by Mito Habe-Evans

A Dutch creative team called We Make Carpets makes ... well, carpets. But these aren't carpets you would ever want to walk on. Designers Stijn van der Vleuten and Marcia Nolte and visual artist Bob Waardenburg make temporary rugs of pasta, plastic forks, pine cones, bricks, mustard seeds and a whole slew of un-carpet-like material.

  • A carpet made of pasta!
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    A carpet made of pasta!
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • The carpet that started it all: Designers Stijn van der Vleuten and Marcia Nolte and visual artist Bob Waardenburg made their first carpet, a forest carpet, during a Dutch design exhibition in 2009.
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    The carpet that started it all: Designers Stijn van der Vleuten and Marcia Nolte and visual artist Bob Waardenburg made their first carpet, a forest carpet, during a Dutch design exhibition in 2009.
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • The biggest carpet to date is this brick carpet, made of approximately 40,000 bricks delivered in four truckloads.
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    The biggest carpet to date is this brick carpet, made of approximately 40,000 bricks delivered in four truckloads.
    Boudewijn Bollmann, www.twistedstreets.nl/All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • The smallest carpet was one made of two colors of mustard seeds.
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    The smallest carpet was one made of two colors of mustard seeds.
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • A carpet of disposable forks
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    A carpet of disposable forks
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • Two colors of toy plastic soldiers make up this carpet.
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    Two colors of toy plastic soldiers make up this carpet.
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • The trio spent two days making this carpet from cups filled with "coffee, coffee with milk, coffee with more milk, tea and very strong tea," according to their website.
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    The trio spent two days making this carpet from cups filled with "coffee, coffee with milk, coffee with more milk, tea and very strong tea," according to their website.
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • This carpet made of bandages is stuck to the wall of Nolte's studio.
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    This carpet made of bandages is stuck to the wall of Nolte's studio.
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • A carpet made of cotton balls, cotton swabs and other material you would find in a first aid kit is probably the one that most resembles a real carpet.
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    A carpet made of cotton balls, cotton swabs and other material you would find in a first aid kit is probably the one that most resembles a real carpet.
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets
  • The design team's first pasta carpet.
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    The design team's first pasta carpet.
    All photos courtesy of We Make Carpets

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The artists have no background in textiles or weaving; they are exploring design motifs of traditional carpets, but their unusual materials dictate the design. With no blueprint or pattern, they allow the carpets to develop organically as they go.

"The main challenge is not to touch them after they lie in place," writes Bob Waardenburg in an e-mail. The carpets are temporary constructions made to be photographed — or to sit in exhibitions — and are never glued in place. "The tiniest hit can produce a chain reaction and move all the other pieces." Imagine trying to control mustard seeds without adhesive!

Although the carpets aren't real, the crowd at a recent exhibition trampled over and destroyed one of them. Waardenburg considers it a compliment: "It probably looked so real that they just walked over it."

What do you think? Would you put one of these in your living room?

Tags: Dutch art, design, carpet