Flowers, cones, leaves – nature is never short on extraordinary inspiration. Kathy Klein deconstructs objects of our environment and uses the parts to create unique flower circles called “danmalas”. From the sanskrit ‘dān’ meaning ‘the giver’ and ‘mālā’ meaning ‘garland of flowers’, the designs created showcase the stunning colour, texture and shape in nature and how they can be brought together to create completely new patterns. Kathy has made her beautiful danmalas all over the world and after spying a few quick shots of the circles in place, I am obsessed with seeing more. A danmala coffee table book please! (You can order your own danmala or purchase Kathy’s prints and cards here)

(thanks for the inspiration Heather!)

I’m intrigued by the idea behind Australian artist Lizzie Buckmaster Dove’s ‘Tide Project’. For one lunar month in 2010, an art project was created between London, Barcelona and Coledale using found objects in the tides that connect the three places. The result is graphic and vibrant hand cut paper art that uses unique colour palettes to represent the very different cities (you can view all the pieces here by scrolling to the far right). Of the series, my favourites are ‘Tide Project, Things to be Forgotten, Moon and Moon ii’ with their geometric cuts, absolutely gorgeous colour palettes and dreamy lunar inspiration. It still amazes me what can be created with a common paint chip…

An intriguing piece of street art in Salzburg by artist MeerSAU. Not comment yet from the artist on the meaning behind the piece (especially the last image) but the wrinkled garbage bag and whimsy of real balloons is a beautiful and thought-provoking visual.

(spotted on unurth)

Adding to his career of turning everyday forgotten objects into pieces of art, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye created his latest series “Pneu” (French for tire). Using discarded tires, Wim hand carved incredibly intricate patterns using motifs from different periods of art including Art Deco patterns and Art Nouveau floral designs. The level of detail in the relief and the sheer craftsmanship required is stunning. Have you ever seen a tire turned into something so beautiful? Such inspiration for what can be done with the things we call trash. In addition to being an amazing piece of art, I can just see one of these pieces hanging from an old tree and creating an extraordinary swing…

(spotted on inhabitat)

I hadn’t really thought about it until today but it is quite amazing how many shades of brown you can achieve when toasting a piece of bread. For his series ‘Toasted’, photographer Henry Hargreaves created large-scale portraits of pop culture icons with hundreds of pieces of toast. The level of detail and eye for subtleties of hue are quite astounding. A glimpse at the level of work can be seen in the last shot where toasted crumpets are being meticulously arranged to create a portrait of Pippa Middleton. I may never look at a piece of burnt toast the same way again! (Bread toasted by Angela Barrow and Osvaldo Ponton)

(from top: Marilyn Monroe, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Che Guevara, Jim Morrison and Pippa Middleton)

(spotted on feature shoot & smilepanic)

1,000 white envelopes containing poems were strung throughout a garden in Madrid, Spain in a recent installation by Luzinterruptus called ’1,000 Poems by Mail’. Created as part of poetry festival Poetas Por Km2, each envelope contained a poem written by one of the 17 poets participating. The envelopes were softly illuminated as a centrepiece for the three day festival and on the last night, were offered to the public as a memento or easy-to-address note to a loved one. I just love this type of street art…

(spotted on the artist and his model)

I am more than considering buying a last minute ticket to Melbourne to see this extraordinary ‘Spring Orchard’ paper creation by Gloss Creative. A 30-foot vine made with a kilometre of rope and over 2000 individually crafted paper pieces of fruit and vegetation, the installation was designed for Melbourne’s GPO fashion centre to celebration contemporary art and the spring birth of new fashion. I love how Gloss Creative described their work: “we have created a ‘new generation’ orchard, a mass of overgrown, monstrous fruits & vines bursting over the balconies, down to the ground floor.” If it is this gorgeous in photographs, I can’t even imagine how incredible it would be in person. What a feat of vibrantly colourful paper art, breathtaking detail and craftsmanship.

(photography by Sam Ali and Marcel Aucar; images via gloss creative’s blog and stylehunter)

I have already babbled on and on about the vibrantly colourful and innovative RGB Wallpaper by Milan studio Carnovsky. Overlapping primary coloured illustrations create a beautiful multicoloured print in everyday light but when a red, green or blue light (RGB colour) is shone upon the room’s paper, only one of the three overlapping patterns is visible and the other two are hidden. When I spotted their new installation ‘La Selva’, I fell in love all over again. Adorning the walls of Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes, a café and exhibition space in East London’s Shoreditch, the wallpaper takes on a whole new chic look as part of an interior design. Doesn’t it look great next to a chalkboard menu? The theme of ‘jungle’ works brilliantly as its textured vegetation, daunting beasts and exotic creatures create three mesmerizing layers for each colour of light. If you happen to be London, La Selva is on view until September 21st, 2011. It looks like Carnovsky has created limited edition prints as well. Pick me up one please?!

