DIY Life

Using a comfortable mat when doing yoga isn't really necessary, but it sure does come in handy against carpet burns, bruises from the hardwood floor, and grass stains all over your lovely white shorts. No matter how much padding you have on your tush, if you don't use a mat, you may notice all the pretty colors on your body the next day.

Your yoga mat is probably in need of a new bag, and Myam has just the thing, with a handy tutorial on how to make a yoga mat bag. To make the bag, measure the length and circumference of your yoga mat, then cut your fabric, adding two extra inches of fabric to your rectangular piece. Cut out the bottom piece. Don't forget to add two strips of fabric to make the strap.

Myam's pictures and her tutorial are perfectly easy to follow. I love the fabric she chose. It is so very energetic, and just the pick-me-up we all will need after our heart pounding yoga exercises are done and we all have to drag our butts out of the class.

via: Craft

My hair is super straight and pretty boring. I recently bought some of those pink sponge rollers, the kind my mother used to put in my hair every night before bed. I had forgotten how incredibly uncomfortable they were. Not to mention the weird creases they left in my hair where the plastic closing piece connects.

In a search for more comfortable hair rollers, I stumbled upon this brilliant tutorial. It never occurred to me that I could just make my own.

They look really nice, and will give me the opportunity to use up some of my fabric scraps. And, they look really comfortable. No big plastic pieces!

You'll need fabric, buttons, stuffing, thread, hand sewing needle, scissors, and a sewing machine (with zipper foot if possible). If you are uncomfortable with creating button holes, you can always use Velcro. If you do use Velcro, it would probably be best and cheapest to purchase it by the yard since you'll need a lot more of the loop portion of the velcro.

I guarantee I'll have the most impressive and comfortable curlers on my block!

Not too long ago I blogged about converting a onesie into a dress. This inspired me to find other things to do with onesies, things not too time consuming. Babies outgrow onesies so fast, so this a great way to recycle these little gems. (I have quite a few nieces and nephews, so lots of onesies to play with!)

One of the most unusual uses I found for onesies was reconstructing them to make a tee for your dog. This project is quick, pretty easy, and only requires a onesie, thread, scissors, and sewing machine.

Of course, being the embellishment addict that I am, there is no way I can stop there. You can add appliques, patches, ribbons, decorative buttons, embroidery, or anything else to jazz it up (Just make sure that the buttons are really secure, you don't want your pet to swallow them).

In the recent past, t-shirt reconstruction has had us scrambling about trying to find cool shirts to revamp. Don't our four-legged BFFs deserve the same DIY goodies? Run out and get those onesies out of storage, from a thrift store, or a garage sale, and make your pup a fab little shirt today.

Graduation is coming up soon. What do you plan to do with your gown when you are done wearing it? Most people just tuck the gown in the back (I mean way back) of their closet and forget about it. Guilty as charged. I see that red gown once in a while when I am looking for something, but pretty much just leave it where it is, lonely and neglected.

Associated Content has a tutorial with step by step instructions telling us how to take old graduation gowns and make pillow covers from them. All you need is your old gown, matching thread, a sewing machine, and a pillow to make the cover for. Just follow the instructions, and in no time at all, you will have a newly covered pillow.

I really have a hankering now to find my satin graduation gown and recycle and reuse it for a few smooth pretty throw pillows. I think it would be really neat if non-matching thread was used though, or maybe some fabric trim in a contrasting color to liven up the pillow even more. Awesome, huh?

The Summer (Beltane) 2008 issue of The AntiCraft hit the Internet this week, and this time, it's all about bacon. Yes, you read right. Bacon.

The AntiCraft has made a name for itself as a nifty, slightly edgy craft site, geared towards people who like the darker things in life. So what, then, can you expect from the bacon issue? Something different, that's for sure.

For one thing, there's much more food than usual: Baconhenge (it's exactly what it sounds like), a gingerbread house with bacon shingles on the roof, and several types of bacon-infused sweets. Only two or three items really qualify as crafts... an embroidered, bookmark-like "Bacon of Hate," and a knitted scarf that looks like it's made of bacon (but isn't).

