Cardboard Tubes Photo Display

Photojojo shows you how to make a funky photo display out of photos and cardboard tubes!

Love Life Organic Goods

Awesome website with an organic theme. It has some very cool products including: a massive tipi, a hemp guitar, a bamboo snowboard, a hemp surfboard, gorgeous handmade journals, and mushy toys!

Ribbon Spool Display

I think this is an adorable project for adding a bit of whimsy and cuteness to your walls - simply paint ribbon spools and put a little ornament or item of interest inside and voila! - a unique display! Go here for details.

Wall Decals

I love wall decals anyway but this site combines wall decals AND my favourite t-shirt shop 'Threadless' - so it's win-win! Go here for a look.

Magic Crystal Tree

This tutorial shows you how to grow a cool crystal tree from mainly household items, plus a couple of chemicals that are easy to find!

Design*Sponge Travel Guides

I love Design*Sponge for the craft and design, but the travel guides on there are awesome too! They list loads of design-orientated shops and events that you wouldn't normally find, so you can truly discover the city. The guides include lots of big cities like London, Las Vegas and Milan :-) 

How To Draw A Face

How To Draw Anatomic Face In 2.5 Minutes - video powered by Metacafe

Simple way to draw a realistic face - and it really works!

Shakespeare's Den

Strange but great online shop selling unique and weird gifts like Freudian slippers (above), Phantom of the Opera masks and Buddha shaped post-its!
Unfortunately the P&P is a bit too much for UK shoppers :-(

The main theme of the shop is Shakespeare so there are many Shakespeare action figures, clothes, coasters with quotes on, finger puppets and so much more cool stuff! Another funny gift is the 'Shakespeare insults mug' with quotes like 'Thou art a boil' and 'Fusty nut with no kernal'!

But my ultimate favourite is this fabulous film-themed desk lamp:

Sock Monkeys

Great alternative to the normal cute cuddly toy, and especially perfect for Halloween. All you need is crew socks, needle and thread, scissors, stuffing material and a laundry/fabric paint marker pen.

Go here for details.

And for a traditional sock monkey with a sweet heart applique, find the tutorial here.

Cardboard Laptop Bag

Click here for the tutorial on how to make the above funky laptop bag from cardboard

 - not only is it cheap, but it's also recycling! 

Make a Leather Journal

This journal oozes handmade luxury, and it's not girly either so would be a perfect man's journal too! Go here for the tutorial.

Make Your Own Chocolate Bars

Click here to find recipes for your very own batch of chocolate bars! This looks like so much fun...and you can even download a wrapper too :-)

The choices are:

Twixt, Snickles, Almond Jay, and Peanut Butta Cups.

Bird Feeder Terrarium

I think this idea of altering an old bird feeder to make a terrarium centrepiece is fantastic, and I think the end result looks so cool! You can find out how here :-)

Flower and Bird Garland

This garland is so pretty and dainty, and it's made from only Baby's Breath (the plant), wire, string, card and pretty paper. One comment suggested hanging origami paper cranes from the garland instead, which I think would look equally as good! Find the tutorial here. 

Tin Message Board

This is a really vibrant, cute message board for keys/memos etc. I'm glad to find another obsessive compulsive list-maker too! Go here for details.

Fabric Basket

I LOVE the look of this whimsical, shabby chic basket, and the tutorial is interesting too. To find out how it's made, click here.

Zip Pouch

Very clear and detailed tutorial on how to make a zip-up pouch here.

Silver Leaf Shells

These are such pretty decorative shells, and so easy too - just cover them with silver leaf! You could do this with lots of found objects. Find out how, here. 

Bigfoot Costume

Awesome video showing you how to make a funky bigfoot costume out of a fur coat - Grrr!

Peanut Brittle

Easy microwave peanut brittle (not good for dodgy teeth!), and all you need is salted dry-roasted peanuts, sugar, light corn syrup (or golden syrup if you're English), butter, vanilla extract and baking soda.

This is nice on its own, or broken up and sprinkled on ice-cream!

Flying Pig

Great site selling animation kits to make your own amazing card models, which move in many different ways. Excellent choice of animals and actions, and the models range in difficulty. Great for kids and adults (like me- i love them!), and perfect for learning about creating different movements using cams. Perfect for whiling away a rainy day.

All payable through Paypal.

If you like making card models and automata, then check out the following website too:

http://www.automatashop.co.uk/

http://www.scooterworks.com/Scooter_Postcard_Cut-Out_Mode_P6165.cfm

http://cp.c-ij.com/english/3D-papercraft/index.html

Stupid Products

Fantastically fun website full of the most silly, stupid and plain weird products in the world, including the gross egg separator shown above, and the infamous 'Hillary Clinton Nutcracker'!

There are LOADS of items to choose from and i would personally love to buy a ton of this stuff but unfortunately they only post to the U.S. :-(

Great fun to look through the stuff though...and if you don't live in the U.S. and you see something you want, you can always google it to see if you can find it somewhere else which will deliver. Perfect for unusual gifts...

Enjoy the madness!

