My hopelessly-hooked-on-Craigslist home tour
We moved in a month ago and have worked extremely hard to make it feel like a home. We are strong believers in “reduce, reuse and recycle” and try to apply it to our home as much as possible. We tend to shop at thrift stores and garage sales — and love a good Craigslist deal. Take a look around and I hope you find inspiration in what you see.
A preteen’s Mad Hatter Tea Party-themed birthday party
A few years ago, I came to the realization that my daughter was growing quicker than I could keep up. She was entering sixth grade — whilst we grow a culture of the “young at heart,” we knew that this was not going to fly with her peers for much longer. We decided to turn her Alice in Wonderland obsession into a fête, and began planning a Mad Hatter Tea Party for our daughter’s twelfth birthday.
How to make a mounted jackalope out of a fur coat
Are you coveting the look of the taxidermy trend but don’t want to fork up the cash for a real antique? Tired of the limited selection of real animals? You’re in luck: today I’ll show you had to make a faux animal head from junk you have lying around the house and thrift store supplies.
5 lamps you can handmake to add sculptural surrealism at home
Cheap good lamps are hard to find, am I right? I’ve been on the search for them in big box stores, clearance aisles, antique shops, and thrift stores all over the midwest, and I’m still lighting most of my living room with clamp lights. If you’re in the same boat, I have been scheming schemes. Here are five lamps you can handmake.
9 ideas to bring fun and comfort back to the dorms
WHOO! SPRING SEMESTER! Time to party hard and go to class and study a lot and…trudge out of your last lab so tired you want to sleep forever…back home to your 10×10 cinderblock den with communal showers…and constant fire alarms. Okay, living in dormitories can get boring — even frustrating. I’m thinking back on those days and pulling out the cozy ways my roommate and I made our dorm a fun place to relax, even when schedules got tough: after she pulled another all-night at the hotel front desk or when I got done with my soul-crushing, puppy-killing job.
There’s no shame in not doing it all yourself: people exist who can do your projects FOR you!
The DIY movement has been in full force since oh, say, 2008. Its resurgence started before that, but that’s when it seems to have tipped over into a popular topic, when indie crafters got cool and became a thing you could be. The internet makes it hard NOT to see clever new things to make or fix or repurpose, and for some people crafting becomes a problem because the information is so available.
Thanks to the Internet’s cornucopia of information and ideas, I’ve very much taken on the attitude that I CAN MAKE ALLLLL THINNNGSSSS, even though truthfully, I’m fair-to-middling at making things. Given a little time and good supplies, we can make a good go at most things — which is a damn slippery path to the mindset DO IT YOURSELF OR IT DOESN’T GET DONE! Which doesn’t have to be the case.
How to build a constellation light for a little astronomy in the bedroom
Evita’s been sharing her tutorials on Offbeat Home all year — remember the starry window pelmet? Or her sewing machine-cum-computer-desk? She RETURNS! And you’ll be thrilled.
This tutorial makes a lovely, simple
Three New Year’s Eve drinky links and a sparkly swizzle stick tutorial
Dale’s been contributing decorating ideas and apothecary recipes to Offbeat Home all year. Lately I’m loving her drink recipes, like these!