frog or rat. Entitled “Knitting in Biology 101”, his project depicts dissected animals, made out of wool and pinned to a dissecting tray of a cork frame. They’re not glued,so you can pick them up and examine the work on both sides.

You’ll be glad to know The Crafty Hedgehog has taken his knitting art even further and is now making “dissecting” fetal pigs and even…the Easter Bunny. If you like this sort of thing, you can order one via The Crafty Hedgehog’s profile on Etsy.

via worldfamousdesignjunkies

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A German company created  a series of sausage-inspired rugs that you can actually place around your house.

Flachbild decide to spice up the carpet industry a little and came up with four cold-cuts inspired rugs. These are just the first out of an entire series and represent salami, mortadella, blood sausage and ham (pimento loaf).

The edible-looking rugs are made entirely from wool, range from one to five meters in diameter and have a thickness of approximately 1.8 centimeters. If you want one of these for your home and can speak some “Deutsch”, check out Flachbild’s official site. Just make sure you keep an eye on your kids, they might try to munch on the rugs.

via If It’s Hip, It’s Here

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Created back in 2008, by British artists Benedict Radcliffe, the wireframe replica of a Lamborghini Countach is now up for grabs.

The 14 feet-long, 6 feet-wide see-through Lamborghini replica was created using 160 feet of 10-millimeter steel tubing and was parked on display on a London street where people could stare at it as long as they liked. Now Radcliffe decided it’s time to cash-in on his original creation, so he put the wireframe Lamborghini Countach up for sale.

The price is nowhere near that of a real Lamborghini Countach, but it’s not cheap either. $65,000 isn’t easy to part with in these troubled times.

via Autoblog

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Kevin van Braak, a young artist from the Netherlands, has transformed his common caravan into an extensible garden he can take anywhere.

In a world where real gardens, with trees and grass are still available, Kevin’s creation can seem a bit odd, but in a few years, it might be the closest many of us will come to real nature.  It looks just like any other caravan, from the outside, but the artist cut it in two, so it would reveal the lavish garden inside, when open.

Kevin van Braak’s mobile garden comes with fake trees, silk grass,  stuffed animals, an electric barbecue and even bird-songs coming through the van’s speakers. It sounds fake, but the young Dutch says many people prefer his garden over the real thing. His caravan garden is for sale, he just hasn’t fixed a price yet.

via Daily Mail

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Using only a couple of knives, a handful of scalpels and some special waxes, young Mark Evans turns pieces of leather into unique works of art.

All Mark Evans needs to create art out of cow hide is a knife, time and inspiration. Days, sometimes weeks, even months go by until his work is completed, but after all the etching and carving, a masterpiece is revealed. As if he he’s painting with a blade, mark is able to create mindblowing tonal pieces.

It all started when he was just seven years old, growing up in the Welsh Mountains. His grandfather gave him a knife and he began carving shapes in tree bark. Later he studied fine art, in London, and although he worked with more conventional materials, he could never get over his passion for playing with knives

Have a look at some of his most important leather paintings and also check out his official site.

Photos via Buzz Beast

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I know it clearly says “robot” in the title, but there’s hardly anything robotic about Mitzy. She does look incredibly cute, though.

Designed and built by Will Wagenaar, mostly out of recycled metal parts, Mitzy has an antique camera and binoculars as a head, rusty wheels and a spring tail that actually wags if you flick it. As I said, of you’re looking for a high-tech robot dog, Mitzy is not for you, but if it’s a Steampunk dog you’re after, you won’t find a better one.

via Etsy

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All Peter Callesen needs to create his amazing artworks is a sheet of paper, glue and a sharp scalpel. Oh, and that special ingredient that makes it impossible for the rest of us, talent.

Peter creates his signature paper sculptures by cutting intricate patterns into a piece of paper and folding the cutouts into incredible shapes. But don’t think this kind of job is easy! The artist spends up to two weeks drawing the patterns, cutting and folding them. One shake of his hand and it’s literally right back to the drawing board.

His favorite work material is A4 paper, because he believes people can relate to it, since most of them use it on a daily basis. You might think a sheet of A4 paper is worth just a few cents, but after Peter Callesen is done with it, it will probably sell for about $4,000.

Oh yeah, if you love paper craft, then you’re going to love this awesome paper castle.

via Daily Mail

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Talk about a cool way to ruin a perfectly good Xbox 360 Elite and make a profit. Although I have to say the end result does look like a creature form a horror movie.

Kenny Irwin is a an American artist who microwaves stuff, using the AMIR 9000 microwaving robot, to create weird-looking art pieces. In the past he’s been known to nuke a fully functional Nintendo wii and now he’s done it again using Microsoft’s console.

Except for the creepy prosthetic eyes that the artist applied himself, it’s all 100% microwaved Xbox 360 Elite and it can be yours for the symbolic price of  $31,002! That’s right folks, $31 K for a broken gaming system, but at least you’ll be the proud owner of the world’s only microwaved Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite. Now this is what I call a bargain!

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Using only a plasma-cutter, Cal Lane turns ordinary steel objects into intricate works of art.

She started out as a a hairdresser,toying with people’s hair, but she always felt more comfortable holding a blowtorch in her hand, rather than scissors, so she decided to mix her two vocations into her art. Now Cal Lane is an established artist who’s art reflects the contrast between the industrial and the fancy.

Miss Lane specializes in cutting intricate patterns in steel objects like barrels, wheelbarrows and shovels.  She says she enjoys making art-pieces out of objects people normally ignore. Visit her official website for more of her amazing work.

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Guido Mocafico, a Swiss artist of Italian descent, uses one of the most feared creatures on Earth to create beautiful art.

Out of 2,700 species of snakes, just few are dangerous to man and Guido Mocafico used them in his art to show there is a less frightening side to snakes. Take a look at his amazing coiled-snakes artworks and know they can be purchased from Steidlville.com

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