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10 – Coffee:

Sunshine Plata of Manila, Philippines, creates whimsical paintings with a difference: instead of oil or acrylic paint, she uses coffee as her medium. Inspired by an exhibit of 19th-century artworks done in coffee, Plata creates entrancing sepia images of fairies and religious figures from the aromatic beverage. Her paintings proved to be so unique and beautiful, that on her first solo exhibit of caffeine art (entitled ‘L.S.D. (look, smell, discover) Trip by Caffeine’), only seven of the thirty-two works exhibited were left unsold.

9 – Chicken Wire:

Ivan Lovett of Queensland, Australia, creates remarkably lifelike busts of famous icons such as Salvador Dali, Bob Dylan and John Lennon, from ordinary chicken wire. Each one of the highly-detailed pieces takes around three weeks to finish.

8 – Rice Crops:

Every year since 1994, the small village of Inakadate, located in the Minamitsugaru District in Aomori, Japan, creates astonishing images in their rice fields to draw tourism to the place. The pictures are made using two types of rice plants: the purple or yellow-leafed “kodaimai” rice and the green-leafed tsugaru-roman rice. The giant pictures are visible until September, when the crops are harvested.

7 – Typewriters:

Jeremy Mayer sculpts anthropomorphic figures out of vintage typewriter parts. The metal creations were made without the aid of welding or adhesives. Some of his life-sized works contains parts from roughly 40 typewriters and could take a thousand hours to create.

6 – A4 Paper:

Peter Callesen creates incredible cut-out sculptures of skeletons and buildings out of single sheets of A4 paper. Callesen remarked on his unusual medium: “I find the A4 sheet of paper interesting to work with, because it is probably the most common and consumed media and format for carrying information today, and in that sense it is something very loaded. This means that we rarely notice the actual materiality of the A4 paper. By removing all the information and starting from scratch using the blank white 80gsm A4 paper as a base for my creations, I feel that I have found a material which we all are able to relate to, and at the same time is non-loaded and neutral and therefore easier to fill with different meanings. The thin white paper also gives the paper sculptures a fragility which underlines the tragic and romantic theme of the works.”

5 – Balloons:

New York artist Jason Hackenwerth uses thousands of colorful balloons to create amazing installations that resembles alien creatures. As many as 3,000 individual balloons go into each piece, and each piece can take up to 25 hours to finish.

4 – Smoke:

Using a special camera with a fast shutter speed, Graham Jeffrey captures amazingly beautiful pictures of smoke. Using incense sticks as the smoke source, Jeffrey preserves images of the ephemeral subject, adding color and manipulating the smoke to make enchanting shapes and forms.

3 – X-Rays:

Nick Veasey of Kent, England, turns the mundane into the magnificent by X-raying ordinary objects, and turning the photographic results into art. While working as a photographer/designer for a television company, he was tasked to X-ray a truck full of soda cans to find a can containing a prize-winning ring pull. After three days without a winner, he X-rayed his sneaker out of boredom. Fascinated by the result, he was duly inspired, and after three months of exploring and experimenting with the medium, Veasey has perfected his unusual art. Using an abandoned radar station as his studio, Veasey creates ghastly yet stunning X-ray images of various animals, a DJ holding a microphone, a man riding a bike, a tractor, and even a bus loaded with people. But Veasey’s most ambitious X-ray project as of yet is a 20,000 square-feet X-ray of a hangar containing an entire Boeing 777 jet, making it the largest object ever X-rayed.

2 – Electricity:

Australian Peter Terren likes playing with electricity. He does what he calls the ‘Holy Art of Electrickery,’ which is basically creating spectacular art made of pure electricity. Using an electric transformer called a Tesla coil (that he built himself ) that shoots out bolts of electricity (called plasma), Terren photographs these electric discharges, using long exposures to capture impressive images of electric ‘sculptures’ that danced through the air. Terren sometimes even incorporates himself into his photographs, like in his rendition of the famous sculpture ‘The Thinker’. Despite the unreal nature of the images, Terren insists that there is no Photoshopping involved in the production of his pictures, and only slight alterations were made to them post-production.

1 – Food:

Carl Warner gets the top spot on this list for his brilliantly realistic photographs of landscapes, which are created entirely from food. Warner, a London-based photographer, uses various food items like vegetables, fruits and bread, to create amazingly detailed dioramas, and photographs them for posterity. The dioramas, nicknamed ‘foodscapes’ , were made atop an eight feet by four-feet table, with the assistance of model-makers, and the scenes depicted ranged from a broccoli forest to a smoked-salmon sea in sunset. Warner photographs each scene multiple times, then he edits the images on a computer to produce the striking images.

