World champion balloon artist Mark Verge twisted up this huge Tyrannosaurus rex from 700 balloons. He calls it the "the coolest thing I’ve ever made.”

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San Francisco artist Windy Chien made one new knot every day last year and many of them are exquisite string sculptures. She learned from The Ashley Book of Knots, Clifford W. Ashley's 1944 tome of 4,000 knots.

“I like the repetition of knots—it lets me get into a state of flow,” Chien told Wired. “But what I’m primarily interested in is how our eyes follow a line. The line is one of the six building blocks of art, and I’m obsessed with it.”

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Sarah Vaci creates wonderful portraits with colored wool and felt from her UK studio. Watch her make a dog eye in this 24-minute relaxing tutorial. Read the rest

Nathan writes, "My son and I decided gingerbread houses were boring, so we built a gingerbread Apple II computer instead, including the interior with power supply, motherboard, and an expansion card." Read the rest

Barcelona-based sculptor Xavier Mañosa created Skate Fails, a series of ceramic sculptures that look like Dali-esque melted skateboards. Read the rest

"If you don't have a palm tree nearby, try using long strips of paper instead," writes Grant Thompson, aka The King of Random.

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In under an hour, glass artist James Mongrain transforms blobs of molten glass into a stunning green dragon. The choreographed teamwork, the variety of tools, and the interesting narration make this a real treat. Read the rest

YouTuber Murmiland, aka Ortwin Grüttner, created this one-of-a-kind rafting-themed marble run that takes nearly 3 minutes from start to finish. Follow one yellow marble in a sea of green glass marbles as they cascade down the carved wooden path. Lots of nifty little features. Read the rest

SOFTlab creates handmade mesh sculptures that appear to melt and flow from ceilings, down stairwells, and from vaulted lobbies. Their most recent, Ventricle, evokes the human heart. Read the rest

"With the right tension, and the right distance of "travel" it doesn't even hurt your hand...much." (Essential Craftsman)

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Imagine trying to shape a red-hot 75-pound glob of honey for 90 minutes, and you'll better appreciate watching as Davide Salvadore creates a vessel in his signature Muranese style. Read the rest

IMGUrian Colo1 shared this wonderful series of images documenting a cardboard dinosaur creation. Read the rest

See sample pages from this book at Wink.

Craft for the Soul: How to Get the Most Out of Your Creative Life

by Pip Lincolne (author)

Penguin Books Australia

2016, 216 pages, 6 x 9 x 0.9 inches (hardcover)

$28 Buy a copy on Amazon

When it comes to dishing out all there is to know about living a creative life, Pip Lincolne is certainly your go-to woman. She’s the author of several creative titles and the talent behind popular blog Meet Me at Mike’s. She is also the founder of multiple inspiring projects, including worldwide craft group Brown Owls and the eMag series The Good Stuff Guide.

For some, stumbling upon Pip Lincolne’s book, Craft for the Soul, might seem a bit like discovering a rare gem. Sure, there are plenty of books about creativity, as well as numerous books filled with cute craft projects, but Lincolne has seamlessly blended the two to produce a book that is bursting with all things creative. Nestled among her down-to-earth advice about morning rituals, keeping active for creativity’s sake, and how to constantly generate ideas (among plenty of other topics), you’ll also find her favorite delicious recipes, along with adorable illustrations, inspiring quotes, and crafty DIY projects.

The author stresses that each and every one of us are capable of filling our day-to-day lives with more creativity, happiness, and fun. And for those of you thinking you don’t have a creative bone in your bodies – the pang of inspiration you feel every time you turn a page will certainly have you thinking otherwise! Read the rest

LoveProps has indeed crafted a “Perfect Daft Punk Helmet,” and I dare say it's better than the original worn by the band.

“The designing, building and programming of the GM01 unit took more than one year of daily work,” says the maker, who is a fan. “Finishing it with the desired quality was a huge odyssey.”

Damn. This thing is no joke. Read the rest

ev Kaestner shows how to turn an old tin can into a lovely and functional candle holder. The secret is a pencil-thin torch for fine work. Read the rest

Krystle Missildine paints delicate animal portraits on feathers, like this robin on a macaw feather. Read the rest

See sample pages from this book at Wink.

Chihuly on Fire

by Henry Adams (author) and Dale Chihuly (artist)

Chihuly Workshop

2016, 212 pages, 9.3 x 12.1 x 0.9 inches

$40 Buy a copy on Amazon

For several decades now, art critics and casual admirers alike have talked about Dale Chihuly’s art in terms of its forms. Indeed, the artist himself organizes his work largely by their physical shapes, as does his latest self-published coffee-table book, Chihuly on Fire, whose chapter titles range from “Baskets” and “Sea Forms” to “Jerusalem Cylinders” and “Rotolo.” But thumbing the pages of this sumptuous, hardcover volume, and reading the biographical essay by art-history professor Henry Adams, one is struck by the importance of color to Chihuly’s work.

The shift to color began in 1981, when Chihuly and his team of gaffers and assistants produced the first of what would become known as the Macchia series. These often enormous vessels, whose sides were usually folded and deformed, featured solid-color interiors, lip wraps in contrasting hues, and thousands of “jimmies” of pure crushed colored glass, usually set against a background of white glass “clouds.”

Even in his early days, Chihuly’s ambitions for his chosen medium seemed larger than the modest network of glass-art galleries around the country would have the wherewithal to support. By the time his Macchia pieces came along, the so-called craft arts, of which glass art was but one, were allowed to be exuberant and even a bit zany, but they were ultimately expected to exhibit good table manners, to sit uncomplainingly at the kid’s table of the art world. Read the rest