I had a little piece of air-dry clay left over after another project and almost put it back in the cupboard because it wasn’t really enough to make anything substantial. Then I realized I could turn it into the small incense dish I had been meaning to make for my bedside table. The first one…
I’ve made a lot of crochet accessories that looked cute in the pattern photos but somehow weren’t nearly as useful once I actually wore them. This little crochet bandana was different. I originally wanted something simple that I could throw on when my hair needed a little help, but I also wanted it to look…
My mother-in-law mentioned once, almost in passing, that she loved a particular bath salt blend from a shop that had since closed, and that comment sat in my head for months longer than it probably should have. When her birthday came around, I decided to just make a version myself instead of hunting down a…
There’s something about dropping a bath bomb into a warm bath and watching it fizz away that makes an ordinary evening feel a little more special. I started making my own because I wanted something that felt more personal than the bath products I was picking up from the store. I also quickly realized that…
There’s something about a little handmade jewelry dish that makes a bedside table feel instantly more put together. I’ve made plenty of plain clay dishes over the years, but the ones I keep reaching for are the ones with a little detail pressed into the surface. This leaf imprint jewelry dish is one of my…
I’ve made a lot of last-minute gifts over the years, and the ones that actually got kept, displayed, or used were almost never the store-bought ones. They were the small, slightly imperfect handmade pieces, which is really what sent me down the air dry clay rabbit hole in the first place. Once I had a…
If you have a jar of leftover coffee grounds sitting in your kitchen, don’t throw them away just yet. I started experimenting with coffee clay because I wanted a simple way to turn something I would normally toss into a small handmade project, without needing glue, complicated ingredients, or a kiln. The finished clay has…
Our porch has an outlet about six feet from the table, which is the only reason this project happened at all, I got tired of running an extension cord out the back door for a plug-in bug zapper that buzzed all night and barely made a dent anyway. I’d been buying the citronella tins from…
I noticed the ant trail before I noticed the actual ants, a thin, almost invisible line of them tracking along my kitchen windowsill toward a crumb I’d missed the night before. My first instinct was to grab whatever spray was under the sink, and then I stopped, because that particular spray had a warning label…
Few crochet projects are as satisfying as making a giant plush turtle. With its oversized shell, chunky flippers, and incredibly soft texture, it’s the kind of handmade project that immediately becomes someone’s favorite cuddle buddy. When I first started making plush amigurumi, I assumed something this large would be difficult. It actually isn’t. The turtle…