Source: http://listverse.com/2010/08/17/yet-another-10-artistic-uses-of-ordinary-things

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Source: http://www.wambie.com/tuttifrutti_us/news/CAT_CAFES_IN_JAPAN-new_en-3229.html

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The Tweens News | English

# 10 – Okobo (Japan, 18th Century – Today):

Long before the 1970′s and the platform shoes, Japanese maiko (apprentice geisha) had been wearing Okobo sandals or clogs. The reason for wearing these very high platform shoes was not solely for fashion, but also for very practical reasons. If you are wearing a very expensive kimono that hangs all the way to your feet, you do not want to get mud on it when you walk outside. Okobo are made of one piece of solid wood forming the sole. Usually the wood has a very natural finish, or no varnish at all. But during the summer, maiko will wear black lacquered Okobo. The hight of Okobo shoes generally measures at 5 1/2 inches (14 cm), and the wood sole is carved hollow, giving them a very distinctive sound when one walks in them. In fact, the word Okobo is an onomatopoeia, that is it represents the sound of walking in them. A V-shaped thong of cloth forms the upper part of the sandal. The color of the cloth depends on the status of the maiko. For instance, a new maiko will wear red, while one who has nearly finished her apprenticeship will wear yellow.

# 9 – Men’s High Heels (Europe, 1700′s):

Shoes and stockings became very important for men in the 1700′s, when the tailored coat and breeches came into fashion and the focus shifted to the lower body. Suddenly, it was all about the shapely legs, and men wanted to wear flattering, fanciful hose and shoes to accentuate them. Louis XIV also had a thing for high heels with red soles and heels. It must have been tough being short in stature but lofty in power, so I guess he thought he would even it up a bit. Of course, what the king does, everyone else copies, so everyone who was anyone wore high heels with red soles and heels. After all, what would be more proper to wear with Petticoat breeches, than high-heeled shoes? Boots went completely out of style in favor of these new elegant heels, now elaborately decorated with ribbons, rosettes or buckles.

# 8 – Kabkabs (Lebanon, 14th-17th Century):

Silver studded Wooden stilts known as “kabkabs” or “nalins” were once a practical way for women in the Middle East to protect themselves from dirt and discomfort on wet, muddy streets and in hot, wet bathhouses. Those belonging to the wealthy were often richly inlaid with mother of pearl. They were several inches high and had embroidered leather, silk or velvet straps. The name “kabkab” is derived from the sound they make when walking on marble floors. The uppers were embroidered with silver, gold or pewter wire. For special occasions, like a wedding, the wooden stilts were entirely covered with intricately decorated silver, or with small silver ornaments. Many times brides were very young girls and, therefore, small in stature. To compensate this, bridal kabkabs were sometimes made as high as two feet. Socially, kabkabs were only worn by women. In bathhouses, however, simple ones, sometimes with a little carving only and a leather-strap upper, were also worn by men.

# 7 – Plaited Birch Bark Shoe (Finland, Mid 20th Century):

In the early part of the 20th century, women wore bark shoes daily, with cloth foot wrap inserts. They were also used as overshoes to protect more costly leather shoes against rain, mud and snow. These shoes were commonly made from Birch bark, but they could also be made from linden or lime-tree bark. Norway, Sweden and even Russia have all had their own version of the footwear. The lifespan of bark shoes is limited to about one week.

# 6 – Chopines (Italy, 1580 – 1620):

Today, only a very small number of museums have examples of original chopines. The debut of these shoes was during the renaissance, but they were still the shoe of choice for many Italian women at the beginning of the 17th century. Like the Japanese Okobo, Chopines were highly impractical, their primary purpose was to make the wearer stand out. They not only heightened the wearer by up to 18 cm (5 inches) but were extremely extravagant and expensive.

These treasured shoes were made of wood, and either covered with fine silk or velvet. They were embellished with silver lace, tacks, and were finished with a silk tassel. The tragic twist to these coveted shoes is that chopines were rarely ever visible, even in paintings from the period, since women always wore long dresses that covered their footwear.

# 5 – Heelless Shoes (2007):

I decided to put a couple of modern shoe designs here too, as they are just too bizarre to miss. Heelless shoes made their debut on Antonio Berardi’s runway in 2007, and were made famous by Victoria Beckham in 2008. And despite their unnatural and extremely uncomfortable look, according to their English Italian designer, they do not cause the wearer any pain. He has said “They are perfectly balanced. When the girls come for fittings, they look a bit daunted, but by the end they say it’s just like wearing a regular shoe.” But medical experts have their concerns, saying that the shoes could lead to permanent damage to the feet, knees and spine if worn regularly.

