DIY Life

Last week I painted the outside of my front door.

I left the inside of the door alone, so that my kitchen would stay light and bright. I am glad I didn't paint it, since last month I had to move some furniture around to make room for my new freezer-on-the-bottom refrigerator, and the front door is constantly being bumped against the microwave stand. I am desperately in need of a doorstop to keep my door from being marred.

Elizabeth Hartman has a downloadable PDF tutorial on how to make a nine-patch bean-filled doorstop. Choose your fabric, have 5 pounds of dried beans on hand, and sew up that little gorgeous number.

What's really nice about the fabric doorstop is that it has a handle so that you can carry it around and use it for different doors in your house. I also think it would be great to knock out a burglar, should you happen to be so unfortunate as to have one visit.

In any case, I love the doorstop. It's perfect for all my door-opening-and-closing needs.

[via: Whip Up]

I love strawberries, both as a food and as a motif.

Recently, two separate summery strawberry stitching projects were posted over at WhipUp within a couple of days of each other: a pattern and tutorial for felt strawberries from Mr. Monkeysuit, and a felt jam-jar topper with a strawberry applique by Amy at Lucykate Crafts.

Even though they aren't by the same person, they seem like a perfect pair to me! You'll find further suggestions for this adorable project, including links to supplies, after the break.

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.

I admit, even though I know how to sew, it takes a special project for me to actually pull out the machine and get to work. Usually, those projects are gifts, like baby slings in drawstring pouches.

The inspiration to sew may just have crossed my computer screen, with the adorable little girl clothing patterns and tutorials collected by Whip Up.

What little girl doesn't love a twirly skirt? This one is easy to sew, and the tutorial has very clear instructions and helpful photos; if you can sew a straight seam, you can please a little girl in your life.

The only possible drawback? The sizing is European, so you need to know the height of the wearer.

There are more reasons than ever to learn how to burn a CD: to create your own CD wedding favors or to make a story CD for your child, for example.

Are you technically savvy enough to do it? I, for one, am happy to have a husband who is, but in the interest of being a strong, independent woman and a good example to my child, I set out to learn how to do burn a CD myself.

The first thing I learned is that there is this thing called a "Wizard" that pretty much does everything for you; simply drag and drop the files you want to write to the CD and surf the internet during your wait time.

OK, it isn't quite that simple (but it's close), but Worldstart has a tips and tricks page with:

• CD-R versus CD-RW tips
• step-by-step instructions
• a separate tutorial for Microsoft Windows XP, which has its own CD burning software

and more -- everything you will need to know to burn your own CD, in fact. Independence is just a click away!

Being the mom of a toddler doesn't let me sit for extended periods of time, so I have to pick and choose DIY crafts that are not so mind intensive that I get lost in them and end up totally ignoring my child. I know that will end when she goes to preschool, and I can focus on more intricate projects.

One of the first on my list for that time will be this paper cutting tutorial. I am decent at drawing, and pretty good at sitting for a long time, when necessary. The fact is, Heather makes it very easy to fall in love with her artwork, so her "cut tut" should definitely be added to everyone's crafting "to do" list.

Heather gives instructions detailing her drawing of the design onto thin white paper, used sticky tape to adhere the white paper to a piece of black construction paper,and then sat for hours cutting out the intricate design.

This project takes extreme patience and some seriously steady hands, both of which I don't really have right now. If you happen to have that patience and steady hand, I'm sure your not so crafty friends will be amazed to receive your gorgeous gift.

[via Whip Up.]

Making or finding inexpensive wall art is not always an easy task. Some people, me included, have to have just the perfect piece of decor, so we spend hours trying to make or find that perfect elusive item.

Sometimes inspiration hits full force. Such is the case for this amoeba-inspired biological clock that doubles as wall art. Shelly made the clock project for her local newspaper, and I just have to share the awesome tutorial with you, as well as the picture gallery showing how she makes the clock.

Shelly went to her local Goodwill store and bought a cheap clock for less than $2, then cut a piece of plywood into an interesting shape using a jigsaw. She spread Mod Podge on her fabric and on the clock, and glued the fabric onto the plywood. Check out her tutorial for the full directions.

If you have a friend who is counting down the years or days until their biological clock stops ticking, then this is the perfect gift for them. For guys, maybe just changing the shape of the design or color of your fabric will make it a perfect Father's Day gift.

I have a secret: I've made elaborate crowns of silk flowers, but I've never in my life successfully made a real daisy chain, or understood how they were constructed. Do you tie the stems into loops? Cut the stems? Where do you cut the stem, and how? What connects them? I've clearly been missing out on all the summer fun.

Over at Bella Dia, recently, Cassi wrote a dual tutorial: it both teaches you how to make a daisy chain, and how to write a good online craft tutorial. All you need to make the chain is a number of flowers with strong stems, and your fingernails or something sharp: split the stems, and slide the stem of the next flower on the chain through the split. If I had known it was this easy, I would have been making them for years!

Incidentally, all of the instructions Cassi gives for writing a tutorial are things that the other writers and I try to do here at DIY Life (although I don't personally like to list the amount of time a project will take; I find that's variable based on who's doing the project, and think that it's best to try to work out the probable timing for yourself as you read the instructions).

If you use Cassi's suggestions to write a tutorial of your own, why not let us know about it in the comments?

There are so many dish towels out there with adorable prints. I collect Halloween-themed ones, but know lots of people that collect dish towels in general, or with unique prints. But what to do with them?

I happened upon this tutorial, and thought it would be the perfect thing to make for my twin two-year-old nieces, when helping their grandmother out in the kitchen.

