Wednesday, April 29, 2009

DIY Cereal Box Notebooks

The long thread provides a great tutorial on using a cereal box to make your very own moleskin-inspired journal. A great re-use idea!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day, Crafty Chica is posting tutorials for 24 creative re-use projects....one every hour. The spectacular ideas she's posted so far include these great ribbon picture frames and mixed media wind chimes.


Wednesday, April 15, 2009

A Flower Collage

Hope you are all having a good day. Since it's gloomy and rainy out here, I thought I'd share a few pictures I took with my camera phone a week ago, when I believed it was actually Spring.

And I thought I'd use the opportunity to point out that using Picasa, Photoshop, or some other photo editing device, you can easily and cheaply make some simple art with just a digital camera and a little cash for prints. Many photo editing programs will even make a collage (like the one above) for you with the click of a button.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Design*Sponge Sneak Peeks

As I mentioned on Friday, I spent the weekend moving into a new place. I'll provide some pics once I get everything out of chaos. But moving means decorating, and I love using the web for inspiration.


Design*Sponge's "Sneak Peeks" are perfect for those who A) need some new decor ideas, B) like snooping in other people's lives, or C) like me, fit options A and B. Basically, they just show behind the scenes pictures of creative people's homes. Have fun with the voyeurism!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Happy Easter!

Or Spring....or belated Passover...or whatever you may celebrate!  =)  I'm in the middle of the fun process of packing boxes before I move tomorrow.  But if you have free time, jinjerup provides these adorable chick bookmarks to print (via Folding Trees). 

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Shelterrific


While we're on the subject of websites, here's another one that I just came across. Shelterrific lives up to its name, providing great ideas for crafts and purchases for the home. I'm totally addicted, especially to all the great earth-friendly suggestions.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Craft Fail


Craft Fail is a new blog where people can post their craft ideas gone wrong (found via Craftzine). Sounds pretty entertaining to me. Always love to see what others are doing in the craft/diy world.

Which reminds me, if any readers here have completed (or not) craft/art projects that you'd like to share, I'd love to post them on here. Also, feel free to send in sustainable design projects (ie. recycling old objects for craft, repurposing stuff that's no longer useful, or fixing up something instead of throwing it away).

You can email me at designphoenixblog at gmail dot com (see the new link on the right).

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Plastic Soda Bottle Vase Tutorial

Here's a fun (and free!) project available on wikiHow: a tutorial on turning a plastic soda bottle into an attractive vase.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Ha. Cute Felted Puppet(s)

 
"Puppets need puppets too."  From the Craftzine Flickr pool by moxie.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Plastic Bags into Baskets

Craftzine recently featured a pretty straightforward tutorial from The lucky ladybird craft blog on making baskets out of old plastic bags. Very cool. If you like this stuff, check out my older posts on using plastic bags as gift bows and art.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Business Card Artwork

Whether you've been laid off in this horrible recession or you just have a lot of used office supplies hanging around, here's one idea for an alternative use for business cards:  stick 'em together and make a quick and easy art project.  (If you're interested, I previously posted about using business cards to make a nice origami-style box).



All I did was put masking tape on the back, so that they formed a single sheet.  Masking tape or painter's tape works well because it comes off later.  They don't need to be perfectly aligned.



Then I made my drawing.  I used only office supplies on hand (permanent markers and highlighters).



Last step was to remove the tape.  You could keep it together for a textured look.  Or you could mount them on some other paper with space in between.  Another option would be to hang each piece on the wall separately.  Or how about using it as a simple puzzle?  Anyone have other ideas?  I haven't decided what to do with my little masterpiece yet.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Envelope to Gift Bag Tutorial


I've posted before with tutorials for how to use envelopes to create beads and to make new envelopes.

This time, How About Orange provides a great tutorial so you can learn how to turn old envelopes into nice gift bags in just a few steps.

P.S. This is not an April Fool's Day joke! =)