I was nev­er a big fan of mak­ing friend­ship bracelets. I think the pat­terns are intrigu­ing but they take too long. These cro­chet ones may be a quick­er alter­na­tive. They’re bead­ed too, and very styl­ish. Pat­tern on Green Eyed Mon­ster.

 

Prob­a­bly requires a lot of t‑shirts but a cir­cu­lar loom from a hula hoop is a neat idea. (The cir­cu­lar rug is tied off and detached from the hula hoop after the weav­ing is fin­ished, so the hula hoop can still be a hula hoop! :D) For how-to, fol­low the Crafty Crow!

 

I had a minia­ture hour glass key chain when I was a kid. I would stare at the falling sand and think that it’s the longest minute ever, but when the sand was all piled at the bot­tom of the glass it real­ly made it tan­gi­ble to me to under­stand that that was a minute passed and a minute I would nev­er get back… Per­haps a nice instru­ment to teach chil­dren the val­ue of time, to make your own hour glass see Paris Bourke.

 

I have been won­der­ing if it would be pos­si­ble to make but­tons from shrink plas­tic, whether the colour would run in the wash. Appar­ent­ly it works beau­ti­ful­ly with the right kind of mark­ers, just look at these love­ly but­tons on Scis­sors Paper Work! With a tuto­r­i­al too! 

 

I’ve been try­ing dif­fer­ent meth­ods of paint/watercolour mask­ing, so this stick­er resist tuto­r­i­al from Paint Cut Paste caught my eye. Such a nice way to enjoy the flu­id­i­ty of water­colour and free-form colour-blend­ing while mak­ing some nice greet­ing cards at the same time. Love the sim­plic­i­ty and sharp­ness of the design.

 

I also like this stamped pat­tern on the tea tow­els — an excerpt tuto­r­i­al from the book 1, 2, 3 Sew on Indie Fixx. I love how the cir­cles are blend­ing togeth­er and I can total­ly see it on a t‑shirt! Must get myself some foam sten­cil brushes.

 

Some­times I feel bad tak­ing paint swatch­es from the hard­ware store, because they have such nice colours and are made of such nice, stur­dy paper. I also like to read all the names they give the colours. “This is for tak­ing, for free, for real?” I’d ask myself. Yes, they are. And one could make styl­ish gift box­es with them! :D How-to with awe­some fold­ing dia­gram on How About Orange.

 

Paint can planters — they can cheer up any tired old fence! How-to on Cent­sa­tion­al Girl.

 

Make can­dles with lemon peel! I won­der if they bright out a cit­rus scent. How-to on the Martha web­site (via Apart­ment Ther­a­py). Also check out the amaz­ing clemen­tine can­dle tuto­r­i­al - with the clemen­tine peel and oil, no wax or cot­ton wick! 

 

Instant noo­dles are one of my favourites. It’s kind of a com­fort food for me. Tonya’s Sewing Room has an awe­some step-by-step tuto­r­i­al for turn­ing noo­dle pack­ag­ing (or oth­er wrap­pers) into a zip­pered coin purse! Will have to give that a try!

 

Mag­net­ic light switch cov­er — what a bril­liant idea! I won­der if I could make one with mag­net­ic paint. Via Inspire Me Now.

 

This. Is. Mag­nif­i­cent. From Nation­al Geo­graph­ic:  This image was tak­en in win­ter time in a arid area of the Cana­di­an Rock­ies. Tem­per­a­tures where below ‑30 degrees Cel­sius yet because there was no snow fall the sur­face of the lake was uncov­ered allow­ing me to see and cap­ture the bub­bles (gas release from lake bed) that were trapped in the frozen waters. 

It reminds me of this paint­ing by Lau­ra Mil­lard, one of my teach­ers from col­lege, whose work I love.

 

And final­ly, the most awe­some thing I saw this week — Mis­ter Roger’s stat­ue on Pitts­burgh’s North Shore gets a cro­cheted red cardi­gan! Cre­at­ed by the inspir­ing Ali­cia of Cre­ate! 

 

Have a love­ly week­end, everyone!