Finally, there's the issue's most dangerous project, a tiara made of bacon; it's dangerous because a protein-bonding enzyme is used to fuse it together. (Humans? Also made of protein.) Any project requiring that much safety gear probably shouldn't be done outside of a lab. Still, overall, this issue is an interesting experiment... in deliciousness!

OK, this is a trick that I used to use when I was really, really poor. You know how it is; your bar of soap gets so small that it's really hard to use? Or if you happen to use Ivory, it always seems to break into unusable chunks prematurely?

Well, here's a solution. I salvaged one of my old cotton socks. Whenever a bar of soap got into one of the afore mentioned conditions, I would pop the chunks or slivers into the sock. In fact, I would do it early. Once the sock had a decent content, I would wash with it.

It seemed to be a great solution because it turned out to be soap and washcloth all in one. Of course, if you're handy with a needle and thread, you could grind out something a little more elegant. I probably would have, but hey, I was just a wild young bachelor!

Every single person that lives in my home is a comic book fan. We have some sort of superhero (or super-villain) memorabilia lurking in every corner of our apartment. When my husband told me he wanted me to make a cozy for his Zune, I knew I should make one using some sort of superhero theme.

I scored when I found this tutorial: How to make an iPod, Zune, or cell phone cozy using a children's sock.

You can use any style of sock, but I found it best to use a sock with the longest ankle part, and only used the ankle.

You simply measure the item you are going to store against the sock (eyeball it), and cut off the excess. Turn the sock inside out, and sew up the bottom.

There are lots of interesting sock choices in children's departments everywhere. You may not be into superheroes, but you can find many other styles. Be sure to also check the girls' section for other options. My sister-in-law had a fit when she saw my husband's, and now I have to make her a Tinkerbell one. These make an excellent gift: they are quick, cheap, and easy.

There are a lot of reasons why the lowly bean bag is still a popular piece of furniture, even after all these years. They're comfortable (ergonomic, even), easy to clean, and low maintenance. They're portable, which makes them perfect for college students. They're also versatile and can be easily stored, then pulled out for quick seating. Finally, they sit low on the ground, perfect for watching TV or playing video games.

Bean bags are also inexpensive to buy, but even more so to make. By making your own bean bags, you also can create custom seating that matches your decor perfectly. To make a bean bag, you'll need:

• a sewing machine
• 3.8 yards of fabric of your choice
• 3.8 yards of inexpensive fabric (for the inner bag)
• 50 cm zipper
• beanbag filling
• scissors
• thread
• pencil

Ready to get started? WikiHow will show you how. Before you know it, you'll be sitting back relaxing in your own, personalized bean bag chair.

There are tons of adorable clothing options available for little ones, especially for girls. But what if you get tired of cute?

You can buy some really unique handmade baby items out there from places like Etsy, or you could just do-it-yourself.

Lots of things can be done to personalize onesies. You can apply patches, embroidery, or appliques. You can even convert a onesie into a dress, using fabric you may not normally associate with baby clothing. Sugar skulls, corazones, skulls with bows, and many other not-of-the-norm choices are out there.

For this project, you'll only need a onesie, measuring tape, sewing machine, thread, fabric, elastic, and pins. You don't need much fabric, since it is only forming the skirt part of the dress, so this is an excellent way to use up larger remnants.

Be prepared for other moms to flock to you and your child, asking where on earth you got a dress like that. You can proudly respond, "I made it myself."

I have seen sewing rooms that have more pincushions than would seem necessary, but for the avid sew-er, keeping the same size needles on one cushion means having a pincushion for every size needle. Every sewing room that has needles and pins just never has enough pincushions.

Once your kitty is done with a can of tuna, you can repurpose the tin can into a pincushion. Derek and Lauren on Design*Sponge take you through the steps necessary to make your unique pincushion. You'll need poly-fil, a small strip of decorative paper to cover the can, a piece of fabric for your pincushion, and some hot glue to make the fabric stick in the can.

