Abetrujillo

If you’ve ever revealed to friends and family that you’re a budding artist (or in some cases merely expressed an interest in art) you’re probably expecting to receive a bunch of art supplies this year, whether you need them or not. If you’re tired of adding to your ever growing collection of superfluous art supplies then you’d better put these sweet sets on your list.

Created by Nendo Design, these edible art supply sets include chocolate paint tubes filled with various yummy creams like caramel and honey, and chocolate pencils you can shave to add a touch of deliciousness to another dessert. They’re a sweet way to support an artist without adding to their already cluttered lives.

Via Beautiful Decay

I was delighted in December of 1997 when my brother sent a Christmas card he made featuring the sonogram of their unborn first child wearing a Santa Claus hat. All these years later, that child is learning to drive a stick shift and tons of people sends sonogram Christmas cards with little cartoon hats pasted on with a simple app. But people are still pushing the envelope when it comes to personalized family Christmas cards. Some are funny just because they are awkward or unattractive, but the pictures I selected are very intentional in their strangeness. And these only represent a small sampling of the crazy Christmas cards people make.

Reddit has a great collection of personalized cards, but they are submitted separately and can be hard to find if you miss them. This one was submitted just yesterday by thejohnblog with the caption "My friends' Christmas cards get more and more epic each year. I don't know how they'll top this one."

A few years ago, the Barrys' young daughter swallowed a holiday pin and had to have minor surgery to extract it. She's fine now. The x-ray made an awesome card, submitted by a redditor who has since deleted their account.

LastNameRusk pulled a picture out of his past from a Christmas card photo session. His sisters were fighting, so he bashed their heads together and then went all innocent when the camera snapped. He was seven years old at the time. He did not say for sure whether this was the picture that the cards were made with -but we hope it was.

Redditor bdunks's parents took a family group photo and printed up 200 Christmas cards. Then he and his girlfriend (who was in the picture) broke up, so he did what he had to do to before they were mailed out.

His mother told him to sober up and send his own Christmas cards. So John Cessna did just that. The picture shown is from 2009, but you can see five years of homemade cards in the gallery.

Redditor tpthatsme showed eight years worth of Christmas cards featuring his children growing up with their father's sense of Photoshoppery humor. He also posted a "making-of" video for each card.

This family card, which dates back to at least 2011, is both realistic and modern. You occasionally see groups who look just like this, don't you? Maybe in your own living room!

The cat took the Christmas portrait. We can prove it.

Eric Mueller and Ramona Ponce sent out Christmas cards that emulated the look of an airport scanner -with Santa and his reindeer! Photograph from Cory Doctorow's Flickr stream.

Redditor Drixislove has a new baby this year. Her family encouraged her and her husband to make a personal Christmas card, so they acquiesced and sent this one out. She said they would either get the joke or call CPS. This is actually three photographs merged with editing magic. 

This picture, posted by redditor daveaspen, was taken for a friend's Christmas card. At least part of it was taken for a card; some of it was Hollywood. Don't crunch that Dorito!

Redditor xitrox68W went the artistic route for his Christmas card this year. You may have to study it, or look at the enlarged version, to see what makes it so special. He thinks his family might not even notice!

This list only scratches the surface of the clever and funny cards people are able to make with the aid of digital imaging and home printers. We may post more before the season is done!

Sixteen days?? But I want it now!!

Andrew Cunningham

If early sales projections are any indication, Apple is selling a whole boatload of iPhones and iPads this holiday season. To sweeten the deal for those holiday buyers, the company has just posted a "12 Days of Gifts" app in the App Store—the app will offer a different free song, app, book, or movie from Apple's voluminous iTunes Store every day between December 26 and January 6, just in time to benefit anyone with a brand-new iPhone or iPad. Until then, the app will just show you a countdown to December 26, mocking you with its lack of free stuff.

Apple has been running similar holiday promotions for a few years now, though up until last year the app was less-inclusively called "12 Days of Christmas" and has typically been available for international customers only. There's no telling what kind of stuff you can expect to get from the app, but whatever it is, at least the price is right.

