I just moved into a new place last month and it's ALL tile. Tile isn't necessarily bad, but I do like having a little cushion for my feet! While looking for an affordable, attractive area rug, I kept coming up with items that were way out of budget or butt-ugly. So, I sat down and thought about what I could do. I didn't want wool, cause my dog finds wool delicious. I did want something modern looking, simple, and easy to clean...What was I to do?! I came up with this little idea after seeing something that inspired me on HGTV. You can put so many spins on this! * if you want a specific color, you can get white rugs and dye them cheaply with rit dye. * You can experiment with different shaped rugs - circles sewn together would be so 60's. * You can use multiple colored rugs for a louder look... The possibilities are endless!

Step One First, I bought two rugs at Ikea that were actually in the bathroom section. They're $9.99 each, nubby texture, and they have a sticky bottom, so they won't slip on tile! Perfect! These come in several colors, too!

Step Two I took some random embroidery thread (I used white, it doesn't show through) and threaded it through a needle. Then, I simply whipstitched the rugs together. You could make an area rug or a runner out of these types of rugs. Make sure to knot your knots tightly!

TA-DA!!!!! Flip it over, shake it out, even iron the seam if you'd like. Once you shake it out and wear it in a bit more, the seam won't be as noticeable. You've got an area rug for $20!

STEP ONE: Download and install Audacity. Then, download and install LAME. You'll need to move the LAME.dll file into the audacity folder to export projects into .mp3's once you actually get to the recording part. Think you got it down? Good! No? Here's some general help for Audacity.

STEP TWO: Onto the hardware! You'll need an RCA to a 1/8" wire. You can find this at RadioShack or similar stores. Once you get that, you'll hook the RCA end into the output of your mixer (See the photo with the empty output box? With the 1/8" end, you're going to stick that into your mic input on your computer. On my computer, it's the pink area, as you can see in the picture. Everything should be fully connected now! (Above left: the RCA to 1/8" converter, Above Right: Showing the pink area where 1/8" input should go, Bottom Photo: The back of my mixer showing output)

STEP THREE: Find the Volume Control on your computer, and select mute all. If you don't, this will interfere with your recording, and you'll get all the extra event sounds. Open audacity. As soon as you hit record, a new audio track will show up (the bar with all the blue in it). If you're fully connected, you should see something like the picture to the left. If you're just getting a straight line, you're not properly connected. Check to make sure your mixer is on the right channel you're trying to record off of! You may want to do some tests as to what sounds good. What sounds good off of a soundsystem will NOT sound good for a recording. You'll want to mess with the settings on both channels, and even the line if you're using that. I've marked where the proper settings are on my mixer to make it easy in the future.

STEP FOUR: When you're pleased with how it sounds from your computer, and you want to save it as an MP3, you'll go to "Project" on the menu bar, and select "Edit ID3 tags". Input the title of the song or podcast, the artist, and any other fields you think are necessary. Then from the File menu, select "export as MP3...". This will prompt you to name the file. Name the file, and hit save. It'll convert it within a few seconds (or longer if it's a full podcast).

STEP FIVE: If you have an account through PodOMatic (which is what I use), you have the choice to upload a file. Choose a title, tags, and comments, if you choose. Toward the bottom of the page, you'll see the area to upload your track. Browse and find where it's located. Click upload, and you're set! Uploading make take some time. Once it's all ready, select "post episode". Congratulations! You just made your first podcast!

The more you advance with Audacity, you'll see that you can easily select an area and delete or add to it. It's quite easy to use! The more you use it, the more you learn, and the easier things will become. It just takes practice like everything else. I really have to give props to Agent76 for helping me out with all my questions. Without him, I would have no clue on where to start with these new fangled podcast things!!

What you'll need: *tin - I used a classic hardware tin I got off ebay really cheap! *eyeshadows in throw away plastic containers *a small flat heat screwdriver *magnetic tape *scissors

STEP TWO: First, gather up all your eyeshadows that you use often. Start off with the ones that are sorta cheapie ones in case if you slip while getting the hang of prying them out. If you mess them up, it'll be no biggie. Carefully pry them all out (the corners are the easiest place to start at) Be patient! They'll come out! If you're having issues, try putting a hairdryer on high to soften up the glue.

