DIY Life

Your front yard doesn't have to be perfectly manicured or professionally landscaped to look good. It is, however, your public face -- of sorts. Plus, your neighbors are forced to look at whatever you put out there!

Be a good neighbor: banish the following items from your front yard.

1. Plastic foliage. I'm talking anything you got from a craft store. Like this, for example. Plastic ivy. Faux dried sunflowers. Silk chrysanthemums. Plastic wreaths. Fake autumn leaves strung into streamers. Shudder.

Plastic flowers are tacky in the garden. They're unnecessary. After all, you have Mother Nature at your disposal! Why choose fake flowers? Finally, they evoke the cemetery. Enough said.

We've just moved into a new house, and my boys are excitedly adding personal touches to their room to make it their very own. These personalized door hangers are a perfect way for them to express their own taste and take ownership of their new room.

In this project, your child will decorate cutouts of their own initials and hang them on their bedroom door. For their decorations, they'll be reusing cardboard, greeting cards, magazines, and other treasures they find around the house.

Take some inspiration from the gallery, and see how ours turned out. I'll share full instructions and some useful tips after the break.

S'mores are traditionally melted over a blazing camp fire. I enjoyed these summer evening treats when I was younger, and want to pass on the ooey-gooey tradition to the sweet toothed kids in my life. We just can't get out in front of a campfire this year, but that isn't going to stop us from indulging in the graham cracker goodness.

When I first heard about microwave s'mores, I was horrified at the whole idea. I really thought that s'mores should be left where they belong: on the campgrounds.

After trying them, it's all I can do to not microwave one for myself right now.

Hurricane season has been in full swing for a few weeks now, but thankfully it's been very quiet so far. Don't let the lack of named hurricanes lull you into a false sense of security. The season stretches all the way to November 30th, and the peak of it -- August to October -- is yet to come.

Don't assume you'll have time to make preparations "if the needs arises." Of course, we all remember the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. And in 2004, Hurricane Charley was expected to head into the Gulf of Mexico and collide with Tampa. At the last minute, it made a sharp right turn and landed substantially farther south, obliterating entire neighborhoods and barrier islands.

If you live in a hurricane-prone area, and haven't yet made preparations in case one heads your way, here are a few of the most important steps you can take to keep you and your family safe this summer. You may never need to activate the plans you have in place, but it's good to know they're there.

Summer vacation keeps rolling along. How long until your kids go back to school? Are they spending too much time lounging on the couch? Here are a bunch of summer projects to trick your kids away from their air-conditioned sanctuary and out into the great outdoors of, er, your backyard.

Okay, okay. So the backyard is not the great outdoors. True. But the main thing is to get the kiddos out in the fresh air, learning about nature, and learning about the noble pursuit of maintaining a garden.

Getting their hands dirty
1. Ask them to help with the weeding. Pay them a small amount of pocket money for their time.

Make a sprinkler? Why on earth would you do that when you can go out to just about any store and grab a cheap one for less than ten dollars?

I'll tell you why:

• You could be reusing waste materials from other projects to make your sprinkler.
• It's an easy and fun project you could even do with the kids.
• Speaking of kids, you could make an impressive play sprinkler for them to romp about in.
• You could create a system that would water your entire lawn.

OK, so maybe you can't do the whole project with the kids (unless yours are old enough to help drill holes), but you can work with them to plan an elaborate sprinkler that will entertain them on hot summer days.

Reminisce with me for a moment, if you will, back to your childhood, to when you and your siblings built and launched your own bottle rocket. How'd it go for you?

If you did everything correctly, your rocket probably took off with ease, and the display was celebrated with lots of hoots and hollers.

However, if you tried to elaborate on the directions, and came up with a creative way to watch your rocket fly a little longer, it may have ended badly, like it did for the two young men who won a Darwin Award honorable mention.

Looking for a kid's craft that's out of this world?

OK, that was bad -- clearly I spend too much time with my own little Kiddie Crafters, and I've completely lost my mind! Bad humor aside, the alien eyes headband is a quick and simple craft project. It's perfect for bringing along on camping trips, especially if you want a fun prop to lighten up a scary campfire story.

