Awesome Art & Design

Most fire pits are made from metal or stone. HomeMadeModern wanted to see if building a fire pit entirely from glass bricks was possible. The hollow glass blocks you can buy at the hardware store look dated and might crack from heat, so he experimented with some solid glass bricks. The larger fire pit he built looks amazing as its flames dance behind the blocks.

This LEGO version of the iconic Polaroid OneStep SX-70 camera is based on a fan-submitted design. The 516-piece kit creates a near-perfect replica of the instant camera, and has a point-and shoot mechanism that ejects illustrated plastic “photographs.” The vibrant Time-Zero Supercolor film box provides storage for the three included photos.

MMA fighter and businessman Conor McGregor asked That Works to create a sword to celebrate his Forged Irish Stout. Matt Stagmer and Steve House from Moonshine Metalworks created this two-handed Irish Claymore, inspired by the sword on the beer can but with many added details. The etched slashes on the blade are the McGregor name in ancient Celtic.

Ryan Cook is a master at carving sculptures with his chainsaw and hand tools. Most of his works are in wood, but he made this amazing sculpture of a toucan out of ice. He carved the intricate bird from a single block of ice and finished the entire bird in just two hours. We can’t decide if the crystal clear beak or the feathers are our favorite part.

Instead of telling time, Digital Horology’s LunaKron 2.1 clock displays the current moon phase. It uses GPS data to calculate the date and which phase to show. It’s made from acrylic and fiberboard, and the photographic moon is backlit by 256 LEDs. They also make the LunaKron 1, which has backlit cutouts representing each of the moon’s eight phases.

Coffee mugs serve their purpose pretty well, but ordinary handles mean the cup tends to tilt unless you grip hard. The Moment Mug from Artisan Tide features a patent-pending handle design with a curve that nestles between your middle and ring fingers, ensuring the mug never slips. Available in Cloud White or Sea Foam Green in 1-, 2-, or 4-packs.

The Mundo Pixar exhibit in São Paulo, Brazil, included a replica of Andy’s room from Toy Story, scaled up to make visitors feel like they’re the toys. The room featured larger-than-life furniture, books, blocks, and human-size figures of Woody and Buzz Lightyear. This video is special because it shows the room before the crowds took over.

This special edition of Gerber’s Fastball knife features a Dark Urban Blue aluminum handle, laser engraved with a winter scene. It has a 3″ plain-edge Wharncliffe blade made from stonewashed S30V steel. Opens easily with a finger flipper and a smooth ball-bearing mechanism. Available in limited quantities exclusively from the Gerber online shop.

Keyboard enthusiast and woodworker Barrett Creative makes beautiful wood keyboard cases. They’re sold in kit form with a KL-90 circuit board, encoder(s), and a matching wooden knob(s). They’re currently available in Woodland, Rustic, and Infernum kits. Keycaps, switches, and stabilizers are not included. Hipyotech has a hands-on look at one of these keyboards.

Milk crates are a great way to store records and books. But the plastic ones look really cheap. For a more refined look, consider these wooden crates from WAAM. They’re made from high-density birch plywood and offer a playful take on the ones you probably shouldn’t have swiped from the alley behind the grocery store.

One look at Jadokar’s Instagram page, and it’s obvious he’s a talented artist. While most of his work is illustrated, in this video, he proves he knows a thing or two about sculpture. Watch as he transforms a hunk of sandstone into an ancient cityscape packed with arched windows, doorways, and tiny staircases.

Iron Man had armor that was able to fix itself after a fight. JLaservideo took a stab at making real-world armor pieces that heal themselves after being heated, thanks to Nitinol – a nickel-titanium alloy with the ability to return to a programmed shape after being bent. The material is expensive and hard to work with, but Tony Stark could afford it.

Kenta Gomazaki loves to spend his time outdoors. To enhance his experience, he outfits metal gear boxes with equipment for making coffee, cooking, and serving food. His Instagram channel is filled with his wonderful creations, each is packed with unique Japanese gear for enjoying outdoor living. Kenta’s setup videos are fun and inspiring, too.

Ali Spagnola thought making her car change colors like a gigantic mood ring would be fun. So she sprayed it with thermochromic liquid crystal paint. This stuff doesn’t show if she’s happy or sad but instead reacts to changes in temperature. If you’re wondering what those discs are on her car, they’re the 9,000 PopSockets she attached in a previous video.

Builder John Malecki wanted a new media center for his office. Rather than designing the cabinetry himself, he turned to generative AI to come up with the concept. After playing with a few prompts, Midjourney came up with a design. Its organic shapes caused construction challenges, but John and his team did a great job bringing the real-world version to life.

A little while back, maker Ivan Miranda engineered a very cool clock that tells time using marbles. But his kinetic sculpture is too slow to tell the time accurately. He’s since made numerous refinements to the design of his clock, and it’s now faster and smoother, so it can properly update its digits once per minute. It’s totally awesome but ridiculously loud.

We’ve seen tables that use resin or glass to create the illusion of water. Woodworker Screaming Donkey built a coffee table with a real liquid-filled center. He started out with some olive wood burl which he de-barked, cut into pieces, bathed in resin, and gradually refined. After that, he filled it with water, mica, glycerin, and pigments, agitated by magnetic stirrers.

AMCLUBShop proves anything can be a disco ball if you cover it with enough mirrored tiles. Among the many sparkly things in their Etsy shop is this ridiculously awesome disco ball in the shape of a shark. The 22″ long fish is the perfect excuse to have a dance party during Shark Week, and a great piece of decor for marine biologists and choreographers alike.

This award-winning animated film from École des Nouvelles Images drops us onto an island where a volcanic eruption threatens a flock of birds. As the cloud of dust and lava bursts into the sky, two birds try their best to save their eggs from disaster. The short does a great job of ramping up the tension while remaining lighthearted in its approach.

Yokoyama Reimei has been making Japanese archery bows for more than a century. Their artisans use traditional woodworking techniques to craft 6.5-foot tall bows from burnt bamboo and a wax tree core. They shape each bow by hand (and foot) by bending the wood with rope and bamboo wedges. Process X provides a close-up look at their workshop.

There are obsessions, and then there’s this. Artist Robert Wechsler spent seven years making this sculpture entirely from pennies. He built the 540-pound tower of pennies by cutting four slots into 100,000 pennies, assembling them into strings, and then into sheets for stacking. He had to build a special rig to press the pennies together, a dozen at a time.

Scrimshaw art dates back to the late 18th century as a product of the whaling industry. But you won’t have to catch Moby Dick to make your first piece of scrimshaw. This kit from Mollyjogger includes a bone-handled pocket knife, a steel scribe, India ink, a tracing tool, and a variety of designs so you can customize your knife. Choose from a Trapper or Lock-back style knife.

Greg Blanpied makes CNC-machined and laser-cut functional art fabricated using parametric math and geometry. Among his amazing pieces is this elegant bowl, which acts as a zoetrope when filmed or spun beneath a strobe light. He’s also created a zoetrope vase.