The author of the tutorial says that the apron winds up fitting an eight to eleven year old, so if you are making these for toddlers, like me, you will need to make it shorter, and the neck hole a tad smaller.

For this project you'll only need one dish towel, one package of extra wide double fold bias tape, pins, thread, and ribbon or trim.

The project itself is pretty simple, (the hardest part is getting the bias tape right) and an experienced sewer can turn quite a few of these out in no time for gift giving.

Your little one will love this apron so much they will want one for every day of the week.

I am not a fan of housework and I despise doing dishes. I have no automatic dishwasher; that would be me. I go through scrubbies like mad, mostly because my husband forgets to rinse his dishes, and when I happen to get to them, they are pretty crusty.

Berlin's Whimsy loves doing dishes, but was bored with cleaning with regular scrubbie sponges. She decided to liven up her task by knitting dish scrubbie sponges. Using cotton worsted weight yarn, tulle, and size 9 knitting needles, she made herself an awesomely colorful and useful scrub sponge.

Since tulle can be difficult to work with, Berlin's Whimsy weighted down the tulle and used a rotary cutter to make an even cut. She wrapped the tulle around an empty paper towel roll so that it would be easier to knit with. Check out the complete tutorial here.

I am so tickled that Curbly posted this for us. I think I might still despise doing dishes, but it sure would make it easier on me to be working with a scrub sponge that was pretty. I am sure that using mesh fruit and vegetable bags to make these awesome sponges would work too.

I often wish that the pretty fabric I find could somehow be protected from sticky little fingers or grown-up messes. If only that pretty cloth came as an oilcloth or was water or dirt resistant. I could finish so many more projects if I could just preserve the cloth using oilcloth or vinyl.

Jessica at How About Orange has a tutorial on how to make iron-on vinyl coasters. She found the iron-on vinyl at her local craft store, and decided to try it out by making the gorgeous coasters, using some heavy weight fabric and glossy vinyl. She sewed the cloth and vinyl together, and then used pinking shears to give the finished coasters a nice edge.

The iron-on vinyl is flexible, water repellent and UV resistant. Imagine all the nice gifts you can make; after all, Christmas will be here before you know it. I can't wait to finish making giant bibs and smocks for my 3 year old, laminate my scrapbook paper, and finish the chair seat covers.

via: Craft

Using a comfortable mat when doing yoga isn't really necessary, but it sure does come in handy against carpet burns, bruises from the hardwood floor, and grass stains all over your lovely white shorts. No matter how much padding you have on your tush, if you don't use a mat, you may notice all the pretty colors on your body the next day.

Your yoga mat is probably in need of a new bag, and Myam has just the thing, with a handy tutorial on how to make a yoga mat bag. To make the bag, measure the length and circumference of your yoga mat, then cut your fabric, adding two extra inches of fabric to your rectangular piece. Cut out the bottom piece. Don't forget to add two strips of fabric to make the strap.

Myam's pictures and her tutorial are perfectly easy to follow. I love the fabric she chose. It is so very energetic, and just the pick-me-up we all will need after our heart pounding yoga exercises are done and we all have to drag our butts out of the class.

via: Craft

I want a new set of curtains, but I want to hang them like a shower curtain, just because I like the look. To do this I need to work grommets into the fabric, and I don't have one simple clue how to do such a thing. I like grommets in my clothing and crafts, but have always avoided using them because I didn't understand how easy it could be to install them.

ModHomeEcTeacher has a simple tutorial on installing grommets. Basically, all you have to do is mark your fabric where you want the grommet to be, take your handy dandy little grommet tool and give it a good thump. Next, cut out the indentation the tool made, and insert the grommet pieces on each side of the hole. Find your grommet tool again, and give it 5 good whacks with the hammer. Voila, installed grommets.

My goodness, who knew it was that easy to install grommets? Imagine all the possibilities now. You can finally put in the string for your new shopping tote, hang your newly sewn curtains, and get busy making your next craft project.

Sometimes finding a particular rubber stamp in my small town is pretty difficult. I like to make unique scrapbook pages for each of my children. Rubber stamps are definitely unique, but since I get bored pretty easily, I like finding alternative ways to create crafts.

I like the idea of using an inkjet printer to create the look of lovely rubber stamp images for papercraft and scrapbook pages. Basically, you use your inkjet printer to transfer a digital image onto transparency paper or any high gloss printer stock. When the ink is still wet, flip the sheet and rub/transfer the image on to your scrapbook page.

You'll need to work quickly so that the ink doesn't dry before you get it fully transfered, and it may also help to start with smaller images first. The crafts you can create with your inkjet printer are endless, limited only by your imagination.

Back in September of last year, I wrote a comprehensive tutorial for making marble magnets, an easy project in which images are placed under little glass bubbles in a way that really makes them come alive. In that post, I mentioned that the image pebbles could also be used in other projects, like concrete mosaics.

Kathy Cano-Murillo, one of my favorite craft gurus, recently posted the kind of mosaic project I was talking about: Concrete Coasters. The process for making them is similar to making a mosaic tabletop or paving stone, on a smaller scale.

After creating the image marbles, you mix concrete and pour it into coaster molds, then embed the marbles in the molded material and allow it to dry for at least a day. After removing the concrete coaster from its mold, you varnish it to seal it, and add felt padding to the bottom; if you like, you can further decorate the coasters until you end up with something like Kathy's results.

The one thing I would do differently than Kathy? I don't think white glue (also called PVA glue) is the best thing for gluing images to marbles; glass isn't porous, and that kind of glue is most appropriate for porous materials. I recommend using E-6000 glue instead. However, the fact that you're sealing the marbles in concrete probably makes it a moot point.

[via Craft.]