Fire­flies are such sum­mer­time treats (for the eyes. Don’t wor­ry, I don’t eat them), but I haven’t seen too many around in the city. These fire­fly jars aren’t as amaz­ing as the real thing but they’re pret­ty cool to look at! There isn’t real­ly a how-to for them, but Cur­bly, where I spot­ted them, sug­gests flick­ing glow in the dark paint into mason jars. Or, one could try these from Fru­gal Fam­i­ly Fun, involv­ing bat­tery-pow­ered LED lights.  

 

I’ve told you that I love head­bands. Haven’t made too many of them though. But this one I will like­ly make soon! Knot­ted head­band tuto­r­i­al from You Seri­ous­ly Made That. Might also make a cool belt! Hmm.

 

I like jew­el­ry made of old cut­lery and I’ve always want­ed to buy them when I see them in the shops (but I could nev­er afford them :S). I would buy them because I thought it involves heavy machin­ery to bend/shape/form met­al cut­lery, some­thing that I can’t make at home. But appar­ent­ly there is a way to make them with just a good ol’ ham­mer and pli­ers, like in this tuto­r­i­al of a spoon pen­dent by Busi­ly Spin­ning Mom­ma! 

 

This is so sim­ple, but it made me laugh! A pock­et-size pup­pet for those long bus rides or doc­tor’s wait­ing room, per­haps? Goo­gly eye hand pup­pet from Make and Takes.

 

This, my friends, is a way to screen print with­out a screen! Bril­liant! Just an embroi­dery hoop, some mesh/sheer mate­r­i­al, and Mod Podge! How-to on Craft­gr­rl (via 52 Crafts in 52 Weeks).

 

I’ve nev­er made soap but always been intrigued by the process. I like the ones that come embed­ded with a rub­ber ducky or oth­er small toys. But a sheet of print­ed trans­paren­cy would also make a sophis­ti­cat­ed and styl­ish embed­ding option — makes a love­ly wed­ding favour or Christ­mas gift! How-to on Ruf­fled.

 

A very sculp­tur­al pen­dent made com­plete­ly with can­dy wrap­pers. I love recy­cled crafts :D From Michele Made Me.

 

Always won­dered how this gra­di­ent is achieved — now an easy-to-under­stand tuto­r­i­al! (I think the stripes on the shirt helps a lot) From Cot­ton & Curls.

 

In our small apart­ment, a table­top iron­ing board would be handy, so when­ev­er I’m work­ing on a sewing project I don’t have to haul out the iron­ing board that takes up half the liv­ing room (OK, I’m exag­ger­at­ing a bit…). Last time we went to Ikea I was look­ing at the loose shelf boards in the as-is sec­tion and I won­dered if I could make an iron­ing board with a tow­el wrapped around the board or some­thing… and then a cou­ple of days lat­er I came across this tuto­r­i­al :D From Lil Blue Boo.

 

These ice cream cone charms look so much fun to make, with sharp­ened wood­en dow­els and caulk­ing! Not to men­tion that they’re so very cute. From Paper Plate and Plane.

 

I’ve made felt­ed mush­rooms for my ter­rar­i­ums before (my first posts of this blog, actu­al­ly! :D), but I just kind of free-formed them. But here’s a detailed tuto­r­i­al! From The Mag­ic Onion.

 

Hand­made poly­mer clay that dries very hard with­out bak­ing, involv­ing white glue, corn­starch, lemon juice and oth­er house­hold mate­ri­als! Sounds amaz­ing, because those Fimo clay is expen­sive! Must try this some­times. Recipe on The NewNew Blog. 

 

Also from The NewNew Blog, reversible fab­ric scrap pen­dents! Very quaint. 

 

These were made from pop­si­cle sticks! When I think of bend­ing a pop­si­cle stick I can only pic­ture it snap­ping. Head over to Suzy’s Art­sy Craft­sy Sit­com to see how they’re formed to fit the wrist :D

 

When my watch strap was falling apart last year I thought about cro­chet­ing a replace­ment, but then we went to Hong Kong and I had it replaced in a lit­tle booth on the street. This would be great inspi­ra­tion for cro­chet­ing my next watch strap! From Kootoy­oo.

 

I’d love, love, love to have this suc­cu­lent cof­fee table in my home one day (made from ship­ping crates!). Not some­thing I can make because I’m not handy like that, so I guess I can only dream… or per­haps make up oth­er ways to make it :D Def­i­nite­ly great inspi­ra­tion, from Far Out Flo­ra. (Also check out this even big­ger project, the suc­cu­lent din­ing table, made from ship­ping pallets!)

 

More junk into trea­sure — this is just mes­mer­iz­ing. Made with fus­ing plas­tic bags togeth­er. More pho­tos on Cur­bly.

 

Final­ly, a great list from Real Sim­ple (one of my favourite mag­a­zines :D) of sum­mer­time new uses for old things. My favourite is the colan­der ice buck­et and old show­er cur­tain as pic­nic blan­ket lin­er (I’d prob­a­bly ditch the blan­ket and just sit on the show­er cur­tain though). And I did­n’t know that tea bag is a bug bite soother! 

Hope you’re enjoy­ing the sun­shine and super warm weath­er of sum­mer! Hap­py week­end! :D