How To Fake It ~ Munson on Saddleback Bags;-)

Kottke spots hilarious -- and instructive -- video by David Munson, CEO of Saddleback Leather, giving advice to copycats making knockoffs of his bags...

Wilder's Tiny V12 ~ Beautiful Miniature Motor!

Yesus Wilder's Tiny V12 engine, the world's smallest! P.S. Here's the real thing, courtesy Ferrari!

Glass Shell ~ Sculptured Home for Hermit Crab!

io9 spots Glass Shells by Robert DuGrenier!

Gaza Kite Kids ~ DIY Hero Engineers-in-Training!

The 250,000 kids living in besieged Gaza can't do much about their geo-political plight, but they can build and fly kites! And they do -- lots of them! -- including the 2010 world-record breaking effort documented by Nitin Sawhney and Roger Hill in their Tayara Warakiya or Flying Paper film. UNRWA’s Gaza Summer Games 2011 included some thirteen thousand children wresting back the record from an ever competitive China! I first came to appreciate the kite-making kids and the power of their play from a NYTimes coverstory by James Bennet -- Rising Above, With Sticks, Paper and String -- which includes one my favorite vignettes...

"Wadiya seems to enjoy making kites as much as flying them. He gives most away to his friends, but he has held on to his favorite. Three crossed sticks of split bamboo give it a six-sided shape as broad as a manhole. The colors are of the Palestinian flag -- red, green, black and white. In the center, in gold, is the silhouette of Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam's holiest sites and the symbol of the Palestinian uprising. Yet when asked what he thinks about as he flies the kite above his damaged town, Wadiya, a serious boy, did not mention politics. His dream, he said, was to be an astronaut. He had never looked through a telescope, but he had seen pictures from space in books. "When I fly the kite, I think I'm on a different planet," he said. "I imagine myself someplace else."

Beautiful and inspiring words -- ones every kid can benefit from. Here's more of Wadiya and friends...

Robogami ~ Robotic Paper, Electronic Origami...

Very cool to see the kinds of robotic paper and electrified origami that Jie Qi is making in the High-Low Tech group here at the Media Lab...

"...things that combine electronics and computation with traditional paper arts and craft techniques like origami robots, electronic scrapbooks, and blooming paper flowers..."

Here's one example, the I/O Paper... And here's her Self-Flapping Crane... P.S. As double-plus bonus, Jie's even added a DIY tutorial so anyone can source parts and craft their own robogami cranes!