A Daily Dose of All Things Beautiful
Let's just say you won't be seeing them at any craft fairs anytime soon.
Take a much-needed break and indulge in our latest inspiring find.
Edgy Art
Artist duo STALLMAN clearly thought outside the box for their recent collection, "Canvas on Edge." Using paint and canvas as sculpture, they created a technique in which the canvas creates an elevated line drawing. Different colors appear as you view the work from various angles, which adds to the impressive effect.
Mystical Lights
A giant, illuminated tree hangs from the ceiling inside California's Kathryn Hall Vineyard. Designed by Donald Lipski and Jonquil LeMaster, the creation resembles a large grapevine — filled with 1,500 Swarovski crystal grapes. Called "Chilean Red", this grand light fixture's name is an anagram for "chandelier." Clever!
Art From Above
The only way to truly enjoy this large-scale, natural interpretation of Van Gogh's 1889 painting "Olive Trees" is to get on a plane. Created with native plants by Kansas landscape artist Stan Herd, the giant piece of art was commission in honor of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts' 100th anniversary celebration.
Pumpkin Village
Each year Dallas welcomes fall with Autumn at the Arboretum, a two-month festival marked by a village made out of over 75,000 pumpkins, gourds, and squash (yes, really). This year's display has an "Old Texas Town" theme — which includes this impressive giant Texas mosaic.
See more sneak peeks of the festival at the Arboretum's website »
Big Blooms
Talva Design is the team behind this mural-style wallpaper (it's available in yellow, too, but we're always smitten with blue). The curvy flowers and leaves are mesmerizing, and act like a window to the great outdoors — even in your dining room.
Playing With Color
"With this, I sorta just picked up where I left off in the late '80s!" artist Adam Siegel told Rebecca Haithcoat of Instagram @music. Although he once had a career as a musician, he's now found his way back to airbrushing, one of his original passions. In fact, Siegel was among the first wave of New York-style graffiti artists to tag Los Angeles.
Magical Creatures
One thing may stick out to you when traveling to Ann Arbor, Michigan — even though its super tiny. In what started as an art installation, dozens of these adorable "fairy doors" appear around the city thanks to an art installation. We're particularly fond of this red entry that comes complete with a matching diminutive version.
Style Underfoot
Photographer Sebastian Erras told his Instagram followers that he seems to "have this thing with Parisian floors." And after seeing his shots, we don't disagree. In his photo series, Erras captures the city of Paris from a unique downward perspective — by taking pictures of his feet on the most intriguing floors he spots.
Larger Than Life
New York artist Sean Kenney has found a playful (and impressive!) way to reimagine animals, plants, and insects — with LEGOs. The exhibition, called Nature Connects features over 50 different sculptures, made out of 1.6 million tiny LEGO bricks. Now touring North America, the show is scheduled to run until 2019.
A Green Space
Aside from seating, herbs cover nearly every inch of the Segev Kitchen Garden, a new restaurant in Hod Hasharon, Israel. Designed by Studio Yaron Tal, the eatery essentially doubles as a greenhouse — and every herb that surrounds the space is used by the chef in the restaurant's food.
Up Close and Personal
Butterflies are one of the few insects almost no one minds visiting their garden — which is pretty understandable, considering their vibrant wings and graceful demeanor. Photographer and biochemist Linden Glehdhill took his adoration one step further and discovered that their wings are even more breathtaking up close — using macro photography, he revealed that each one is made up of thousands of tiny mini wings and they look almost mesmerizing.
Floral Floats
The streets of Zundert — located in the Netherlands — were nearly unrecognizable these past two days (September 6 and 7), courtesy of the city's annual Corso Zundert festival. Although the theme changes, each year consists of floats that boast thousands of dahlia flowers — which makes perfect sense, considering that particular area of the Netherlands consists of 81 acres of 600,000 bulbs. For 2015, the floats were inspired by artist Vincent Van Gogh, who was born in Zundert himself.
The Largest Blue Flame
Photographer Reuben Wu waited until the tourists cleared out — well after sunset — to capture the molten sulphur flowing inside East Java's Kalwah ljen volcano last month. The blue fire — referred to as the largest "blue flame" on earth — is the result of ignited sulphuric gas that burns up to 600 degrees Celsius (the equivalent of 1,112 degrees Fahrenheit).
Changing Perspectives
An expansive cloud of balloons (100,000 of them, in fact) are now floating under the roof of the 19th-century Market Building in London's Covent Garden. The installation, which lasts until September 27, is courtesy of French artist Charles Pétillon and part of his ongoing, balloons-in-public-places Invasion series. "Their goal is to change the way in which we see the things we live alongside each day without really noticing them," Pétillon told Dezeen Magazine. He created this particular cloud form, called Heartbeat, to represent the Market Building as the beating heart of its local area.
The Highest Peak
It's taken 40 years, but the highest peak in North America is getting a new (old) name. Locals have always called the towering mountain "Denali," a local Athabascan term, but it gained the "Mount McKinley" moniker after a prospector nicknamed it in 1896 for then presidential candidate, William McKinley.U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell issued the original name-changing order, which President Obama also backed, to make sure all federal documents reflect the name. She said this move "recognizes the sacred status of Denali to many Alaska Natives." But whatever you call it, there's no denying the beautiful majesty of this natural wonder.
Restoring Hope
When it was first built in 1927, advertisements called the then movie palace — the Saenger Theatre of New Orleans — "an acre of seats in a garden of Florentine splendor." After Hurricane Katrina left the theatre completely destroyed in 2005, it took didn't take long for the restoration to begin. Eight years — and a lot of hard work — later, the building opened its doors. Today, the performing arts powerhouse is more detailed than ever before, including a blue domed "sky" for a ceiling.
Woodland Magic
Half the reason these fairytale-looking sculptures are so fascinating is because they have no intention of lasting forever, as artist Spencer Byles cleverly intended. While exploring the forests in the region of Alpes-Maritimes in France, he created several of these whimsical designs with only natural materials and man-made objects, scattering them throughout three different pieces of land.
Second-Time Charm
When Ashely — the adventurous baker behind these citrusy treats — had her first olive oil cake a few months back, she couldn't believe what she had been missing out on. She found the perfect combination her second time around, mixing lemon infused oil and extra virgin olive oil, producing a moist cupcake. Once complete, she sprinkled the batch with colorful, edible flowers — the ultimate summer topping.
Roadside Beauty
Photographer Alexandra Soldatova took to her home country, Belarus, when trying to find inspiration for her series, 'It Must Be Beautiful'. For years, anonymous artists have painted over the bus stops there, adorning them in images familiar to the landscape they exist in. Alexandra notes that these captures work so well for the project because the bus stops are "rather outstanding and at the same time very common things."
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