I’ve long been a fan of the plain little notebooks made by an Italian company called Moleskine.  They’re a blank slate inside and out (perfect for us artsy types) and come in various sizes, the smaller of which are perfect for throwing in your purse or glove box so you always have them handy.  They’re awesome, but that awesomeness comes at a price.  They aren’t …

Did you ever do string art as a child?  You know, the kind where you arrange nails or pins in a pattern and then wrap string around them.  The other day as I was hunting for Valentine- and heart-themed crafts, I came across a string art heart at Make Grow Gather made with straight pins stuck into a bulletin board.  My gears started turning and …

Have you ever rescued something from the trash because you knew that there had to be something you could do with it — surely something better than sending it to the landfill — but you just weren’t sure what that something was?  (I’m totally guilty of that on multiple counts!)  We got an e-mail from reader Dawn, who needs some post-trash-picking inspiration.  She writes:
I recently …

Yes, you read that right.  You can make your own pencils out of paper!  When I saw this project the first thing I said was, “woah!”  Using pencil leads (look for the larger-diameter leads for mechanical or drafting pencils) and origami paper, Kimanh from Scissors Paper Wok made the coolest.pencils.ever.  You could also try paper-wrapping the refills for stick ink pens, or look for colored …

2011 was a tutorial-filled year at Dollar Store Crafts; we brought you more original tutorials than ever!  There were fashion tutorials, home decor tutorials, recycled crafts, and all kinds of other ideas.  Some of them were particularly popular, so to wrap up the year, we thought we would take a look back at our top 10 tutorials out of everything we made in 2011.  Which …

If you enjoy recycled crafts, you should definitely check out Reduce, Reuse, Redecorate.  Blogger Allison has all kinds of great ideas, like this book page pencil cup, perfect for the desk of your favorite bibliophile!  The idea came after she used the book pages to punch a bunch of circles for a lamp project.  Don’t have any books appropriate for mutilation?  Thrift stores are a …

Ever notice how secret agents and spies get all the cool gear? Well, now you can too! Make your own mini grappling hook out of office and household supplies, then let let loose on a top secret mission from Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
This grappling hook design was built from the new book Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction 2 (Chicago Review Press) by John Austin*. This …

While looking at a pencil cup she got at IKEA, Camilla from Family Chic noted that the mesh surface would be perfect for needlepoint.  She whipped out some yarn and made a lovely little sampler!  There are a couple of things that I really appreciate about this project:  1) that it’s perfect for using up some of the loads and loads of scrap yarn I’ve …

Our friend Christine & Co. took a plain mug and transformed it into a pretty chic cuppa with the help of an ombre color treatment (that is, graduated color from light to dark). She was clever and bought just two tasty colors from the new Martha Stewart craft paint line, and cleverly combined them to make four colors. Now that’s a dollar store craft I …

Let me tell you about this file cabinet. I got it from the free listings on Craigslist a couple years ago. (My secret to getting something good for FREE off Craigslist? Stalk the site or use a CL phone app and the minute you see something you want listed for Free, jump in the car and drive like the wind.) It was a not-so-tasty beige, …