The Boobie Beanie is a sweet little hand-crocheted hat for kiddos that looks like a breast, making it a pretty hilarious way to breastfeed in public (esp. if you have twins, as my friend David points out).

This is a completely hand-crocheted hat, made to look like a breast when worn by a baby/toddler/child, while nursing! It’s made of 100% organic cotton, and is very soft and warm. It can be made in any skin or nipple tone.

images via Boobie Beanie

Jess of Etsy shop Knot By Gran’ma is selling a variety of Cat Butt crocheted ornaments and keychains, including a red one for Valentine’s Day. If you’d like to crochet your own cat butt, there are downloadable patterns for sale too. Dog lovers fear not, Pug Butt crocheted ornaments and keychains are also available.

I don’t know about you, but cat butt humor never gets old. If this also applies to you, then here’s a great way to spruce up your decor, holidays, or whatever needs a little cat butt…

Carley Jacobson is behind the DIY Brief Jerky, a 100% edible pair of meat underwear with Slim Jim laces. Pull out your dehydrator, gather together two lbs. of ground beef, Liquid Smoke, some Slim Jims and a few other items because she’s got the complete instructions with a template over at Instructables.

100% edible and 100% meat, they are so easy to make a cavemen could do it!

Sure, you could spend $140 for a pair of meaty briefs that are only partially edible, but who wants to work around all those metal shards and strings in the heat of passion?

Danyelle of [dandee] designed her delightful Love Bug Valentines as a way to send her first-grade son to school with unique non-candy Valentine’s Day cards. She has included a template and full instructions on how to make these cards at home.

via Craft

BFA Commutations student Victoria Caswell has created the Boy Scouts of America Survival Sewing Kit, a conceptual sewing kit designed to roll-up like a sleeping bag.

This sewing kit for boy scouts meant to resemble a sleeping bag. It is made out of a olive green canvas, and is adorn with pulls and snaps to give the idea of general camping equipment and rolls up and unrolls like a sleeping bag.

via Lovely Package

Oakland-based Lea Redmond of creative studio Leafcutter Designs has made a cool retro-modern version of the punchboard, a nearly-forgotten parlor game from the 1920s and 1930s that are “a playful object with tiny compartments containing little paper scrolls that are only revealed when “punched” out”. Her handmade Punch Boxes hold sweet customizable scrolled messages and may be just the thing to cleverly reveal your thoughts of love on Valentine’s Day. You can take a peek at the 12 standard messages or make your own for a few dollars more. This project was funded by a successful 2011 Kickstarter campaign.

We have previously posted about Lea’s projects, including the World’s Smallest Post Service and The Small Times, a mini newspaper for the World’s Smallest Post Service Kit.

Collectors Weekly recently ran an interesting article titled Reformed Gambling Swindle Becomes a Punch Board of Love on the unsavory history of punchboards and Lea’s refreshing new take on them.

…the origins of these pre-smartphone amusements are not so cutesy. First designed for gambling, punch boards quickly became the go-to scam for gangsters and mobsters like Jack Ruby, con artists, and lottery operators hoping to swindle the gullible. We found a thorough history of the parlor games’ less-than-savory past at Punchboard.com.

Fins ‘n’ Deuces vintage punchboard

images via Leafcutter Designs and Collectors Weekly

Using everyday household items like plastic grocery bags, plastic water bottles, thread, water and food coloring, you can create a miniature aquarium of faux floating jellyfish. Bhoomplay has created the sweet tutorial, How To Make Your Own Jellyfish in a Bottle.

via Craft

images via Bhoomplay

The DIY Star Wars AT-AT Cable Organizer/Card Case is a construct-your-own computer-cable-organizing and business-card-holding kit from Jimi Olaghere at GeekCook. It is available to purchase from his Etsy shop, GeekCook.