Tread Belt

Here's how to make a seriously cool belt from bicycle tyres! Really clear instructions and something you can wear everyday.

Patchwork Chair

This patchwork chair looks so comfy and stylish, and you could do something similar too! Just re-upholster a chair or ottoman with colourful blankets and voila! View the tutorial here.

Mosaic House Number

This mosaic house number is a great project for anyone to do, and it will add a bit of creativity to the outside of your house too - go here for details.

Making a Stencil From a Photo

This instructable shows you how to take a photo and make an awesome-looking stencil from it - and you can then paint over the stencil onto t-shirts, bags, placemats etc. Looks like fun!

Spun Sugar Nests & Baskets

I love the look of spun sugar and it makes any dessert look amazing! It is actually surprisingly easy, although a) it is messy so put newspaper on the floor and b) it BURNS so please be careful and only touch it when it has cooled down.

This recipe walks you through spun sugar (above), plus caramel spirals and baskets, this page contains a video of spinning sugar, and this page has some nice ideas for decorating desserts. Yum yum :) 

Nesting Doll Salt Shakers

This is a great idea from Design*Sponge - using blank wooden nesting dolls as salt shakers!

Googly Eye Pins

 This fun little idea from Zakka Life involves glueing googly eyes to thumb tacks to make them a bit more interesting - and you could also glue the eyes to magnets too for your fridge! 

And on a random side note, I think this is a pretty cool use for noticeboard pins :-)

Honeycomb

Yummy and interesting recipe - you can eat it on it's own, you can dip it in chocolate, or you can break it up into tiny bits and decorate ice-cream!

All you need is a baking sheet, a whisk, a large saucepan, a sugar thermometer, baking soda, sugar, honey and water...easy!

Go here for the recipe.

Impossibly Cool

The Impossible Cool is a stylish collection of photos showing the most impossibly cool famous faces, and inspiring quotes.

Take a Road Trip

If you're planning a road trip, click here for 18 useful tips. The photos certainly have inspired me to take a road trip, but it doesn't take much to give me itchy feet :-)

For more inspiration, have a look at people's dream road trips here.

Fun Pincushions

This link shows you how to make unique pincushions from household objects and toys - I love this idea, and the truck above looks so cute! 

Tuile Biscuits in Puddings

I love the look of this pudding (I've always secretly harboured an ambition to be a pastry chef!) - and it consists of a tuile biscuit cage with mixed berries and ice-cream in the centre, and a spun sugar decoration on top - mmmmm! Go here for the recipe.

For better instructions on making tuile biscuits in different shapes (such as the squiggles in the chocolate mousse shown above) then go here.

Kitchen Backsplashes

This is a fantastic project I found ages ago, and it involves making your own kitchen backsplash out of wood, and then covering it in resin. In this example, they have embedded cutlery in the resin, which looks amazing, but you could embed all kind of objects in there from sweets to flowers!

The instructions are here, and the video is here.

For other ideas for backsplashes, click here.

Felt Snail

This snail made from felted sweaters is so soft and cute - go here to find the tutorial.

Head Hoods

Head Hoods has a cool range of hoodies with faces on the hoods - from Elvis to Obama, and from gorillas to Audrey Hepburn!

Portable Cushion Seats

These summery seat cushions would be so useful to carry around so you can sit anywhere, anytime - go here for the tutorial.

Burda Style

Burda Style is one of my favourite websites, and if you're a fan of clothes and sewing, you probably know about it already. There are free how-to's and patterns on the website - including the pattern for the skirt shown above (click here), which is definitely one of my favourites :-)

Tulle Blossoms

This tutorial makes it so, so easy to add some interest to a plain old tree branch - by making circular shapes of tulle fabric and scrunching them up to look like blossoms - cute!

Fairy Lights

The first garland is made up of whimsical vellum flowers, which look like what you would find in a Midsummer Night's Dream. Go here for the tute.

And these origami box lights are made simply by following these instructions on how to fold paper into boxes- simple!

5-Minute Pizza Dough

This is a very useful recipe for a super-quick pizza dough. I love making things from scratch so this is definitely a big help!

Easter Makes

I have a couple of cracking egg-themed makes for you today (pun intended!):

First, we have my favourite craft technique at the moment, which involves using starch to make yarn hold its shape as it is wrapped around a balloon. It has some great results, and the egg-shaped yarn sculptures can be hung up as shown above - go here for the tutorial.

And secondly, you can colour eggs with food colouring so that they take on a gorgeous marbled effect. I think these look amazing, and they seem fun to do too - go here to find out how it's done :-)

Photo Lanterns

These photo lanterns use battery-powered tealights and would look beautiful decorating your garden during an evening outdoor party, BBQ, or even a wedding - go here for instructions.

How To Ruche

To find out how to create a ruching effect on the neckline of a t-shirt, then go here.

Fo a quick and clear tutorial on the concept of ruching a strip of fabric - visit here.

There are loads of things you could add ruching to, but the main subject is clothing; including scarfs, dresses, leggings and t-shirts!