DIY Life

Iron Man gear is all the rage these days, thanks to the popularity of the new hit movie. We recently went to my nephew's fourth birthday party, and as a gift, he received an Iron Man mask and an arm attachment that shoots discs. Ah, the weaponry a four-year-old apparently needs....

If you've got an Iron Man buff in your household, why spend the money on a store-bought mask and arc reactor when you can build one yourself? Details after the break.

In this age of doing-it-yourself, handmade gifts are becoming more and more popular. The trouble with that is making sure your gifts are original and unique.

Making a spoon rest out of clay can be as one-of-a-kind as you want it to be, or you can make it simple and use a cookie cutter so your kids can help with the project. The article suggests making a heart spoon rest, but you could make anything you wanted to -- freehand, or use a cookie cutter or stencil of your choice.

You'll need air-drying clay, acrylic paint, both in colors and clear, and any tools you will want to use to work the clay. Suggestions about how to make hole to hang the spoon rest and how to make it rest on a flat surface easily are included in the instructions. You can paint it when it is dry and even put felt on the bottom for a nice base.

If your kids -- or you! -- know your way around a can of Play Doh, you can easily make a clay spoon rest as a keepsake gift for any occasion.

Addictive pop culture site X-Entertainment has posted a fine DIY/reuse-recycle idea. X-Entertainment guru Matt demonstrates how to turn an empty Altoids tin into a teeny-tiny sanity-saving survival kit. Yep. All you need to get out of any conceivable urban scrape (well, some of them, anyway) is tucked securely -- and super compactly! -- in your back pocket.

Check out the X-E site for most excellent pics. Wow, that's a lot of stuff to fit into one tiny tin! First, there's the basics: food and drink, in the form of beef jerky, two types of gum, and a tiny vial of something strong to drink. Second, are comfort items: Listerine strips, a cigar and a couple matches. Finally, fun items to help you cope with typical urban boredom, such as being stuck in traffic: crossword puzzle, pencil and paper, a tiny piece of clay for modeling, a die (as in one half of a set of dice), and stickers for decorating your surroundings. Beautiful, just beautiful.

For those of you already enamored of those cute little Altoids tins, this is a fabulous way to prolong the love. In fact...let's make a pact not to toss them when all the mints are gone. We will try and repurpose them instead! Need ideas? Here's a DIY project that I touched upon just a couple days ago: the Minty Boost iPod charger. As I stumble on more ideas, I'll share them with you right here at DIY Life.

In Mexico and in Mexican-American communities around the country, it's the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos), a festive celebration to honor lost loved ones and others who have gone before. It corresponds with All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day on the Catholic calendar: November 1 is dedicated to children's souls, while November 2 is for the spirits of adults. It is said that these souls return to Earth for a visit, but they aren't feared: they're greeted with open arms. And lots of trinkets.

When relatives are coming, you don't want them to think you're unhappy about the visit, do you? The same logic lies behind much of the celebration. People commemorate the lives of lost loved ones by creating ofrendas ("offerings": altars and shrines), making sugar skulls as presents for the dead, hanging banners made of papel picado ("pierced paper" filigree), decorating with real or paper marigolds, baking pan de muerto (the tasty "bread of the dead"), visiting family graves, and maintaining a festive atmosphere.

Who can resist taking these themes and running with them? You'll find more information and plenty of tutorials after the break!

Affectionately referred to as Tombie, this talking tombstone makes a great Halloween prop. Alan Perakh built a tombstone out of Styrofoam then added the talking face and hooked it up to a laptop for audio. It looks like this project takes some time, but the directions are easy to follow and the result will be well worth it.

There are many Styrofoam tombstone designs out there, but the idea of using clay and adding stone effect paint makes all the difference here. The final prop looks realistic, and perfectly frightening. Play around with your own preferences and make the face look any way you'd like. The audio will be a fun part to design. What will your tombstone say? I can just imagine this guy greeting me at the door, offering instructions before entering the haunted house, or telling spooky tales.

As an all-natural soap-maker, I don't use any synthetic additives in my soap. All scents, flecks, swirls and other textures are made from natural materials.

Maybe you've been wanting to lose the FD&C colorants for a more skin and environmentally friendly choice but you just aren't sure what to use. Try clay!

Clays come in an array of colors and will add "slip" to your soap, along with some detoxifying properties as well. Moroccan Red clay is a burnt orange, Rose clay a medium pink, French Green clay a mossy gray-green and Australian Midnight Black clay a dark gray-blue.

My favorite thing about using clays as colorants is that you can get an infinite amount of shades depending on how much clay you add. If you are using Rose clay and add a teaspoon per pound of oils to the amount of raw soap you'll be swirling, you will get a light pink swirl. Add a quarter cup and a deep berry appears.

You can also experiment with the lovely earth tones and spa properties of Rhassoul clay and Dead Sea clay.

The possibilities are endless, but you are sure to create some lovely swirls using clays.

Kristin, who does the Craft Leftovers blog, has just posted a new project: stitch markers for knitters, made with straight pins, polymer clay, jump rings, and beading pliers. In this project, the straight pins are used the way that wire or head-pins would otherwise be used in a similar project, and the polymer clay is used to make the "beads" that often dangle from stitch markers.

Since the polymer clay is just swirled together, these are easy to make with things that you may have around the house. The aim of Craft Leftovers is to provide you with projects that help use up small amounts of supplies, and this certainly fits the bill.

This style of stitch marker is not appropriate for crochet, which requires split markers.

I do a lot of laundry in my house and, as a result, I accumulate what seems like a metric ton of dryer lint each week. As I fished the latest clump of fuzz from my dryer's lint cup, I got to wondering, "Is there something useful could do with all this?" The only think I could think of was to toss it into my backyard for the birds to use when they build nests. I knew other people must surely have come up with other, more creative, ideas so I decided to find out.

What I learned may surprise you:

It's a banner week in media: the fifth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, rules the box office, and the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is just days away. A huge fan culture has grown up around the books and films, and when the fans aren't creating stories and art dedicated to their favorite characters, many love to craft.

After the break, you'll find a brief history of crafting in the Harry Potter fandom, as well as plenty of links to examples, ideas, and instructions. It's not too late to make something special for Friday night!

(Items in above image created by Hardhat Cat.)