DIYing, Holiday Style

December 1, 2010

You know one thing I love about Ireland? The absolute over-use of the description "DIY". I'll admit, I've adopted it. It's one of those phrases that annoys me if I think about it too much, but it flows so perfectly off my tongue I can't help myself.

Right, so, yesterday and the day before was all about somebody else DIYing and putting their creations on the most excellent Etsy for us all to purchase and gift away to our friends and family. But today is all about ideas for our own DIY. In your house. On your kitchen table. On your living room floor. In your studio (remember I was making a studio? I swear it's nearly done.).

I've got some ideas of my own I'm dying to share with you once I'm back in Dublin, but in the meantime, here are a few projects from around the web that are just fantastic.

This first one had me at the craft store (my 3rd home) yesterday asking for a porcelain pen. I hadn't even heard of such a thing, but they even have loads of different colors! So neat.



The project is from the genius behind DesignMom, Gabrielle Blair. She has been doing DIY crafty, practical gifts for her kids from her other kids for years now and she has very clever ideas.

You can find the instructions here on her blog, but you essentially find a letter or image you like and draw it freehand or using transfer paper, on the mugs, plates, bowls, or whatever you like. You let them dry for 24 hours, and then put them in the oven according to the directions on the pen.



I absolutely love that she filled the mugs with hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows for little gifts. Watch out, Dubliners, you might see those coming your way later this month!



This quickbread in a bottle idea is from Sunset (via Apartment Therapy :). You could definitely use a Ball canning jar or the equivalent (at Ikea, Irish readers, for cheap!), and you could use any of your favorite recipes!

You'd want to pick a recipe with relatively few wet ingredients, and you'd probably want to try to make the dry ingredients fit the jar you pick. Otherwise the dry ingredients will be able to shake around and they won't look so darn neat all stacked up!



This last one is from Martha Stewart, and I think it would be an awesome project to do with kids or for kids, or both!

The full tutorial is here, but the gist is that you chop up the crayons (great for using all those gross, stubby ends), and put them into muffin tins. Then you bake them until they melt, let them cool and pop them out!