I have never thought of my self as creative or crafty,  it’s always been my mum’s gig… or one of my friends many talents, but since we moved into our own place (which is just over a year now… crazy!)  I have been trying my hand at some homemade goodies.  I think it’s happened because I have looked at a lot of things I have wanted for our house and thought to myself, ‘Gee that’s expensive, surely it wouldn’t be that hard to make, I could probably do that myself’.  So in a spirit of thriftiness I have had a crack, and while they probably aren’t designer quality I think they have turned out pretty well… and I am pretty please with myself.

Here is a list of my DIY crafts and what I used to make them and because I can’t think of the actual word for this group of needed items I am going to call them ingredients….

1. Coasters:

Ingredients:

• Bathroom tiles (just little ones about 10cm x 10cm)
• Some fun printed paper
• Medium glossy varnish (you can use Mod Podge as well – I just couldn’t find any at the time)
• a paint brush
• round stick on felt for the bottom
• plastic cups for the coasters to sit on while they dry
• free time

2. Personalised front door mat

Ingredients:

• Plain door mat from good old Bunnings or Masters
• Spray paint of choice (I just used black)
• Cut out of letters – I printed mine off in a fun font and then cut them out using my trusty Stanly knife.

3. Door Stop

Ingredients:

• Cotton material (enough for 4 x triangle, a square and a rectangle to make your tassel top)
• Ruler and pens
• Sewing machine (and if you are a newbie like me, some lessons on said sewing machine from someone wiser and more experienced… like my mum… thanks mum!)
• Iron
• Scissors
• Rice to fill

4. Family Photo Wall

Ingredients:

• Frames ranging in size
• selected photos of family members
• paper cut to the size of the frames so you can play with the design before hanging the frames
• post-its with names/photo descriptors, so once you are happy with the frame design you can move people around with out having to start from scratch.

So there you go… not bad, even if I say so myself.  Now, I must give credit where credit is due… and even though I would have liked to have done these all from scratch… I didn’t.  These were all done with my good friend Pinterest… which is a wonderful time sapping internet beast!  Sometimes it was just for the idea, sometimes for instructions, and sometimes for the whole process from where to source items and what to do with them once I had them in my possession.  Oh and the doorstop wouldn’t have happened without mum… she got me the sewing machine for my birthday and set me up with a quick lesson… I did the rest.  But not bad for a non-crafty or creative frugal home owner.

It has definitely encouraged me to keep being tight and do something myself… although I am sure the limit of my skills is not far off… but here’s to a few more home projects before I find it.