Awesome Handmade

Spanish-based artist Lorenzo Duran puts plain old leaves through a painstaking process of washing, drying, molding and careful cutting away to create his precise and detailed art.

We’re enjoying the looks of these fun little bricks from Tara Ketchum, hand-cast to resemble standard 2″x4″ LEGO building blocks. They’d make great gifts for architects, builders, or any LEGO fan.

Milan-based artist Guido Daniele creates extraordinarily detailed trompe l’oeil advertising art by painting hands to resemble animals, then photographing the results. (Thanks Kelley!)

Some terrific creativity was found at the Scotch Off the Roll Tape Sculpture Contest. The second annual contest challenged artists of every level to create original sculptures using just packaging tape.

We can’t imagine how much “research” went into UVA students Ross Thomas and Elizabeth Farrell 8000 piece, 7′ x 9′ beer bottle cap rendition of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Want to buy it? E-mail them.

From chaos comes calm: these disorderly yet exquisite pen and ink drawings of familiar works of art are comprised of thousands of improvised miniature characters by Tokyo artist Keita Sagaki.

Ah, DIY’ers: Check out these katana blades and some homemade housing that, when combined, make a tidy little pair of Wolverine claws that pop out at will (by moving your arm). (Thanks Nick!)

Etsy seller tinymeat’s vinyl artist series wallets feature cool images from all kinds of talented folks on the inside and out. At $16 each, you’ll probably have some cash left over to keep in them too.

These bicycles are hand assembled, finished and fine tuned by Francesco Bertelli, who uses a combination of new parts and old parts found at flea markets to create his functional design objects.

Check out this medley of popular tunes from the young and talented Snubby J, whose instrument of choice is a handbuilt PVC pipe organ/drum set. Bonus: Ozzy at 3:24. (Thanks Kelley!)

Barrett Alley’s beautiful collection of heirloom quality leather wallets and accessories is sewn by hand and made with vegetable-tanned leather, linen thread and repurposed vintage materials.

We don’t think we have to wait till Halloween to put these fun handmade stuffed monster pillows from Johnny Cupcakes on our couch. Each monster is marked in a numbered limited edition.

We grinning at the looks of this guy expressing himself on this handmade limited edition print from Omar Noory. It’s letterpressed on heavy paper stock and hand painted with a light ink wash.

Made from 13-ply Baltic birch, the handmade Boattail Racer is in a limited edition of 100 and takes its inspiration from early 20th century low-drag coaches. Very cool package design too.

UK artist Daniel Reese has created a great collection of sneakers inspired by contemporary pop culture using a standard Nike trainer as base, and is now available for commission work.

Billy Reid’s ruggedly handsome Kent Roper Boot features a rounder toe shape, aged and burnished exterior and leather sole for comfort and flexibility. Calfskin interior lining; handmade in Italy.

Those of us who enjoy smelling like a brewery at all times might like the handmade soaps and shampoo bars made with aromatic essential oils and the fine ales from Delaware’s Dogfish Head.

Metalworker Des Bromilow built a life size replica of Bender “Bending” Rodriguez from Futurama, complete with cigar and beard. He documented it all in great detail in a slew of posts on his blog.

Self-taught artist Erika Iris Simmons, aka iRI5, creates works with a focus on recycling found materials. In this series she made a number of portraits of musicians from original cassette tapes.

2 different videos here for Chinese farmer Wu Yulu, who has created an army of homemade scrap metal robots. Some of his self-described “sons” will be at the Shanghai Expo in person later this year.

Canadian artist Marc Johns believes that truth can be found through humor, which is realized through the witty, less-is-more illustrations he creates with ink and watercolors. He has a book out too.

These handmade wooden external hard drives are crafted from repurposed materials by 2 furniture makers in Seattle. Each one comes with 500GB of storage and a USB 2.0 connection.

Using only a few knives, scalpels and some special waxes, talented artist Mark Evans painstakingly and patiently transforms simple pieces of leather into extraordinary large scale works of art.