Designed by Roderick James for himself and his family, the Seagull House features this incredible oak frame barn with arch-braced collar trusses. The barn consists of a painted Douglas Fir studio and a bolted Douglas fir conservatory overlooking the river creek. Verandas, balconies and timber cladding complete the exterior.

The Seagull House is located in Devon, England and was designed, built and converted in 1987.

In her series entitled Harm Less, artist Sonia Rentsch creatively assembles a variety of plant parts into various handguns and bullets.

A 2002 graduate of industrial design from RMIT university (Australia), Rentsch has worked for a diverse range of clients including the L’oréal Melbourne fashion festival, the Sddeutsche Zeitung (Germany) & Christian Dior (UK). More recently she worked for the creative house Moth Design (Melbourne), before a rendezvous in berlin where she transitioned to film & still life set design with Sarah Illenberger and Sarah Horton.

To see Sonia’s entire portfolio, check out her official website at www.soniarentsch.com

In this capture by photographer Archie Campbell, we see his sister’s silhouette in a plant. The technique is known as multiple exposure, in this case it’s a double exposure (since it’s composed of two photographs). Posted earlier this week to Flickr, the image has amassed a staggering 1.14 million views thanks to a front page on Reddit.

This is arguably the most delicious looking wrapping paper in history. While I must concede my exposure to food-related wrapping paper is limited, surely this design must be in contention.

The wrapping paper set was the brainchild of Sarah Fay and Justin Colt, two Penn State grads now based in New York, who together have formed a wrapping paper company called Gift Couture. Last year the pair launched a Kickstarter campaign to help start their company and print 1000 sheets of the their first design, the hamburger wrapping paper set. The campaign raised $16,713, more than double their initial goal of $7,900.

A recent surge in popularity has completely depleted their stock and they are sold out at the moment, so you’ll just have to wait and enjoy the pics below :)

Welcome to the Shirk Report where you will find the 25 funniest images, 10 most interesting articles, and 5 most viral videos from the previous week of sifting. Most images found on Reddit; articles typically originate from Twitter, RSS and email; videos come from a variety of sources. Any suggestions? Send a note to submit@twistedsifter.com!

25 IMAGES

- Poetry in motion
- The “It’s complicated” section
- Finally a restaurant for the indecisive
- Raccoon thievery: Exhibit A | Exhibit B | Exhibit C | Counter argument
- How eloquent
- Rejection
- It’s time to reflect
- STOP
- This was in the Men’s bathroom of a restaurant on Mother’s Day
- A comedian hired skywriters and this was the result
- This will ruin your appetite
- This should help [partially] restore it
- Reverse candy cotton (thx for sharing @MikeChops!)
- Tron Swanson
- Good on you, drunk guy…
- The lesson here is that ‘Extra’ loud snorers are single
- Best day ever
- You know it’s a wild night when…
- The Rodeo dive
- Lock/Unlock
- Intensity level: maximum
- Beetle trailer
- Reagan + Sweatpants + Air Force One
- Banana-car
- I have something very important to tell you
 

10 ARTICLES

- Career Advice For College Grads From LinkedIn’s Billionaire Founder
- How a Working-Class Couple Amassed a Priceless Art Collection (thx for sharing @Monsty!)
- Behind the scenes of the $45 million global ATM heist
- Why Wikipedia’s Millionth Russian Page is Worth Celebrating
- There’s a country that will pay $300,000 per rhino horn to cure cancer and hangovers, and it’s not China
- The Scientific 7-Minute Workout
- How Bing Crosby and the Nazis Helped to Create Silicon Valley
- Controversial Math Facts That People Refuse To Believe Are True
- Navy’s Historic Drone Launch From an Aircraft Carrier Has an Asterisk
- Everything Google Tried to Kill at Google I/O

5 VIDEOS + A Space Oddity

Spotted in the Ifaty reserve, north of Tulear in southwestern Madagascar (Lat: -23.15, Long: 43.62), is this incredible Baobab tree that is purportedly a thousand years old. Adansonia za, common name Baobab, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Adansonia belonging to the Bombacaceae family.

It’s a large thick-stemmed deciduous tree, about 10–40 meters (33–130 ft) high and about 6 meters (20 ft) in diameter. The trunk and branches have a brownish-rose colored hue. The tree is wide at the base and grows to a narrow point towards the top of the tree. [Source: Wikipedia]

Adansonia is a genus of eight species of tree, six native to Madagascar, one native to mainland Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and one to Australia. Some baobabs are reputed to be many thousands of years old, which can be difficult to verify, as the wood does not produce annual growth rings, though radiocarbon dating may be able to provide age data. [Source]

The photograph was taken by Dan Doucette for Project Noah. Project Noah is a platform designed to help people reconnect with the natural world. Launched out of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program in early 2010, the project began as an experiment to mobilize citizen scientists and build a digital butterfly net for the 21st century. Backed by National Geographic, their ultimate goal is to build the go-to platform for documenting all the world’s organisms, and through doing this they hope to develop an effective way to measure Mother Nature’s pulse.

Beginning in 1938, the threat of war prompted a large-scale evacuation of France’s public art collections. The storage sites chosen for works of art were châteaux, tranquil locations in the heart of the French countryside, far from strategic targets, and thus escaping the imminent danger of bombing.

On August 28, 1939, the Mona Lisa left the Louvre and on September 3, as war had been declared, a decision was taken to ensure that all of the most precious works would leave the premises by the end of the day.

