Since I post­ed the teacup project on Fri­day, and I’ve got tons of favourite things saved up for the favourite-things post, I fig­ure I’d post them on… Sun­day! I promise next week we’ll be back on sched­ule… though I doubt that any­one but me cares what day I post what. But I still think that it’s good to be con­sis­tent… it does­n’t real­ly mat­ter in the end in terms of the blog, but it’s good prac­tice for me, I think. A kind of self-dis­ci­pline, I guess, in prepa­ra­tion for oth­er endeavours…

Any­way, I digress. Mov­ing on to crafty things! :D Since school’s out in less than a month, let’s start with a few sum­mer vaca­tion projects!

 

I imag­ine this would be love­ly qui­et activ­i­ty for a rainy day. And I think kids would­n’t get bored of it too eas­i­ly, since there’s so much detail in the fab­ric and it would take a while for young kids to fig­ure out all the dif­fer­ence between them. And good news for grownups — since they’re made of fab­ric, they’re wash­able! From The Purl Bee.

 

Pret­ty self-explana­to­ry idea but a good idea (or, more prop­er­ly, a good thing) nonethe­less. Vaca­tion mem­o­ry jars from the Martha web­site.

 

Got left­over CD cas­es after the music’s been stored on the ipod or phone or what­not (I can’t keep track of these devices)? Don’t throw them out — make a labyrinth for the road trip / train ride / line-up for the roller coast­er ride / long wait at the doc­tor’s office! How-to on Bloe­sem Kids.

 

I love craft projects involv­ing egg car­tons, because they’re so easy to find. And these tiny pirate ships are so cute! For a sum­mer­time pirate-theme par­ty, per­haps? From The Cel­e­bra­tion Shoppe.

 

Beau­ti­ful “stained glass” win­dow made with pressed flower petals and con­tact paper! What a won­der­ful way to show­case those sum­mer blooms. From The Art­ful Par­ent.

 

I’ve nev­er real­ly seen alu­minum tape at the store before, but I’ve also nev­er real­ly looked for them… these gar­den mark­ers make such a love­ly addi­tion for the herb gar­den (and a very resource­ful use of recy­cled plas­tic cut­lery!), I’ll have to keep an eye out for this awe­some tape if I do plant a con­tain­er herb gar­den this year! How-to on Aunt Peach­es.

 

More edi­ble plant har­vest­ing! I nev­er knew that dan­de­lion flow­ers are edi­ble (and actu­al­ly taste like hon­ey)! I knew that dan­de­lion leaves are edi­ble because I’ve seen them at the gro­cery store, and my mom actu­al­ly tried to cook with them after see­ing how it was done on a cook­ing show. But our over­grown dan­de­lion proved to be real­ly tough and fibery and dif­fi­cult to eat :S Any­way, spot­ted this on Lil Fish Stu­dio, which includes a link for the recipe! :D When I first saw the post I was so ready to head out for a dan­de­lion har­vest, but then I real­ized that I had no can­ning jars :( Now all the flow­ers have gone to seed, so I’ll have to wait for the next blooming.

 

The pearly discs on this neck­lace were made from bub­blewraps! That’s right, bub­blewraps are not only good for pop­ping when one’s bored. Instruc­tion on Craftzine.

 

No sewing was involved in the mak­ing of this zip­per pouch! How, you ask? Well! You’ll have to see the how-to on Instructa­bles! (It’s pret­ty incred­i­ble!) (Sor­ry, lame rhyme, I know. Could­n’t help myself.)

 

Love this braid­ed head­band from Ruf­fles and Stuff! And it does seem real­ly sim­ple to make. I’m sure I can find faux leather at a fab­ric store, but I won­der if I could find a sub­sti­tute… pos­si­bly at the thrift store…

 

And more braids! I do like braids very much — they cre­ate visu­al inter­est in a very sim­ple way and the look is so ver­sa­tile. Braid­ed belt tuto­r­i­al on Sew, Mama, Sew!

 

I think I squealed when I saw this — a car­rot cake toi­let paper cozy, from The Blue Crab Stitch­es! I’m par­tial to car­rot cake, and the icing car­rots are so cute! I don’t real­ly use TP cozies but I can see it being a great TP dis­penser with some mod­i­fi­ca­tions. I grew up using TP from a TP dis­penser (like this one that looks like a cup noo­dle, for exam­ple) for run­ny nose instead of box­es of Kleenex around the house, and most of the Chi­nese fam­i­lies I know do the same. Because we’re fru­gal, I guess.

 

These hot choco­late cup­cakes are mag­nif­i­cent! They’re from Diary of a Lady­bird, with some instruc­tion on how to make them, for those skilled in cake dec­o­rat­ing. As for me, I’m going to have to wish for some­one to make them for me, because I know noth­ing about cake dec­o­rat­ing :P (via Inspire Me Now)

 

And final­ly, because it is Sun­day, here’s this week’s Sun­day video! As some­one who habit­u­al­ly talks to inan­i­mate objects as if they could under­stand me, this def­i­nite­ly pulls on some heart­strings… Remem­ber, you too can be the cre­ator of many hap­py end­ings — please recycle!

Hap­py Sun­day! :D