The DIY AT-AT is constructed after the Star Wars AT-AT, It’s a geeks solution to keeping cable and wire organized in the office or work area. There is also a compartment to store business cards. It’s made from high grade wood and it comes flat-packed. Nuts and screws are all included. It can also be painted to the color of your choice!

via Etsy Dudes

images via GeekCook

Magneto by Deadly Sweet

Rin Okumura (Blue Exorcist) by Deadly Sweet

Link by Deadly Sweet

Yoda Plush, commissioned piece, by Deadly Sweet

Minky Totoro by Deadly Sweet

Canada-based artist Michelle Coffee crafts her delightful art plush dolls, Plushes, in the shape of all kinds of geeky subjects like Magneto, Rin Okumura and Yoda. Most designs are for sale at her Etsy shop, Deadly Sweet.

via BuzzFeed

photos by Michelle Coffee

Vendula Maderská of Etsy shop, Magic With hook and needles, recently spent 7 hours hand-crocheting this stunning beaded peacock brooch.

via Craft

photos by Vendula Maderská

Hosanna Houser over at The Crafts Dept. at MarthaStewart.com has crafted adorable Champagne Chairs in the style of miniature ice cream parlor chairs simply by repurposing the cap and cork cage from bottles of opened champagne. She has posted full instructions on how to make her tiny chairs at home.

via Nag on the Lake

images via The Crafts Dept.

Mike Rankin of birdhouse-making Etsy store, Wudwerx, has made the Toast Bird Feeder, a clever hanging outdoor bird feeder that “is ideal for using up that leftover toast from breakfast”.

Simple and functional, with a roof to stop the toast from going soggy, this feeder is perfect for any garden, or would work well outside an apartment window. Comes with a chain for hanging. Hanger and bit of toast not included.

via swissmiss

Artist and furniture maker Christy Oates has designed the Mink Toilet, a fur-covered toilet project which is a “response to Meret Oppenheim’s Object piece, a fur-covered cup and saucer”. If you can find a clean or new toilet, a used fur coat and some adhesive spray, you too can create a Mink Toilet for your home.

Notes from the artist:

I wouldn’t use this toilet for its intended purpose when you’re done… ew, but it makes a great conversation piece in your living room!…

When you have guests over, make sure you let them know this toilet is for sitting, not “going”

images via Christy Oates on Instructables

They Might Be Giants (TMBG) kick off their 2012 United States tour on the Conan show on January 26, 2012 which will feature music from their two new albums, Join Us and the companion rarities album, Album Raises New and Troubling Questions. Their first public performance of this tour is on January 27, 2012 at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz, California. Special musical guest Jonathan Coulton opens for TMBG in the majority of the U.S. cities.

To celebrate the announcement of their tour, TMBG released this “dramatic video” which follows the construction of a giant pink papercraft life-sized monster truck hearse set to When Will You Die? from TMBGs album Join Us. For fun, they have provided free detailed instructions on how to make your own gigantic or table-top sized monster hearse at home.

The video tracks the creation of an 18′ paper and wood replica of the DayGlo pink monster hearse that graces the cover of They Might Be Giants’ album “Join Us.” World-renown graphic artist Paul Sahre created the original cover, and after designing a 3D scale model of the hearse in .pdf form decided he wanted to take this project to another level. So he set his laser printer to 3400%, and then set himself and his design staff to work to create the most monster of model monster trucks. The result is a viral video that must be seen to the end.

From Shove Mink of Croshame, the creator of that wonderful crocheted Krampus we posted about recently, comes the easy-to-make slip-on Star Trek-inspired Crocheted Spock Ears. She’s even included a pattern for them which she estimates will take half hour to produce.

While we might not be traversing far-off galaxies, transporting ourselves onto to Klingon spaceships, or shuffling off to the holodeck for exasperating Sherlock Holmes RPGs, many of the objects people use today – cell phones, video conferencing, GPS devices, stun guns — were predicted by Star Trek many decades ago.

Well, Christmas has come and gone and you’ve already gotten all the fancy stun guns and tricorders and communicators your heart could desire, so why not try out some of that fabulous Star Trek fashion sense with my pattern for crocheted Spock Ears?

images via Croshame

Lucie Thomas and Thibault Zimmermann of french design firm Zim & Zou have created The Future of Food, a bright neon-colored papercraft hamburger inspired by 3D food printer technology. It was created for the February 2012 cover of Icon magazine which is covering issues surrounding food design.

In the past, we have written about their colorful retro items made in paper-craft, such as the Game Boy and a variety of consumer electronics.

via Colossal

via Neatorama

San Francisco-based Shove Mink of Croshame has crocheted this fabulously demonic Krampus and the two naughty crying kiddies he’s captured. The details on this piece are great, from the forked tongue and sharp teeth on Krampus to terrified tears on the children. While this piece doesn’t seem to be for sale, Shove does operate a Croshame Etsy shop that is full of other “sinister” and “sarcastic” crocheted pieces.

