Annie Cattrell, Capacity (installation shot).

Exhibition preview - Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft at the Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead, until June 1 2008.

From a seven-metre-high cascade of crimson made using traditional Chinese paper cutting methods to a seemingly paint-spattered step ladder that is actually delicately inlaid with mother of pearl, the artworks now on show at the Shipley Art Gallery are surprising and finely crafted.

Out of the Ordinary, on tour from the V&A and produced in collaboration with the Crafts Council, is brimming with the unusual and beautifully worked. The exhibition features new installations from six artists who work in media ranging from paper, embroidery and lace making to glassblowing and marquetry.

Lu Shengzhong, The Book of Humanity: Empty Book (installation shot). © V&A Images

Each artist takes inspiration from the everyday, but turns the ordinary into extraordinary.

Naomi Filmer's chocolate gloves and Yoshihiro Sudo's amazingly life-like carved plants exemplify the level of workmanship present throughout the exhibition.

Olu Amoda salvages metals from the scrapyards of Lagos, Nigeria, to create intricate images with an industrial edge.

Annie Cattrell's lungs made of glass are fragile and awe-inspiring, while Lu Shengzhong works with red tissue paper, cutting out hundreds of tiny figures and motifs by hand using traditional Chinese techniques.

Anne Wilson brings together traditional textile techniques like lace making and modern practices like video to create complex and powerful works.

Susan Collis, The oyster's our world. © V&A Images

Others combine the mundane and the marvellous. Susan Collis transforms precious metals and stones into little screws and rawl plugs, and Catherine Bertola has recreated a chintzy old V&A wallpaper with, incredibly, dust - from the museum itself.

Also on display is the Shipley’s new permanent gallery Designs For Life. Showcasing Tyne & Wear Museums’ design collections, Designs for Life is home to hundreds of objects made in many parts of the world over the past 2,000 years.

These objects range from the special and unique, to the everyday and mass-produced. They take us on a journey to explore the huge variety of ways in which we use the material world to express ourselves and to enrich our lives.

This is an exhibition preview. If you've been to see the show, why not let us know what you think?