(spotted on design boom)

The FAME Festival in Grottaglie, Italy hosts artists from all over the world for one to four weeks during the spring and summer months to create street art installations, screenprints, ceramics and large-scale murals. The festival has produced some fantastic pieces of street art including what might be my very favourite, this tiny clothesline. Last week, artists Brad Downey and Akay collaborated over six days to create some imaginative and colourful pieces including this beautiful pasta curtain and ‘tipping point’ installation featuring dramatically linked cans of paint. Throwing pots of colour off a roof to create a spontaneous colour palette is officially on my life list…

(see more of the collaboration here)

I love these paper sculptures by Barcelona artist Jordi Ferreiro. Amazing how a gradient is formed by sheets of carefully arranged paper. Love that orange, blue and green combination bursting with texture…

Ursus Wehrli is a Swiss artist made famous by his Tidying Up Art books that re-arrange famous works of art into tidy sets of painting components that feel like infographics dedicated to how art is created. I love the direction of his new book The Art of Clean Up as Ursus organizes common objects or everyday scenes into orderly parts and colour palettes. Have you ever looked at pine branches or alphabet soup in such a fascinating way? I have always stared at parking lots and thought about the colour order that could be created so I love how Ursus made a scene of colour theory out of such an everyday place. The book comes out next month and I can’t wait to see what other things have been “tidied” by Ursus’ clever mind. Organizing never looked so good…

(spotted on hunter harmony’s pinterest via things organized neatly & this is colossal)

‘Recycled Shadow’ is a Spanish street art installation created by architectural collective Meva. Inspired by the disturbing fact that 938,000 free daily papers are distributed daily in Madrid and most end up garbage cans, the artists folded hundreds of newspaper pages into windmills that were then hung on nylon mesh above a Alicante, Spain street as well as the courtyard of the Ministry of Environment in Madrid. The recycled windmills bring attention to a civic issue while also providing whimsical shade to people on the street. I love the look of that picturesque Spanish street and the shape of shadows created. As Meva commented about their installation, “the windmills are organized to provide shadow with a simple changing pattern, each of them rotates and balances on its own to the rhythm of the gentle summer breeze.” Beautiful street art with a message. Is there anything better?

(spotted on designboom)

I love fashion editorials. A perfect fusion of concept, design, art, drama and story. They are like mini films bursting with gorgeous fashion. A few months ago, I started to realize that a lot of my favourite editorials were by a handful of photographers. Sølve Sundsbø, a Norwegian fashion photographer, is definitely at the top of that list. His work is so imaginative, so dramatic and always full of magnificent sweeps of colour. I recently read an interview where Sølve describes his work: “If I’ve got a style, it’s that I’ve got no style.” I love that his work is always fresh and that each “film” is a unique take on fashion. Working for every major fashion magazine as well as clients like Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, Alexander McQueen, Gucci and Hermès, Sølve’s photographs often look like the product of technology and digital retouching. In reality, Sølve crafts his photographs with old-fashioned techniques and principles like shadows and light, hand-painted film and meticulous detail to composition and styling. His talent breathes new life and imagination into the world of fashion. Add to that an incredible eye and love for hue and you can understand why Sølve is a true colour hero!

(quote via the independent; photographs via ben trovato, the photography link, ru glamour, the 25th century, absinthrill, hapsical, image amplified and fashion gone rogue)

I first became smitten with the work of designer Sarah Illenberger when I discovered she was behind the fantastic cover of one of my favourite books, Papercraft (the second photo above). In addition to clever photography work like the raining watermelon I posted about previously, Sarah creates brilliant handmade paper pieces for publication covers, advertising pieces and set design. I was thrilled to read on the weekend that in September, Gestalten is publishing an entire book devoted to Sarah’s spectacular work. The cover, shown at the top of this post, is just plain fabulous. It’s amazing how a few twists of gold paper becomes a modern croissant. How great are those slices of speckled sausage? I can’t wait to read Sarah’s book and marvel at her handmade wonders and zest for making everyday objects joyful.

(read about on design boom; photographs via gestalten)

Love this amazing weave typography made by French graphic design studio Zim and Zou. It took six hours to create each letter of Weave Type 2 and 500 metres of thread to build the entire alphabet. Such beautiful geometry, contrasting colours and handcrafted detail.

I spotted this awesome DIY project on food blog Griottes and I haven’t been able to look at wooden cutlery the same way since. I would love a print of the top photograph to hang in my kitchen! Not only are biodegradable bamboo utensils better for the environment than their plastic counterparts, they are the perfect canvas for colour, tape, fabric and illustration. Oh the picnic possibilities…

(more information about creating your own set can be found here)