The Wonderful World of D.I.Y.

Frugal Flourish | Mod Podge Plates

Instead of spending an arm and a leg on silhouette plates to decorate with, make your own! Print out the silhouettes you want and mod podge the designs onto clean plates and let dry. It’s really that simple!

Design Sponge | Cupcake Liners Lamp

Instead of paying an arm and a leg for an awesome hanging paper lantern, you can create your own, making your own personal twists, for much cheaper. All you need is some cupcake liners, petit four liners, a paper lantern, a Hemma cord (you can purchase one from IKEA for less than $4), and a hot glue gun.

After finding your paper lantern, balance the lantern on a bowl (this will keep the liners from getting crushed as you work your way around the lantern), and begin attaching your cupcake liners along the lantern with the hot glue. When you’re halfway finished, turn the lantern upside down on the bowl and finish the rest.

Next, use the hot glue gun to attach the petit fours liners in the centers of each cupcake liner. After the lamp has dried, attach the cord and hang your light. 

Design Sponge | Twig Push Pins

These twig push pins and wall hooks are actually pretty simple to make. And even easier to look at! 

What you need for this DIY craft: twigs, a hand saw, hammer, small t-pins for the push pin craft, small finishing nails for the wall hooks craft, hammer, superglue, needle nose pliers with a cutting end, and safety goggles of course. 

What you do: First of all, you need to cut your twigs into little nubs. For the push pin craft you’ll need half-inch nubs, for the wall hooks craft you’ll need 2-inch long nubs. Now, using your pliers, snip off the tops of your t-pins or your finishing nails. Place your pins or nails into the center of your wood and hammer them into the wood, making sure to keep the sharp points pointing towards you and not the wood. For the wall hooks, hammer the nail in and then take back out. Add a dab of the superglue in the hole and place the nail back into wood. 

And you’re finished! Use the push pins to display your things on a bulletin board, and use the wall hooks to display art work in a natural way. And if you’re feeling especially adventurous, use super glue to attach small magnets on one side of the wooden nubs to create natural-looking magnets for the fridge. 

Tip Junkie | Toilet Paper Wall Art

For this great looking wall art, all you need is some spray paint and primer, a canvas, a hot glue gun and a few empty rolls of toilet paper! You bend the toilet paper rolls and snip off pieces from each end to make little ringlets. Take the ringlets and spray them with primer and then whichever color of spray paint you wish. *Note: these will suck up a lot of paint. So make sure you have enough!* 

After they’ve dried (drying times will vary depending on humidity and temperature) place them on your canvas in a design. You can follow this design, or branch out and do one on your own. You can also leave the canvas blank or cover it with wallpaper/wrapping paper or paint a design across it yourself. Once you’ve played around with it a bit and have the design locked-in, use a dab of hot glue to attach the ringlets to the canvas. Then hang it up anywhere in your home or dorm room. 

The best part about using the hot glue is that, when you get sick of this design and want to do a different one or just utilize the canvas elsewhere, the hot glue chips right off with some elbow grease. 

Sunset | Chandelier  

Use some old glass chandelier lampshades to create a cute centerpiece. Choose matching lampshades, or mix it up with different ones. Wash them, dry, and add coats of paint if you’d like. Place them upside down on a strip of wood and place tea candles inside of them to create a unique centerpiece in your home.