I’ve been spending the past week in holiday craft mode, getting my house ready for the upcoming seasonal gatherings. I used to manage an Anthropologie store, and though a few years removed at this point, it’s home-spun influence on my decorating aesthetic is forever in my blood now. Mass-market cardboard cut-outs of reindeer tacked to the wall will no longer suffice for this artsy gal.

This yarn ball mantel piece took 12 hours to pull off and 8 skeins of yarn-at $2 a pop thanks to Wallmart. I crunched up paper from my recycle bin into various size balls, then picked a color of yarn and started to wrap until there was no more paper showing and it was a perfect sphere. I tied it off and left a long tail of string to then wrap & tie off around the branch I salvaged from my backyard from a recent windstorm (free!), each ball at various lengths. (Total cost=$19, plus 7 vodka tonics during the process-split between 2 days!)

Once I was happy with the quantity of balls and placement, up it went, and then about an hour later of untangling the balls from the hanging process, I snipped the hanging yarn that went beyond the bottom of the yarn balls, stepped back, and admired my handiwork.

On the mantel itself, I laid out a scene of cut logs pilfered from my wood pile, then unraveled a skein of fuzzy white mohair to create “snow”. Then I made more white yarn balls in various sizes (same way as above minus the tails) for the snowballs, placed them, added a string of tree lights, and called it a snowy yarn mantel masterpiece. Total time, 45 minutes. Total cost=$5 and a shot of Whiskey neat.

We arrived home from Wrangell Alaska, late Tuesday night. We met a ton of great people, saw a lot of beautiful scenery and learned a whole lot about fish! The visit was great, the people were great, and we came back with eyes open and heads swimming with ideas.

While checking scores around the league on NFL.com yesterday I noticed an ad for a Super Bowl retrospective. I thought it was going to be a DVD box set so I wanted to see what the story was. Turns out it wasn’t a collection of DVDs, it was a book. But not just any book, this book is 7 color process printed, 900 pages, 1200 photos all spot varnished. Every page is lined in silver leaf. the book is 20 inches by 20 inches and weighs 80 POUNDS! It’s hand bound to premium leather and comes with a silk clamshell box and a pair of white handling gloves. And it retails for three thousand dollars. But that’s the standard edition.

The MVP edition comes with signatures from every living MVP from ever Super Bowl, as well as 20″x24″ polaroid prints from every living MVP from Walter Ioos Jr., one of the most high renowned sports photographers in the world. And if you buy this edition Walt will come take your portrait in a style that matches all the MVPs.

The MVP edition will only set you back FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS.

After doing some research this book was created by a company called Opus, who turns out, designs 3 thousand dollar books regularly. They have editions for Formula 1, Manchester United and of course, the Super Bowl.

Truly awe inspiring. A designer’s dream, a project manager’s nightmare, a printer’s apocalypse.

Click the image above, or check it out here.

Our buddy Draplin will be competing in Coudal’s weekly Layer Tennis competition which is taking place live at noon on layertennis.com. How it works is one designer starts and supplies an image, the opponent has 15 minutes to remix the supplied image and send it back, then it’s returned in a graphic design weight lifting competition of sorts.

Check it out, takes place at noon today.

“As we all know, the problem with USB flash drives is they’re not nearly gaudy enough. Here to solve that problem is Louis Vuitton, whose new flash drives are made with gold and leather from ostriches or alligators, lucky you gets to pick; we’re hoping future versions will contain condor, bald eagle or blood diamonds. Tasteful decisions to include both a watchface and a chain-attached skeleton key to lock the cap round out the package. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go shoot myself in the face.”

(Practical note to LV designers: when you attach the key to the lock, it tends to make the lock somewhat less effective.)
reposted from core77.com

This past weekend I went to Neumos to see the musical stylings of Battles. I’d heard several of Battles’ previous albums and EPs over the past few years, consisting mainly of wacky sounds and time signatures to appeal mostly to the music nerd. This year Battles released their latest record “Mirrored” on Warp. It’s much jazzier with some new pop sensibilities that make it fun for anyone to listen to. These guys rule and have tons of fun while playing. It was very awesome to see a band like this fill the house at Neumos. Their music videos are totally killer as well.