Two crazy (and crazy interesting) books from Gestalten showed up on my desk this week. Both are worth checking out!

The first is called Papercraft: Design and Art with Paper (top) and is all about the crazy and ingenious projects people have managed to do with paper and some serious time and dedication. The second book is admittedly bizarre but still awesome. It’s called Hair’em Scare’em and shows a collection of photographs exploring the inventive possibilities of hair as a medium for artistic expression. Yes, there are some crazy hair styles inside. Inspiration for the next time I hit the salon? Perhaps.

Tonight the San Francisco Film Society will play host to a screening of Handmade Nation, a documentary about the work and connections between independent artists across the country. Made by first-time filmmaker and craft blogger Faythe Levine, the film focuses on the role that the Web has played on the marketability of handmade objects (Etsy, anyone?). That, and the “punky do-it-yourself ethos [that has been] informed by modern aesthetics, politics, feminism and art.”

A discussion will follow the event at Mezzanine, and will include design*sponge editor and co-owner of The Curiosity Shoppe, Derek Fagerstrom and Craft editor Natalie Zee Drieu. At $12 a ticket the event will still be less than seeing a flick at Sundance.

Between the happy hours, film festival, art showings, discussions about technology and concerts, there isn't much not to love about the Noise Pop festival that's dominating San Francisco until March 1. One of the highlights of the 17th year of the arts and culture festival promises to be Pop N' Shop, the independent design fair that squeezes as much clothing and unique knickknacks into one afternoon as possible. If you can't wait until the weekend, Wednesday will feature Stephen Malkmus performing solo at the Great American Music Hall and Martha Wainwright at Slim's. Also, a retrospective of festival posters and design that runs through the week is set to feature work by Thomas Campbell, Shepard Fairey, and a few other artists you may have heard of.

Our mom threw out our Voltron toys quite some time ago, and frankly it’s been too long since we’ve put together a badass mechanical friend. Thanks to a collaboration between Paper Artist Extraordinaire Shin Tanaka, Asian-American Pop culture periodical Giant Robot, and the Scion division of Toyota we’ll soon be able to feel whole again. Using templates found in four consecutive issues of Giant Robot, readers can create their own 4-in-1 mechanical beasts. Each issue will include instructions to make a bionic creation, but the ultimate goal is to collect all four to make an impressive robot  The current issue (#57) of Giant Robot hosts the second robot template, with the third hits stores on February 2009 — and you can even order the back issues from the site.

If you’re looking for the perfect retro-gift for that special pellet-obsessed person in your life, take a glance at Jamie Burress’s Pac-Man fused glass mirror. Though it isn’t large (only 12 inches at it’s widest point) the glossy glass mirror features both Pac-Man and feminist hero Ms. Pac-Man, as well as four of those intolerable ghosties! If Burress has sold the one-off item by the time you check out her Etsy site, search around and you’re likely to find one of her other glass works featuring such subjects as anatomical organs, cupcakes, and George W. Bush for sale.

A San Franciscan looking for, say, a gun necklace to accompany their VP candidate Halloween costume will be happy to know they can find one that was created without leaving a trace. The Appel & Frank Eco-Chic shopping event on Thursday evening at the Regency Center combines sustainable apparel, jewelry and personal care products. Notable vendors include organic and recycled jacket designer JulesElin as well as area winery 7 Daughters. A portion of the proceeds go to Friends of the Urban Forest’s efforts to plant and care for groups of trees in city neighborhoods.

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“Now it’s time to get zombiefied!” Thanks alien sex fiend, we couldn’t agree more. So, in time for Halloween, we present these undead creatures that you can enjoy within minutes from reading this post! Print out the PDF of the Dude, the Bopper, the Grumm, or one of the three other meanies each designed by a different artist and get building. We plan to customize ours, and we invite you to do the same. Send us pics of your work!

via ThunderPanda

Monsters and socks have one thing in common: both spent a lot of time beneath our bed when we were kids. We’re not saying that’s where Ann Inman came up with the inspiration for Ann’s Monsters (after all she does hail from the Pacific Northwest, the land of Bigfoot) her but it would make a lot of sense. Rather than piece together the old, smelly crew socks balled up under the mattress, Ms. Inman has created her endearing creature collection by hand-stuffing colorfully striped socks with polyester fiberfill and sewing buttons on to make their crazy eyes. Each of her nine adorable abnormalities range in height from 15 to 23-inches tall and have their own backstory — of sorts. None of them involve haunting the bedrooms of small children.