# 4 – Padukas (Toe-Knob Sandals) (India, 1700′s):

Ceremonial padukas, or toe-knob sandals, is the name of India’s oldest, and ultimate footwear. They were little more than a sole with a post and knob, which was situated between the big toe and second toe. They were commonly made from silver, wood, iron or even ivory.

# 3 – Wooden Bridal Shoes (France, Late 19th Century):

Out of the Bethmale Valley, south of the city Saint Girons in the Ariege district, comes this high pointed bridal wooden shoe. They go back as far as the 9th century, when local villagers conquered a camp of Moorish invaders, who kidnapped the village women, and pricked the hearts of their enemy on the pointed tips of their clogs, in celebration of their victory. The clogs were made in one piece of the trunks of walnut trees which formed a rectangle with its roots. Later the branches of a tree were pulled and warped in a special way to pre-shape the tree for making this type of clogs. Village men created the clogs for their future brides. It is said that the higher the point, the greater his love for her.

# 2 -The Ballet Boot (1980′s-Present Day):

The ballet boot is a contemporary style of footwear. They have grown in popularity as a general fashion statement, particularly in Japan. This shoe merges the look of the traditional ballet slipper with the ultimate high heel. The illusion is to force the wearers feet almost en pointe, like those of a ballerina using an ultra long heel. The Ballet Boot originally gained popularity in the 1980′s, and is now available worldwide through specialty stores and online. You may have guessed, but these shoes are not intended to be worn for any extended period of time.

# 1 – Lotus Shoes (China, From The 10th Century To 2009):

The Han Chinese tradition of binding women’s feet to make them appear as small as a lotus bud lasted well over a thousand years. Shoes from the north, especially Beijing, had a ‘bow’ shape, an exaggerated curved sole and heel in one piece, often with leather reinforcements at toe and heel. Style conscious women from Shanghai in the late 19th century and early 20th century, (then the fashion capital of China), liked a multiple heel, while those from the southern provinces such as Guangdong wore shoes often made of black cotton or silk, with a fairly flat heel. Iron or wooden studs were added in some cases to the soles to raise and protect the embroidered silk shoe from the dirt of the streets.

As part of her dowry, a woman would make several pairs of shoes as proof of her needlework ability, as well as her small feet. After her wedding, a bride gave each of her main female in-laws a pair of shoes at a special ceremony known as “dividing the shoes.” The last shoe factory to stop mass production of lotus shoes was the Zhiqiang Shoe Factory. The factory added lotus shoes for old Chinese women who still had bound feet to it’s product range in 1991. In the first two years, more than 2,000 pairs of shoes were sold annually. It announced in 2009 that it will make the shoes only on a special-order basis.

BONUS – Armadillo Shoes

Alexander McQueen in 2010 released a set of armadillo shoes. They were then popularized by the likes of “Lady” Gaga, and other celebrities. The shoes above were the originals – many other styles have since followed.

Source: http://listverse.com/2010/08/14/top-10-most-bizarre-shoes-in-history

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The story we have for you today is one of love, friendship, and how to co-exist.

Salati is a leopard that was adopted by the Brooker family in South Africa. The family helps to rehabilitate animals that are injured. Salati came to the Brooker family when it was just a cub, and instantly became friends with Tommy, a golden retriever. Tommy was also a puppy at the time.

You would think that a friendship between this unlikely pair would be impossible. But no. The two animals connected from the first moment. Now the two animals are fully grown and they are still friends. They spend time together running, playing, sleeping, whatever!

They have left behind the stereotype of cat and dog and found friendship instead.

Source: http://www.wambie.com/tuttifrutti_us/news/A_VERY_SPECIAL_FRIENDSHIP-new_en-3098.html

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Whether you like her or not, one thing is for sure: Lady Gaga is one of the biggest music icons of the 21st century.

Because of her incredible outfits, her wild concerts and over-the-top videos, Lady Gaga is well-known all over the world. Some people have even found inspiration in Lady Gaga.

Veil is one example. This Japanese artist has turned sweet Barbie into pop Dive, Lady Gaga.

The artist took a pair of scissors and some glue and careful made these little dolls in Lady Gaga’s image. Some of them are pretty good.

Check them out!

Source: http://www.wambie.com/tuttifrutti_us/photos/LADY_GAGA_OR_BARBIE_DOLL_-photo_en-962.html

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