Krampus, also known as Schmutzli, Black Peter and Knecht Ruprecht, is the demonic, evil counterpart of Santa Claus, punishing naughty children by whipping them with a switch, chaining them up and carrying them off in a basket strapped to his back. During the 19th century, European (particularly Austrian and German) holiday cards would feature illustrated images of the devilish creature with the words “Gruss vom Krampus” (“Greetings from Krampus”) written across the front…

Since the 21st century is filled with some of the most nasty, spoiled, and utterly disobedient children in history, I figured what better way for me to celebrate 2011 Winter solstice than to revive this delightful demon with a loving crocheted tribute!

via Beefranck

images via Croshame

In the first two months as an intern for Partizan, Steven Briand (aka BURAYAN) directed this wonderful stop-motion papercraft animated short, Protéigon. The film is mesmerizing to watch as the paper sculptures shift from 2D to 3D.

via Gizmodo

The Emperor’s Cabinet is a giant handcrafted wet bar in the shape of an AT-AT Walker from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Woodworker Colin Johnson has been busy creating this unique liquor cabinet and still has to add finishing touches to it like “brass trim and guns, shelves in the bar and a mirrored interior”.

images via Colin Johnson

Crafter Bethany Hockenberry has created Squidtivity, a series of nativity scenes using handcrafted felt squids instead of the traditional people and animals. Bethany has been making the squid-filled nativity scenes since 2006 and sells them at her Etsy shop, Cleo Dee. Her animator husband, Scott Benson, created a quirky short video about Squidtivity called The Fifth Annual Squidtivity. We lasted posted about this husband and wife team in the post, The Adventures of Tadly Waldorfington, A Mimic Octopus.

Bethany on her inspiration for Squidtivity:

The squidtivity is a tribute to the nativity plays in the church I grew up in. It was a very small Methodist church with an organist that would fall asleep during hymns and at least one choir singer who was always off-key. Our nativity plays consisted of a fake baby snagged from the nursery and swaddled in a towel.

Scott describes Squidtivity in his own words:

For a half-decade now, my wife has been making handmade plush squid. No machines are involved – it’s all cut, embroidered and sewn by hand. Every holiday season, she rolls out the annual Squidtivity set. I remember the first year she made it, both of us worried that no one in their right minds would buy one. We were very, very wrong. The response we get every year is incredible, ranging from audible delight to absolute horror. Atheists love it. Devout believers love it (most of the time). Unaffiliated fans of squid love it. It certainly makes shows interesting.

After retiring, Lynn Zwerling took her passion for knitting to men incarcerated at the Jessup Pre-Release Unit in Jessup, Maryland. The very successful program, called Knitting Behind Bars, has taught over 100 male inmates how to knit since 2009. The inmates make “comfort dolls” which are being given to first responders for comforting traumatized children.

The men were reluctant at first, complaining that knitting was too girly or too difficult. But Zwerling assured them men had invented the craft, then gave them a five-minute knitting lesson she swears can teach anyone. Suddenly, Zwerling says, the men “found the zen,” and got hooked. Now, every Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m., they come to class, leaving their crimes and the hierarchies of prison life behind.

via Good and The Baltimore Sun

photo by Karl Merton Ferron of The Baltimore Sun

images via Knitting Behind Bars

Animator Kevin Parry directed the music video for Thick As Thieves by Kalle Mattson, which is a stop-motion “arts and crafts history of the world” in under four minutes.

via Buzzfeed

images via Kevin Parry

Make has released their 2012 edition of the Ultimate Kit Guide, a special issue of Make Magazine with reviews of more than 175 DIY kits, from robots to food to siege weapons. Along with the guide, Make has started a new website dedicated to DIY kits, Make: Kit Reviews. And during the holiday season, Make is giving away a kit a day.

Make: Ultimate Kit Guide 2012, hitting newsstands just in time for the holidays, brings you top kits of all kinds, from beginner’s crafts to wooden kayaks to advanced robotics and everything in between! Whether you need a gift for the do-it-yourselfer who loves making things, or want to find the best kits to build yourself, this special issue will show you the way, with reviews of 175+ kits selected by the editors of MAKE.

In addition to my work for The Internet, I sometimes create fanciful crafty weapons. I made this papercraft Uzi submachine gun from a deck of playing cards and some cardboard. It was a prop for my Alice in Wonderland-themed Halloween costume of the Two of Hearts, a bodyguard for the Queen of Hearts. See also: my Christmas-themed Donner & Blitzen C3A Accurized Candy Cane Carbine.

photos by EDW Lynch