weird

Natural Home and Garden found some pretty crazy examples for their "10 Homes Made of the Darndest Things" - including a home made out of pallets, a temple made out of beer bottles, and a hotel made from a Boeing 727. Here are our favorites from their list:

A two bedroom hotel suite in a Boeing 727:

A Buddhist temple made of 1 million green Heineken and brown Chang beer bottles:

This architect-designed home is made of repurposed pallets, train rails, and recycled aluminum:

Spherical meditation treehouses are made from local wood and are suspended from the tree canopy on Vancouver Island:

See more here.

As a way to protest the ticket he got for not staying in the bike lane, Casey Neistat points out the many obstructions that often block the New York City bike lanes, including taxis, garbage cans, construction cones, and even...cop cars.

Found at Holykaw.alltop.com.

Minneapolis' very own Loch Ness monster, Minne the Lake Creature, is back for the season in a new spot - Lake Brownie. Minne has been spending the summers on Minneapolis lakes for a couple years now, delighting children and stopping traffic. She is an art installation commissioned by the Mpls Parks Foundation, and you can follow her on Facebook or Twitter, or learn more about her at www.lakecreature.com.

Have a story about Minne? Leave us a comment on Facebook or Twitter.

Mattel has teamed up with the AIA (American Institute of Architects) to unveil the "Architect Barbie Dream House Design Competition" - where architects have the opportunity to design a new Green Dream Home just for Architect Barbie! Oh, you didn't realize there was an Architect Barbie? Well, there is. She's new! And stylish...with her skyline dress, ankle boots, and trendy black glasses (which she doesn't seem to actually wear on her face). She's also got a hard hat, a scale model Dream Home, and a blueprint holder.

So what does Architect Barbie want in her new Green Dream Home? Well, along with the most sophisticated sustainable design principles, it's also got to be stylish. (She is Barbie, after all.) She has some other pretty specific demands, though - including:

- A spacious home office with hi-tech gadgets, where she can practice her 125 other careers.
- A ginormous closet for her "unlimited fashions".
- A top-of-the-line kitchen and huge entertaining space where her friends can mingle.
- A backyard big enough for her five pets (which include a giraffe).
- And finally, her house must be on the ocean. (Location, location, location!)

Any architect willing to take on all of those demands AND make it sustainable will have to be a miracle-worker, I think. But it's not like this is the real world, right? As the AIA reminds the contestants, "Remember not to take it too seriously — Barbie is a doll after all! Just think pink and you’ll do fine."

Looking for a unique DIY flooring material? Just look in your piggy bank! These floors are made from real live pennies, hand-lain and coated in epoxy. That copper shine is gorgeous, and the varying patinas on each coin make a very eye-pleasing pattern.

You could use coins in other DIY projects too - table tops, backsplashes, wall art...you name it! These pennies look great set against a black background, but I'll bet if you laid them over a white background then that floor would really brighten up!

What do you think of this look?



And if copper isn't really your color, how about nickels? This floor was sealed with regular tile grout, leaving the nickels exposed just like tiles would be.


More links, images, and how-to's here.

A new eco-friendly KFC restaurant in Indianapolis is seeking LEED certification for its eco-friendly design. Yes, I did say KFC...

While an eco-friendly KFC seems like an oxymoron, it is heartening to see even fast-food companies take the leap into sustainability. KFC's parent company, Yum! Brands Inc. (which also owns Taco Bell & Pizza Hut), opened another LEED-certified KFC/Taco Bell combo in Massachusetts in 2009 and introduced reusable to-go containers as part of their E3 initiative.

So what makes this new restaurant so "green"? Things like energy efficient lights and kitchen equipment, recycling cooking waste, using recycled building materials, and giving preferred parking spots for hybrid vehicles. (I wonder how often those will get used...) So if you're into fast food, it seems like the Yum! Brands aren't chicken (sorry, bad pun) about going green.

Read more about it from BusinessWire.com.

This great little article by the Southwest Minneapolis Patch is all about bike culture in Minneapolis...but not the bike culture as you know it now, but the bike craze of the 1890's. From "scorchers" and "wheelmen" to the impact of bicycles on the streetcar industry, you'll probably learn quite a bit about the original Twin Cities bike culture. Here are some good tidbits from the article:

In 1896 Susan B. Anthony said, “the bicycle has done more for the emancipation of women than anything else in the world.”

Bicyclists formed the League of American Wheelmen in order to lobby for better conditions. Many of the first paved roads in the United States were paved to facilitate better bicycling conditions.

Read the full article here.

A mechanical pencil that keeps the point consistently pointy? What will they come up with next?!

Found on core77.com.

Minneapolis-based designer David Schwen created these "MN. Nice" t-shirts, inspired by the famous Mr. Men children's books. Cute, huh? How many nice Minnesota men can you think of to buy this shirt for? Available at www.Society6.com.

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