The 12 Days of Gifts app requires iOS 7.0 and can be downloaded on any device that supports Apple's latest operating system. This includes the iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5C, and 5S; the iPad 2, both Retina iPads, the iPad Air, and both iPad minis; and the fifth-generation iPod touch.

Read on Ars Technica | Comments

Buckle up, Sweets fans, 'cuz I'm about to show you the best gingerbread house creations in all of the interwebz - and you're going to want all of them.

(By Goodies By Anna)

Sugar glass windows, candy cane porch pillars, and teeny-tiny chocolate sunflower seed flowers. These are the things dream homes are made of, my friends.

Or maybe you're more of an urban high-rise type?

(Baker unknown)

FACT: Baby deer make the best doormen.

Or how about a spin on the open seas?

(Baker unknown)

In my mind, of course, the seas are made up of hot cocoa. MMMMM.

I've seen a couple of cookie vignettes before, but this one just blows me away:

(By Jeziba)

Look at that picture-perfect piping! And I love - LOVE - the tea light cut-out in the middle. Makes for such a gorgeous display.

Of course I had to include the gingerbread bakery, now, didn't I?

(Also by Goodies By Anna)

Check out the goodies in the windows! And the roof cresting on top is STUNNING. I assume it's made with royal icing, but to get it all installed without cracking? That's gotta be insanely hard.

Ok, time for a geeky side trip:

(By Debbie Ruff)

... to Hobbiton! (It's all about that round green door, am I right? Although I'm also loving the snow-covered trees.)

And for you Breaking Bad fans:

(By Sugarplum Cake Shop)

Ha! So many great details here, but my favorite has to be those yellow suits. Or the snowman in the DEA cap. Or the orange stripes on the RV.

And speaking of orange...

(By Paradox Pastry)

I am completely enamored with these colors - and that swirly chimney "smoke."

This gingerbread cottage looks straight out of Disney's Fantasyland:

(By Mary E. Found here)

Love.

See, now, I want to live in that cottage, but I want this one on my desk so I can stare at it all day:

(By Sassy Beautimus)

... right after I finish eating the roof.

And my very VERY favorite of hers:

(Also by Sassy Beautimus)

The girly squees are strong with this one.

Seriously, pastel rainbows and gingerbread brown are a match made in heaven.

And finally, the perfect traditional gingerbread house, with a heaping side of cozy goodness:

(Baker unknown. Anyone know?)

COZY GOODNESS, YOU GUYS.

So, who else is off to buy a gingerbread house kit now? :)

Want more? Then check out my previous gingerbread Sweets for 2009, 2010, and 2011!

Also, check out our Sunday Sweets Directory to see which bakers in your area have been featured here on Sweets!

Look at this shape. It seems to be some kind of box with a hinge facing us. But what it is doesn't really matter. It appears that the top and bottom are different colors BUT…

Place your finger horizontally over the "hinge" part. See? The top and the bottom are exactly the same color now. What sort of wizardry is this? -via Boing Boing

Jeff Wysaski at Pleated-Jeans has so many reasons to stay inside and not go anywhere that he made an advent calendar of them. Personally, I don't need any excuses along the lines of "There's something I have to do," because I always have too many things to do. But I have plenty of other excuses as well, like I'm antisocial and I can pull the "Mama ain't happy" card and send other people to do my errands. It's cold out there! -via Daily of the Day

English teachers have the inconsiderate habit of assigning mammoth-sized works of literature to read and then actually expecting you to do it. This wouldn't be so bad except that invariably the requisite reading is as boring as fly fishing in an empty lake. Half of those books don't even have discernible plots. And let's face it -- the Cliff's Notes are pretty time-consuming too. Worry no more. Your troubles are over. We here at Book-A-Minute Classics have come up with a solution. We've taken all kinds of great works of literature and boiled them down to their essence, extracting all the filler (and believe me, there's a lot of it sometimes). In just one minute, you can read entire books and learn everything your teachers will expect you to know.