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Beautiful Handmade Slingshots From Split Fork Tree Branches by Adam Gray





Certain toys never go out of style, but instead simply get more stylish. This is what Adam Gray has done with the ol' classic slingshot. Adam, who graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and presently works at Bicycle Bolts, has become a new millenial favorite with his Hella Slingshots.



Handcrafting different slingshots from forked tree branches in San Francisco and carefully airbrushing them with acrylic paint, he has raised the classic toy to a level of functional art.



From higher-end versions made from polished woods to sporty colorful versions and even adorable folk-art animal versions, each is outfitted with a leather appointed projectile using natural latex tubing.





Featured on Fab.com and with Wired magazine choosing them as one of the best 20 gifts under $50, they are becoming a hip gift for adults and kids alike.


above: Hella Slingshots featured in Wired magazine

While I'm not encouraging people to knock out squirrels or worse, an eye, these can serve as the ultimate CEO desk accoutrement as well as a great stocking stuffer for the child (or juvenile adult) who wants to aim at inanimate objects.

Ammo (shown below) is available in felt, wood, iron, or eco-friendly seedbombs.



The Slingshots vary in price from $15 to $41 on his site and here on Scout Mob.


individual images courtesy of Adam Gray and Hella Slingshots, composite images by If t's Hip, It's Here.



Meet The Hippest Star Of TV's The Bridge: Diane Kruger's Character's Leather Jacket




The Bridge is a new gripping crime drama on the FX network. Adapted from the Swedish television series, Bron, it's a present-day crime thriller exploring the tensions on the U.S. - Mexico border.



Sonya Cross, played by cool blonde actress Diane Kruger, is an El Paso,TX homicide detective with Asperger's Syndrome who teams up with Mexican counterpart from Chihuahua State Police, Marco Ruiz (played by the sexy Demian Bichir) to catch a serial killer operating on both sides of the border.



From the very first episode I noticed the distressed leather jacket worn by Sonya Cross. With a faint image of a horse image on the back, two tigers (one patch and one illustrated), leopard print shoulder insets, a fading red star on the right sleeve and embellished with such personal items as a row of safety pins on the shoulder and duct tape on the cuff, she rarely takes it off. By the 7th episode I was both obsessed with the show - and the leather jacket.



I did a bit of research and found, via the Costume Designer's Guild, that the jacket was custom made by costume designer Anna Terrazas and her team.



According to Terrazas, Kruger's character is a “very uniform person and does the same routine every day.” As such, Sonya doesn’t have a real sense of style. One piece that will potentially stand out to viewers, however, is a vintage leather jacket that Sonya wears all the time. Viewers eventually come to find out that the jacket once belonged to Sonya’s sister.




“[The jacket] doesn’t make sense for what she does as a detective or who she is, but the whole idea is that it has sentimental value and is worn in memory of her sister,” says Terrazas.



Terrazas says it took a very long time to find the right jacket, but eventually they came across the staple piece in a vintage store in Los Angeles. Terrazas and her team worked to age and distress the leather so that it would appear to be as old and special as the story intended.




“I like to work in teams, everything is very collaborative,” says Terrazas, adding that each team member was allowed to give suggestions for the jacket or add their own personal touch. For example, she says, they painted a horse onto the back of the jacket because Sonya’s sister had a love for horses. The jacket also has hidden studs on the back under the collar and inside the jacket, as well as two “piercings,” which were popular in the 90s – one for Sonya and one for her sister.

“The studs and hidden details are more for Diane than they are for the audience,” she says. “They make the character and story more real.”



Don't miss The Bridge and this fabulous leather jacket. It's on The FX Network Wednesdays at 10pm.



images courtesy of the FX network and Anna Terrazas.

Ian Berry Does It In Denim. Check Out The Fashionable Art of Denimu.



above: Ian Berry AKA Denimu, A Blue Eye (Avalon Pub), denim on denim, 122x61cm (48.03x24.02inches)

UK artist Ian Berry works in a medium usually reserved for fashion - denim. he constructs scenes and figures by cutting and piecing together that well-worn closet staple, jeans. As a result of this, he goes by the name Denimu and has attracted quite a following worldwide.


above: portrait of Lapo Elkann

above: Journey Home

above: Mike and Ike

Using various shades of denim, he cuts and stitches the pieces together to create urban scenes and detailed portraits.




above: Flocking to the Portobello Market (in progress)

Newsstand Installation in New York
His newsstand installation that appeared in New York was phenomenal. Consisting of numerous magazine covers, candy bars and even a vending machine, Denimu pieced together each and every element of the life-sized work:



details:





And here's a look at some of the individual magazine covers created for the above piece:




More pieces of his work.
London Punk:


Before It Went Down:


The Brooklyn Diner:


The Other Side Of The Track:


Artist Biography (courtesy of cattogallery.co.uk):
IAN BERRY Aka DENIMU

We all love denim, don't we? It's the great democratic fabric, worn by everyone from the farmer to the aristocrat, the manual worker to the oligarch.

But for the British artist Ian Berry, it is so much more. It's probably fair to say, Ian is obsessed. This is the guy who changed his stage name to Denimu and made a career out of turning jeans into works of art.

Ian conjures remarkably detailed portraits and urban landscapes using nothing more than discarded jeans. Over many weeks he cuts, stitches and glues using only the varying shades of the fabric to provide contrast and shadow. The effect is extraordinary.

Ian's denim epiphany came during a trip back to his childhood home in Huddersfield. During a big clear-out session, Ian found himself staring at a big pile of unwanted jeans destined for the charity shop. Affectionate memories came flooding back, along with a wave of tactile enthusiasm for the fabric. At that point, he knew he'd found the key to his artistic career.

Born 1984 in Huddersfield, UK, Ian began his artistic experiments with denim while working as an art director in London and Sydney. Despite building a successful career and creating campaigns for brands such as Nissan, Guinness and Talisker Whiskey, the call of the rivets and seams was too deafening to ignore.

Eventually, the public caught on and Ian enjoyed enough commercial success to devote himself full time to his art. He had two near sell-out shows in Sweden, his new adopted home, and also showed in the US and Portugal. His work has since sold across Europe, America, the Middle East and Australasia to private, public and corporate collections, and has been featured in innumerable art and fashion magazines from Elle to Playboy and interviewed on Swedish and Portuguese TV.

Naturally, Ian's enthusiasm for denim goes beyond exploring its artistic potential. He's also become something of a historian of the textile. So you can imagine how delighted he worked with the town of Fairmount, Indiana last year. Fairmount is the home town of James Dean, who arguably launched denim as a fashion item when he wore those Lee Riders in Rebel Without A Cause. So when the James Dean Gallery wanted a mural, they came to Ian. He based his work on the iconic Roy Schatt photograph to create what has become possibly the first denim 'street art' project in the world.

Denimu

A shout out to the fabulous Ellen November for bringing this unusual work to my attention.

WTF? A Blackberry Flavored Energy Drink With Gold Flakes In Lieu of Sugar.






Launched early in 2013, WTF? is an original flavored water-based energy drink made with gold flakes instead of sugar. Manufactured in Germany, the Blackberry flavored water comes from Germany's Rhön nature park.



The name is a giggle and the packaging is gorgeous, from the bottle and hang tag to the case. They have even garnered an award for their website design.




The sugar free drink contains carbonated water, Blackberry extract, Ginseng, Vitamin C, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, Gold Flakes, 0.4% Taurin and 0.03% Caffeine







You can purchase individual bottles, a case of nine bottles or 9 cases (a pallet) here at their online store.




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