I am wondering how to get the tuna smell out of the can though. Maybe a good soak in vinegar will do the trick? If you just can't get the smell out, and don't want fishy pincushions, check out my other pincushion post, and save your nose.

Being able to make your own accessories is a big perk to living the DIY lifestyle. There are tons of really cool wallets to make out there, some more difficult than others.

I found a neat tutorial on Craftster, and the tutorial author is definitely correct in the title, Easy Peasy Snap Wallets, as this is probably the easiest wallet I have ever made! I can't wait to make a ton more of these, for myself and gifts for my friends.

I have quite a few remnants of funky fabric and interfacing laying about, so that comes in handy for this project. You will only need two pieces of coordinating fabric that are about 9" x 6" or so. You can use whatever size fabric you want, but think ahead about what you would like to put inside the wallet, and that will give you an idea on how small or large you need your wallet to be.

Do you remember Pikmin, the two-part series on the Nintendo Game Cube? These strategy games featured tiny, intelligent, plant-like creatures who could help a spaceship captain rebuild his crashed vehicle. The Pikmin came in several different colors and maturity levels, with each type having unique abilities.

The franchise was designed by Nintendo guru Shigeru Miyamoto (sometimes called "the father of modern video gaming"), and its look was unique and interesting, but it doesn't have the same level of recognition that older games do. More recently, though, the Pikmin have come back into gamer consciousness due to a featured role in the immensely popular game for the Wii, Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Craftster's AniMei has brought Pikmin to life with this cute little Yellow Pikmin mascot. To make it, you need four colors of felt (yellow, green, black, and white), matching green and yellow thread, glue, a pipe cleaner, and a small amount of stuffing.

Download the pattern from the Craftster page, cut out the pieces, assemble as shown in the photo, and you'll have a helpful little friend in no time! This would also make a great package decoration for a gift, or maybe, months from now, a nice holiday ornament, if you stitch in a ribbon loop near the top.

We all have pairs of jeans laying around the house we no longer wear. There are many ways of re-purposing them. Everything from denim purses, reusable shopping bags, messenger bags, to just about anything.

Here is another idea: an organizer made from an old pair of jeans! This organizer goes on the back of a door. It can be your bedroom, laundry room, bathroom, or any other door in your home.

All you need for this project is a pair of old jeans, scissors, glue, tape measure, thread, sewing machine, and a trouser hanger. Measure and cut pockets into the jeans depending on the size of the objects you are going to store in them.

I have some really interesting jeans I haven't been able to wear in years with all sorts of patterns, ribbons, embroidery work, and embellishments on them that I'm thinking of using. You can also jazz up a pair of plain jeans with sequins, patches, scrap fabric, paint, embroidery, ribbons.

What are we trying to achieve when we express our individual style? I'm typically looking to show off a bit of my own flair, letting the world in on who I am and what I'm about. Adding one-of-a-kind accessories is a great way to do this.

If over-sized diamond-encrusted initials aren't your idea of personalized style, then this recycled book handbag might be just the expressive piece of fashion that you're looking for.

There isn't much that says more about us than the books we read and the classics we've enjoyed. Take one of those old favorites, and turn it into a funky handbag. I'm excited to try out this project because it looks relatively straightforward, and the final handbag is sure to be a piece that gets people talking.

Scrounge the thrift stores for a copy of your favorite book, or find an interesting classic. Match it to your fabric of choice, and some purse handles. With these personalized pieces, follow the instructions in the video, and enjoy your newest and hippest accessory.

Just about every crafty diva has lots of tape measures laying around. Why not use one of these to make one of the coolest hand-made accessories around: a flower brooch made from a tape measure!

You can purchase these in a wide array of colors at craft stores, so you can make up a bunch to match just about anything.

You really only need a needle, thread, tape measure, button, and brooch finding, so there is a good chance you'll have quite a few of these things around your home.

You don't have to stop at just making brooches out of these flowers! You can make smaller ones for earrings, or even turn one into a pendant to hang onto a necklace. Whichever way you decide to show off these sweet little flowers, you'll be recognized for the crafty goddess you are!