Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re a fan of deadmau5, and have a massive budget for your Halloween costume, here’s something that’ll blow all your friends away. It’s a replica of the performer’s famous light-up stage head, and it can be yours for the low, low price of $2750 (USD).

It was made by Etsy artist Jeffrey Nappi, and it has an orb-shaped helmet, covered in 168 RGB LEDs, along with electroluminescent mouse ears. It’s operated by a San Devices E680 pixel controller and Madrix computer lighting control software which can be programmed to display any imagery you’d like. While it’s not quite as awesome as this guy’s version that uses over 760 LEDs, you can’t buy that one.

In case you’re wondering how you see out of this thing, the helmet is actually made from a see-through acrylic globe, so I can only imagine the trippy, rave-like experience you’ll get wearing this thing. Here’s a video montage showing Jeffrey’s build process, as well as the helmet in action:

And some more footage of the head reacting to music (and playing a little Tetris):

If you can’t spare the nearly $3000 to buy a pre-built one from Jeffrey, you can attempt to build your own from the parts list and source code provided up on GitHub. But for those of you with the budget, and the lack of technical skill, you can order one over on Etsy now.

Due to medical reasons, I’ve recently had to give up one of my favorite vices – caffeine – but I still like to drink the occasional cup of decaf and imagine that it’s the real thing. The next time I break my coffee mug, I know exactly which one I’m going to order.

This handmade, wheel-thrown ceramic mug is made from white stoneware clay, and is inspired by the classic 8-bit NES gamepad controller. It’s the perfect place for gamers to keep their joe in between rounds of Duck Hunt and Super Mario Bros. I just love the dimensional A/B buttons and D-Pad on the side of the mug. I think I’d be trying to push them whenever I picked it up to take a sip.

It was made by Danyelle Butler of ArtHaus Ceramics, with the design by her husband, Jared – a real family effort. If you want one, pop on over to Etsy now, where it can by yours for $24 (USD). I think Danyelle should make a whole series of mugs based on game controllers – though it might be hard to make one based on the Kinect.

A while back I came across some cool Portal-inspired earrings, but they weren’t exactly the kind of thing you could wear out to a nice dinner. These, on the other hand, would look lovely no matter what the occasion.

These handmade sterling silver Portal earrings from jewelry artist Melissa Hamming show the familiar test subject symbol dude going in one of your ears and out the other. I bet that Cave Johnson’s assistant Caroline wore a pair of these before she was turned into GLaDOS (and then into a potato.)

A pair will set you back $48.50(USD), and you can find them over on Etsy now. Grab a pair for yourself now. For science, you monster.

I love how terrariums manage to capture an entire little world – or at least its essence – in such a tiny amount of space. Paris-based artist HoKiou managed to make me love them just a little bit more by turning them into jewelry.

In keeping with the times, HoKiou’s terrarium rings feature themed-designs and environments that are fit for the season. Several rings sport creepy little polymer clay miniatures inside the dome that are perfect for Halloween, while others are bright, white, and cheery for Christmas – or any time of year.

Check out the rest of the terrarium ring designs in the gallery below.

Each of the rings retail for $69(USD) and are available for purchase on at HoKiou’s Etsy shop. (Though they’re currently sold out.)

[via Laughing Squid]

Last week, we featured an sculpture of a horse that was made out of old keyboards. While it was truly impressive, there’s no chance you’ll be putting it in your house any time soon. Here’s some keyboard art you might actually hang on your wall.

Christopher Cobell of SketchkeysArtistry hunts down laptop keycaps in a variety of shades of grey to create these masterworks of pixel art. The largest of the current selection is his portrait of Marilyn Monroe shown above. Each one is handmade by gluing thousands of individual keys to a black foam backing, suitable for framing. Though I kind of like the idea of leaving the keys exposed so you can actually feel them.

He’s got several other images available for sale in his Etsy shop right now, including a sailboat,  an abstract cityscape, and my personal favorite, a humorous image of a pair of bombs – reminiscent of Bob-Omb.

The artist states that part of his process is to “check for any accidental expletives from the random placement of the keys.” Darn, I was hoping to make that a game for my houseguests – to find the hidden dirty words.

Prices for this awesome keyboard wall art range from $179 to $965 (USD), depending on the size and complexity of the image. If you look closely at the bomb image, you’ll see a Windows start key in the  bottom right corner. I wonder if that’s intentional.