DIY Life

Earlier this week, I wrote a post with some ideas for planning every family staycation. As I was browsing the Internet today, I found that lots of other people have great ideas, too, but that the most unique ones came from Better Homes and Gardens.

BHG put together a gallery of their 25 best staycation ideas. Some of their more unique activities include:

• turning your home into a spa -- Make some spa-quality products at home and let the pampering begin: for your face, your hands and body, and your feet.
  
• going on a family bike ride
• flying a kite
• having a field day for the kids -- Or, create your own summer camp.
  
• organizing a block party -- You coulc choose to do this in a Mexican or Hawaiian theme, some of BHG's other party ideas.

Whatever you decide to do on your staycation, it seems that the common themes are relaxing and enjoying the people in your life. What's your favorite staycation activity?

OK, I usually don't go for the "household item" craft projects... oftentimes, they look just like what they are. The pasta necklaces? They're nothing but macaroni on a string.

Better Homes and Gardens has changed my mind, though, with their pasta tree centerpiece project. This fancy little number is hip and funky, and doesn't look like old pasta at all.

All you need are a few simple materials; BHG promises that the project will cost less than ten dollars.

Leave it to Better Homes and Gardens. Somehow, they're able to inspire me without making me feel like a second-rate Martha Stewart wanna-be.

Since we joined our CSA farm last year, it's been a pleasure to have new fresh flowers in the house every week. BHG has created a gallery of flower arrangements that can be done in five minutes, and that look positively stunning. Some of their winning combinations:

• poppies surrounded by hosta leaves
• geranium leaves, roses, and trailing vines
• lavender stems and geranium leaves
• hydrangeas with bachelor buttons
• mounded zinneas with bleeding heart foliage

What I really love about BHG's arrangements is that most of the blooms could be found in your own garden, or even in a wild flower field. That makes these arrangements economical, too.

I've been combining wild yarrow with daylilies and daisies for a pretty display on my kitchen's center island. What's you favorite quick and easy flower arrangement?

The good news is that because I am so far behind in my magazine reading, you benefit with a unique and thoughtful idea for a gift, just in time for Mother's Day. Who wouldn't love a wooden recipe box, blooming with flowers, ready to fill with recipe cards when the flowers are done?

You'll need:

• a beautiful wooden recipe box
• a plastic bag to line it
• floral foam, cut to fit the liner and box
• a dozen roses, tulips or any other flowers uniform in size with sturdy stems
• ribbons or anything else you'd like to adorn the box

Assembling this recipe box blooming with flowers is easy to do. Simply line the box with the plastic bag, fill with floral foam, add some water and arrange your stems. When you give this gift, be sure to include either blank recipes cards, or better still, a stack filled with your favorite recipes.

On our list for this spring is the deck. As you can see from the before picture, the railings are not up to code (and look a lot like a ladder to our three-year-old) and the wood floor is splintering. We figure that the frame is still pretty solid, so we will just replace the floor and the railings ourselves.

This is a pretty easy job, and maybe fodder for a future post, but our real goal is to make our outdoor living space attractive and inviting. Once the floor and railings are in, the fun begins.

I envision a new dining set with a colorful umbrella over the table, some comfy chairs and benches, and even an outdoor rug. Add some lighting over the grill, lots of flowering plants and my dream deck is complete. In my mind.

Arrange-a-Deck is a tool offered by Better Homes and Gardens that you can use to envision your dream deck on paper (a free membership to the site is required). It offers choices for flooring color, shape of deck and all the fun extras like seating and plants.

If you are having trouble deciding how to arrange your deck or what extras might enhance the look and functionality of your deck, this tool works great.

Each week, we'll show you how you can take a trendy decorating idea, garner inspiration from it and recreate a reasonable facsimile in your own home, easily and cheaply.

Our fun little DIY Inspirations feature has taken us from photos to mantels , from Better Homes and Gardens to Pottery Barn, all with the intent of finding inspiration for DIY projects to make our homes more beautiful.

This feature has been keeping track of all of my inspirations, but this week I found a little treat on Flickr that I thought was a fun way to keep track of your inspirations.

Flickr user Gnome G made an online photo scrapbook of home decorating inspirations. I love this idea, because whenever you get the urge to recreate something in your house to be more wonderful, you can just look at your scrapbook and get inspired all over again.

Is it easy to do? You bet. Simply find the photos you want, copy them to Flickr and create a set. The FAQs should have all the information you need to do this if you've never used Flickr before.

And the best part? It takes up no room in your house, so you can even decorate Zen.

Decorating with elements of nature is all the rage. Pottery Barn does it. Home and Garden Television does it. Better Homes and Garden does it too, and that is the look from which I drew my inspiration this week.

As part of their "Inspired Fall Decorating" slide show, Better Homes and Gardens (BH&G) includes a fun way to showcase some favorite photos, naturally.

When you live in the woods like I do, it is an easy look to duplicate.

I gathered some twigs from the yard, and also some evergreen twigs. BH&G Uses red berries, but I chose the evergreen look. They tied theirs with twine, I opted for some muted gold raffia ribbon.

Add a few black and white photos and the beauty and simplicity of nature creates an elegant photo display.

What is your favorite way to decorate with nature?