Whenever I watch a television show or movie where some guy hides an engagement ring inside his girlfriend's glass of champagne, I'm always terrified that she is not going to notice the ring, drink the champagne, and swallow the jewelry. The scenario never fails to make me anxious, because it seems totally plausible that it would happen in real life.

22-year-old Xaio Li bought his girlfriend, Wang Xue, an $800 necklace for her birthday and, in an attempt to surprise her, hid it in a muffin he baked for her. Li presented the pastry gift wrapping to Xue at her birthday party, then watched in horror as she ate the whole thing, swallowing the necklace.

Creative art student from Cambridge, England Kerry Howley was inspired by people's aversion to cut hair -- something that, admittedly, isn't the most aesthetically pleasing thing to look at spread out all over a salon's floor -- and felt since hair is usually worn with pride until it is severed from the body, she created extremely intricate, delicate necklaces made of "severed" human hair in an attempt "to create a delicate balance between the viewer/wearer’s feelings of aversion and attraction."

The hair for the necklaces was provided by one of Howley's mother's friends, a Japanese woman with hair down to her waist who only cuts it once every five years. When she did cut her it, she gave the 30 cm of discarded hair to Howley. Howley then used broken saw blades to cut and weave the discarded hair into shapes inspired by wallpaper patterns. She has worked over sixty hours on each of the five necklaces she has created so far, the rest of which are pictured past the jump.