DIY Life

Plans for homemade hammocks range from the complicated to the super-simple. Let's focus on the latter: those made and hung in an hour or less using easy online instructions. You can have it done in plenty of time for your 4th of July get-together!

You will need an eight or ten foot length of any sturdy fabric and about 50 feet of equally sturdy rope. Both must be tough enough to suspend your weight without snapping.

Easter is my favorite holiday, and the kid in me still looks forward to coloring eggs and waking up Easter Sunday morning to find the hidden basket of eggs, toys and chocolate. Of course, now I do the basket hiding, but it is still fun to watch kids find their basket.

This year, you can save some green by letting your kids make their very own Easter basket. Let them pick out the color of the cotton fabric, and weave the fabric around the stiff rope. Adult supervision is necessary when using the tapestry needle.

Once your little ones have the dimensions they want in their handmade Easter basket, you can help them make the handle for their basket. Don't forget to take pictures for Grandma and Grandpa; they'll want to see the kid crafted basket too. Top off their Easter basket with plenty of chocolate, leaving room for these pretty dyed eggs.

My sister has a wooden tree swing in her yard. The children love it, often choosing it over the metal swing set that sits nearby. It's a nice place to sit and watch the children play, or just swing for a while, taking in the crisp autumn air. The wooden swing was there when they moved in. It probably had years of enjoyment before them, and they will leave it for the next family, I'm sure. If you think this would get the same kind of use in your yard, why not build one yourself?

Jon Vivian teaches us how to build a sturdy wooden tree swing. He refers to the swing as something "your children and grandchildren will remember you by." He says that you don't need any major carpentry skills. It's a project the whole family can get involved in. After the break I'll tell you how.

Have you ever sat around wondering just what exactly to do with 50 or so odd feet of rope? It can be a cumbersome bundle and get tangled up, leaving it a knotty mess and pretty much useless. If you happen to be on the go and needing to take that length of rope with you, it might be difficult to pack it in to a bag. Dragging the entire length behind you is out of the question for so many reasons, it could get caught on just about anything from a stroller to a herd of cows.

So if you are needing to grab some rope and make an outing, this is likely one of the best videos you could watch. Within just about a minute you can be coiling up the rope into something akin to a rope backpack where it can nestle between your shoulder blades in neat bundle of length, ready and waiting to be untied for adventures galore. The whole procedure looked a bit complicated to me, but then I don't have any uses for rope other than to herd my children and keep them still.