Is it a rainy day? Are the kids bored? Are you bored? Want to reuse some old junk you don't have the heart to throw away, or to learn how to fix something yourself? If you answered yes to any of these questions, visit a DIY website to learn all sorts of new ideas. Here are a few sites and projects from them to inspire you and make you feel a little like MacGyver.

Instructables

Instructables features featuring member created instructions, including DIY projects, written step by step with photos or sometime video. Some great projects include:

• How to use spaghetti to paint like Jackson Pollack


• Make your own light saber


• How to make an ottoman out of an old suitcase


• Recycling Plastic Shopping Bags into Yarn

Craftzine

The formerly-in-print Craft magazine now channels all of its energies and talents into its free online website. Projects include:

• How-To: Make a Laptop Bag Out of Fused Plastic Shopping Bags


• Soda Bottle Coin Purse


• Mending a moth-eaten cardigan


• How-To: Make a Kitchen Cupboard Message Center

Make-Stuff

Make-Stuff is for people who, you got it, like to make stuff! Sections include Kid’s Crafts, Recycling, and Holidays. There isn’t as much on this website and they don’t include photos. There are also some instructions available to those who have paid to become a premium member.

Ready-Made

Ready Made Magazine's website isnt' as good as the magazine itself, but has a section called “Project Archive” where you can search for project according to different categories like “Sew It”, “Reuse It”, and “Craft It”, and find complete instructions for great projects like:

• Kitchen Skin Care – make your own skin care products in your kitchen


• High Fidelity – Reuse a vintage radio to hide desktop speakers


• Stereo Lab – Recycling an old laptop to turn a built in stereo cabinet into an mp3 center


• Broken Flowers – Turning chipped dishes into showpieces

Have any favorite DIY sites or DIY projects to share? Tell us all in the comments!

To go along with my cloth diapers, I use reusable cloth wipes that are used with a homemade wipes spray. Even if you don’t use cloth diapers, you can still make use of cloth wipes and cut down on your use of disposable wipes and save some money in the long run.

For the wipes, I purchased some thin flannel fabric from the fabric store. I had a friend who sews serge the fabric into 8” x 8” squares. These dimensions are perfect for being able to fold in half and put into a wipes container. A serge stitch, for those of you unfamiliar with sewing terms, is a way to finish the end of the fabric so it doesn’t unravel. You could also stitch two pieces of fabric together with a simple zigzag stitch. My Happy Crazy Life has a great website tutorial on different ways to make your wipes. You could also purchase reusable wipes at most cloth diaper websites like Kelly's Closet or SoftClothBunz. Baby wash cloths or even a cut up receiving blanket can also work.

When my baby was little, I just used water that I had stored in a spray bottle. When changing my baby, I would grab a cloth wipe and spray it wet just before using it. Now that my baby is older (and dirtier) I make my own wipes solution. I also keep this in a spray bottle and spray the wipe right before using. I’ve found this simple recipe to be effective and easy to make because I always have these ingredients on hand.

• 2 tablespoons of baby wash (I use Dr. Bonner’s Peppermint Castile Soap, which I also use for cleaning around the house)


• 2 tablespoon of olive oil


• 2 drops of tea tree oil (never use at full strength because it will burn your skin)


• 2 cups of water

Put all ingredients into a spray bottle. Shake the bottle before using as the ingredients will separate. I’ve found that long-term storage of wet wipes tends to start smelling so I’ve preferred to stick with my spray bottle method.

There are many recipes online for making your own wipes solution. If this solution doesn’t work for you and your baby, or you would rather use different ingredients, you can find more with a quick internet search.

When going out, you can still use your cloth wipes. If you use cloth diapers, I find it easier to use cloth wipes, because you can throw them right into your wet bag with the dirty diaper instead of having to carry it over to the trash. I place my folded cloth wipes in an empty plastic wipes travel case and spray them with my wipes solution so they are damp and ready to use.

My mother made this great coloring book for all her grandkids after we visited Seattle with Z over Halloween, where my parents, siblings, and their families live. Many photos were taken of the four kids together, a rare occurrence given that we live in Texas and only get up there once a year or so. Others come to visit us, too, of course, but then we have a smaller coterie.

You can do this project using Photoshop, or some free (Windows-only) software she downloaded. You can read all about it, and see more pages from the book, on her blog, Grace and Gravity.

Z adores this coloring book. Witness:





This technique would also be great for doing one-offs - individual coloring sheets that could be printed out as needed. Making a book could also be a fun activity to do with a child, letting them help pick out the photos they'd like to color, or a gift idea for an older kid to bring into fruition for younger relatives at a low cost.

Finished artwork can also make great gifts for the original creator of the book, particularly if they're grandparents and thus suckers for that sort of thing. Ours all use digital photo frames, so I see a great collaborative slideshow in the making...