Check out the gallery to see how our crazy alien eyes turned out, then follow me through the break for full instructions for making your own.

I don't know about you, but when I think of homemade butter, I picture long afternoons spent at a butter churn. But did you know that you can make fresh, tasty butter in the comfort of your own modern kitchen? Not only is it simple, the results are immediately edible.

Apartment Therapy's Ohdedoh shares the simple steps for making homemade butter. All you need is some heavy cream, a jar, and some kids to do the shaking. Or, you can make life easier for everyone and put the cream in your food processor with either a plastic blade or its regular chopping blade. I'm not saying your kids won't like to shake, but when they get tired out, it's your biceps that are going to be aching.

When it's done, you can either eat it immediately or "work it" and store it in the fridge. For more details on how to make this yummy treat, check out the gallery below. Before you begin, I highly recommend baking a batch of homemade muffins or bread. You'll thank me later, I promise.

(via Craftzine)

My three-year-old loves playhouses. Even if it's really just a cardboard box that he can fit into, it qualifies as the coolest toy in the northern hemisphere.

In fact, we have finally found the right plans to fit our yard, and we plan on building a playhouse for our fanciful child soon. We were actually steering clear of themed playhouses, so that Owen could let his imagination run wild; knowing him, it will be everything from a firehouse to the Hall of Justice.

If you have a little one who adores Disney's many jungle-themed rides and movies, though, this may be just the playhouse for you to try building.

Last week we kept busy with low-key sick day activities, and thankfully, we've recovered and are itching to get outside.

My boys are curious, and with that comes endless questioning about the world around them. If your usual walking path is losing its luster, and you're getting tired of questions about the same rotten log, it might be time to mix it up a little. I've gathered together some crafts that celebrate nature and use materials found in their environment.

After the break, I'll share some of these nature-based activities and crafts that will cater to their outdoor interests.

After a morning browsing garage sales a few weeks ago, my mom and one of my daughters returned home with three of those square metal looms and hundreds upon hundreds of weaving loops.

After saving one loom and a bag of loops, I had no idea what to do with the excess, until my mom pointed out this fun craft -- finger weaving a jump rope.

Not only will this craft use up all the spare loops you have after your kids get bored making pot holders, lanyards, and whatnot, finger weaving is also a fun and relaxing hobby for people of all ages.

All you need to complete the project are about 250 weaving loops and a spare hand. Place the first loop on your pinky and give it a half twist, then loop it around your ring finger and twist again. Continue until you've reached your ring finger. Repeat with the next loop, then stretch the first loop over the second loop one finger at a time to "weave."

Check out the gallery below for more specific instructions and to see what the beginning of this jump rope might look like.

Just when you are ready to slather on the sunscreen and go searching for beach creatures, your preschooler starts complaining of a stomach ache.

It's tough being stuck inside on summer days, but you know he'll recover faster, and keep the cooties to himself, if you keep him home. If he's not sick enough to last a day on the couch watching movies, but he's not well enough to brave an afternoon at the beach, you'll need some low-key sick-day activities to keep you both from going stir-crazy.

Here are some of my ideas. Share your own in the comments, and we'll all expand our little bag of sick-day tricks!

I don't know about your house, but in mine we go through several jugs of milk a week. Because my son loves cereal, and he also loves a big glass of milk with meals, my recycling bin gets pretty full with milk jugs alone.

RePlayGround has a fun way to reuse milk jugs -- make carton catchers. Your main materials include two half-gallon milk jugs, two toilet paper tubes, and a ball (or tin foil to wad into a ball). You'll also need a tack, tape, scissors, markers, and decorative paper.

To make the carton catchers, simply cut out the milk jugs (RePlayGround has diagrams to show you how to cut them), attach the toilet paper tubes to the spouts, and decorate. I haven't made these yet, but I do wonder if the toilet paper tube would be a bit flimsy. You could use a wooden dowel or some plastic pipe for a sturdier handle.

Want more ideas for reusing milk jugs? Anna has 15 creative suggestions.