Artsy Things

DIY Journals and Coloring Book

DIY Coloring Book with an Upcycled Cover

I modified my go-to DIY journal with a cover made from upcycled cardboard, and filled it with coloring pages downloaded from the interwebs. It’s exactly what I wanted, and here’s how you can make one, too!

How to Display Vintage Photographs

One Dozen Ways to Upcycle Photographs

. I love turning these old photos that I never look at into all-new decorations and utilitarian items, giving them new lives and incorporating those happy memories into even more parts of my home.

18 Ideas for Making Altered Book Art

You’ve picked out an old book and prepped its pages–what’s the next step in creating an altered book that you’ll love?

Let your imagination be your guide!

Ink Scribbles in an Altered Book

Four Methods to Prepare the Pages of an Altered Book

Altering a book to use as a journal requires more than just scoring the perfect ancient tome. After you do a price check to make sure you’re upcycling trash, not destroying a national treasure, you have to physically prepare the book to receive your art, writing, and ephemera.

Altered Playing Card Ornaments

Crafty Christmas: Make Altered Playing Card Ornaments

Homemade Christmas tree ornaments are my favorite holiday decoration. Every year, my kids and I add more handmade ornaments to our collection and I cull a couple more store-bought ornaments. My ultimate goal is to have a Christmas tree so bedazzled that you can barely see its branches, with nary a store-bought ornament in sight.

Vat Dye Silk

14 Techniques to Paint and Dye Silk Fabric

It can be tricky to think of ways to paint or dye silk fabric, if you’ve mostly worked with cotton, linen, or other plant-fiber fabrics before. You probably already know that silk takes dye differently, but how differently? Can you paint it? Transfer images to it? Dye it multiple colors? 

How to Tie-Dye Silk

Yes, You Can Tie-Dye Silk!

The materials and techniques that you use to dye cotton are necessarily different than what you use to dye silk.

Upcycled Greeting Cards

16 DIY Greeting Cards Made from Upcycled Materials

I love how depending on the technique and level of detail, a DIY greeting card can be quick and easy or methodical and precise, and look super awesome either way. I love how easy it is to incorporate upcycled or natural materials or found objects.

broken dishes

20 Ways to Upcycle Broken Dishes

Instead of tossing it into the waste stream and feeling bad about yourself because of it, give that broken dish a second life by upcycling it into something fun, beautiful, and useful.

felt flower bouquet

45 Ways To Make Felt Flowers Without A Cricut

You can make anything you can think of out of felt (and some days, I feel like I already have!), but some of the most surprisingly fun–and surprisingly lovely!–things that you can make are felt flowers.

woven blanket

30 Wonderful Weaving Patterns

Whether you have a store-bought, antique handcrafted, or DIY recycled weaving loom, it’s time to make something wonderful on it!

spring wreath

30 Spring Wreaths to DIY

Keep your front door in tune with the season by DIYing a beautiful, eco-friendly spring wreath!

how to make string art

How To Do String Art

I’m going to show you how to make string art the completely DIY way–from scratch, by hand. It’s going to be awesome.

Four Dozen Eco-Friendly Felt Crafts

Whichever kind of felt you prefer, you can settle happily into any of the felt crafts below, knowing that whatever you make, it will be a great choice for the environment

crystall skull head

10 Ways To Upcycle A Crystal Head Vodka Skull Bottle

So if you, too, buy skull-shaped vodka bottles mostly so that you, too, can do something cool with them after you’ve drunk the vodka, then check out my list of my favorite ways to upcycle that Chrystal Head Vodka skull bottle!

How to Cut Glass Bottles

35 Ways to Reuse Empty Wine Bottles

The best part of reusing empty wine bottles is that you won’t have that big bin of them sitting out on your curb for all of your neighbors to look at on Recycling Day.

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