Summer is in full swing, as are outdoor picnics, parties and wedding receptions. If you haven't taken your turn at outdoor dining, then it is time to pretty up your patio or picnic table, and sit down to some char-grilled delicacies.

Evening dining is tops; nothing beats watching the sun set on a glorious summer day. Since you probably love to sit outside after dark, and do not relish the thought of having to go in the house right away as twilight comes, you can stay outdoors a little while longer with homemade paper table lanterns.

Are you looking for last minute ideas for gifts, or party and wedding favors? Or perhaps you never have a piece of paper in your purse or briefcase when you need it.

Help is here, with this tutorial teaching us how to make sticky notebooks. Michelle made sticky note books for her daughter's kindergarten classmates, using 3M Post-it Notes in Ultra Colors, and scrapbook paper.

With a knitting needle, she scored the scrapbooking card stock so that it would fold where she needed it too. She placed the sticky notes on the card stock, taking off the last page so that the notes would stick to the paper. She then made circle closures for the notebook, closing the notebook with embroidery floss.

Customized to your specific needs with the appropriate paper and colored notes, these sticky notebooks could be used for grocery lists, notes to yourself (or family members), wedding and party favors, or even as gifts for the person who forgets everything. I think they would also be nice for little fingers to stay occupied on short trips.

[via: Whip Up]

Is there a role-playing game geek in your life? Surely they are familiar with the mighty 12-sided die. I bet they'd like a similar 12-sided desk calendar that can be built from a paper print-out in a few minutes. And if you live in a brain-space containing neither dungeons nor dragons, you may still be relieved to find a free desk calendar for 2008.

Although this project has been around for a while, it's always good to remind people about it sometime around the New Year, as desirable calendars begin to become scarce in retail outlets. The site allows you to create a calendar for any year, choose one of a long list of languages (some eccentric: I chose Latin), decide whether the calendar's week should start on Sunday or Monday, and select a format for downloading and printing.

It's not difficult, but if you've never done this kind of paper-craft before, you might appreciate a nudge in the right direction. We have some basic tool and assembly suggestions for you after the break!

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone the time to think about Christmas is fully upon us. The gift shopping season is in full force and closets are beginning to fill up with wonderful secret things. While I know you have gifts on the brain, have you given any thought to what you will put those gifts in?

If you have any little gifts to give why not try making your own boxes for them? Sister Dianne from CraftyPod has created a wonderful tutorial for making these fun little boxes. There are also several pictures to help you figure out exactly what she is telling you to do.

I have made the basic box before but never could figure out how to make one to fit in the other. Thanks to the CraftPod tutorial I know what I was doing wrong. Also, this can be done with any card stock. While the cards are a very cool idea, there are many interesting kinds of card stock in many patterns at your local craft store. You could make many more sizes of boxes that way.

This clever article at WikiHow shows us how to make marble painting out of shaving cream. You can use the result for just about any paper craft, but I think it would make a great decoration for the front of a greeting card. Play around with the designs and see what you can create.

What you'll need

1. Cookie sheet
2. Shaving foam
3. Squeegee (The Dollar Store has some great mini ones)
4. Card stock
5. Liquid food colors or tempera paint - any colors you choose
6. A chopstick or something to draw the design

After the break, I'll summarize the steps for this project.