During the war, Leonardo da Vinci’s smiling maiden would move another five times before being brought back safe and sound. It was an unprecedented journey for the world’s most famous painting.

 
Stowed away in several hundred crates; sculptures, decorative objects and 3,690 paintings took to the road. The journey was a logistical feat of packaging and truck loading. The routes of France soon thronged with thirty-seven convoys joining the crowds already leaving the city.

The event was also an opportunity to view, often with unprecedented closeness, the museum’s most iconic works, suddenly brought down from their pedestals: the Winged Victory of Samothrace before it was sent to the Château de Valençay, the Venus de Milo or the Mona Lisa, which would be moved first to Chambord, then Louvigny, the Abbaye de Loc Dieu, the Musée de Montauban and finally to Montal, with the Louvre’s other paintings.

Jacques Jaujard, director of the Musées de France at the time, had the unenviable task of supervising the movements of these stored works, continually under threat from the hazards of an encroaching war. [Source: louvre.fr]

 
The Louvre during the Second World War was still a palace at the heart of a capital having experienced one of the longest and most dramatic occupations in its history. The German authorities, eager to return the city of Paris to a semblance of cultural life, ordered the reopening of the museum in September 1940.

This partial opening was merely symbolic, with itineraries indicated in German and many of the galleries and viewing rooms completely empty and abandoned. The signs of war were everywhere: ornamental gardens transformed to grow vegetables, damage caused by nearby bombings, etc. [Source: louvre.fr]

 
During the war, the Nazis plundered works of art from private collections belonging to prominent Jewish families or art dealers. They were meticulously wrapped and protected in preparation for their departure to Germany. This process unfolded in the galleries of the Louvre devoted to Near Eastern antiquities. The area was requisitioned by the Nazis and quickly rendered inaccessible to museum personnel.

After the Nazis seized the Jeu de Paume, which would be used as a further repository for looted works of art, the Louvre sequestration nevertheless continued, occasioning a continual to and fro of art works between both museums, with the result being that Jacques Jaujard was unable to prevent the transfer to the Third Reich of the stolen paintings. [Source: louvre.fr]

After the War, a new Louvre, transformed by major renovation work and gradually opened to the public between 1945 and 1947. Thanks to the skills and tenacity of those responsible for safeguarding cultural property, all of the museum’s major masterpieces returned to the palace, virtually unscathed.

Sources

- The Louvre during the War – Photographs 1938-1947 press release
- Liberation.fr: The Louvre during the War
- Art Tattler: The Evacuation of the Treasures of the Louvre During World War II
- Jean-Marc Fray: The Louvre During the War
- Thoughts of a Monuments Man on the 66th Anniversary of D-Day
- USA Today: Exhibit reveals how the Louvre kept ‘Mona Lisa,’ other masterpieces safe during WWII

In this stunning capture by Harold Begun, we see the beautiful Belted Kingfisher perched on a branch. The Belted Kingfisher (Megaceryle alcyon) is a large, conspicuous water kingfisher, the only member of that group commonly found in the northern United States and Canada. It is also depicted on the 1986 series Canadian $5 note.

The Belted Kingfisher is a stocky, medium-sized bird that measures between 28–35 cm (11–14 in) in length with a wingspan of between 48–58 cm (19–23 in). This kingfisher can weigh from 113 to 178 g (4.0 to 6.3 oz). Adult female averages slightly larger than the adult male. The bird is often seen perched prominently on trees, posts, or other suitable “watchpoints” close to water before plunging in head first after its fish prey. They also eat amphibians, small crustaceans, insects, small mammals and reptiles. [Source: Wikipedia]

For more fantastic nature photography (primarily birds and landscapes) be sure to check out Harold Begun’s impressive portfolio on 500px.

Back in 2010, billionaire Sir Richard Branson and AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes made a bet. Sir Richard and Tony each wagered their Formula 1 racing teams (then Lotus Racing and Virgin Racing) would finish ahead of each other in their debut season, and that the loser would serve as a female cabin crew on the winner’s airline.

Tony’s team finished two spots above Sir Richard’s in the final 2010 rankings and on May 12, 2013, Sir Branson honoured his bet, adorning make-up, a pair of high heels and freshly shaved legs. The event culminated in Sir Branson serving guests on a charity flight from Perth to Kuala Lumpur.

Altogether the charity event raised an estimated $200,000 AUD for the Starlight Children’s Foundation. A great cause and memorable experience for all of those onboard.

[via abioux on Reddit]

Located at Baltimore Washington International Airport (BWI) is Callinectes Douglassi, a 500-pound blue crab made from stained glass by artist Jackie Leatherbury Douglass and her husband John in 1984.

The 10 ft x 7 ft x 5 ft (3 x 2 x 1.5 meter) sculpture took over 5,500 man hours over a 14-month period to build. The stained glass blue crab weighs roughly 500 pounds.

The sculpture was commissioned by Anne Arudnel County. As one of Maryland’s state symbols, the blue crab was an obvious choice. According to the Baltimore Sun:

“With 550 miles of heavily crabbed waterfront, and a capital city known as Crabtowne, a newspaper nicknamed the Crab-wrapper… the crab is our most ubiquitous seafood… No creature is more deeply embedded in the bay region’s economy, culture and ecology.”

[Sources: The Baltimore Sun, Elvert Barnes on ipernity]