STEP THREE: Once you're all done, see if they all fit in the tin easily and kinda see how your layout will look. If they all fit fine, take them out and put them face side down. Take off all the excess glue, if there is any.

STEP FOUR: Cut your magnetic tape to measure so its a bit smaller than each color of eyeshadow. Remove the backing, and simply stick the adhesive side to the back, pressing firmly.

STEP FIVE: The great thing about this is that you can do this to almost all your cosmetics, as long as they can fit in the tin! Blush, powder, eyeshadow, eyebrow filler, just about anything! One note though, I would not do this with anything that you know is crumbly. While making this, I discovered one of my eyeshadows was very delicate and decided not to put it in the case. The rest held up incredibly well! Since everything is magnetic, you can trade anything out when you want!

It seems like lately that lots of people are getting into the art of Tsumami Kanzashi, lately. I've been into making my own flowers for quite some time now, but I learned by inspecting the kanzashi I had, no tutorials were involved! So, I will pass my knowledge onto you readers, so you can make your own kanzashi! They are more simple than they look completed. I've made this tutorial aimed towards people who do not have access to the correct silk, so its a bit easier and cheaper to do, especially since most of you are probably beginners. ENJOY!

BEFORE YOU START: Before you start, you will want to cut a bunch of squares out of the fabric. This is probably the most difficult step, as you want to get the most perfect squares possible. A good size to start with is 1.5" squares, as they are a good size for small barettes! To get good squares, I would suggest using a rotary cutter, or just some sharp scissors that won't snag fabric. Materials Needed: Lightweight Fabric, preferrably something that doesn't unravel easily. Slightly transparent. Fabric Stiffener Nori Glue (rice glue that's pretty easy to come by) Pins Ruler Posterboard

ROUNDED PETALS: 1) Take the square and fold it diagonally, so the green dots in the diagram touch. Each corner touching exactly, forming a perfect triangle. 2) Fold the triangle in half again, making the dots meet once again. You will want to pinch the side that does not have the two layers on it. 3) While still grabbing the single-layer side of the petal, put your finger between each layer of the petal. Each corner on each half should meet the green dot. 4) Diagram four further shows another perspective of step three, as this is the most important step in forming your petal! Once you have all three corners met, you can stick a pin into them, so they'll stay. POINTED PETALS: 1) Take the square and fold it diagonally, so the green dots in the diagram touch. Each corner touching exactly, forming a perfect triangle. 2) Fold the triangle in half again, making the dots meet once again. 3) Fold the triangle diagonally again, and pinch all the met corners. Pin all the corners together. Keep repeating these steps for whichever petal you want until you have as many as you desire. Usually five rounded petals makes a good Sakura blossom, great for a cute little barette. About 8 makes for a good pointy petal barette. Spray them with the fabric stiffener, as this helps keep the them from getting "thready" and will help them keep their shape. Once they are dry, gently take the pins out. Spread some of the Nori Rice Glue onto some paper, and let it sit for a little bit. This glue takes FOREVER to dry, which is great if you have to reposition your petals. Wait about 15 minutes after you've set the glue out to start working with it. During this time, cut out a small circle of posterboard, about the size of a quarter. If you are using any other color than white, I'd suggest gluing a square of the fabric you're using onto this circle, so the white doesn's show through. Gently dip the bottoms of each petal into the glue and place on your posterboard circle. You'll want each petal's tips to meet in the center. Sometimes placing each petal on the circle with tweezers helps for preciseness. This is frustrating, but perfection will come with practice! Once you're happy with everything, you can decorate the center with fake pearls or flower centers you may be able to find in the bridal section at any craftstore. Then, you can use a strong glue (like E600) to glue onto a Goody Brand Snap barette, or onto a bobby pin. LINKS FOR REFERENCE AND INSPIPRATION: IKUOKAYA Videos that show traditional Kanzashi Making AMAZING Geisha & Maiko styled Kanzashi Gorgeous Photos of Geisha & Maiko Chidoriya World Puchi Maiko Even more gorgeous photos of Geisha & Maiko

With the positive feedback I got from the marble magnets, I decided to make some templates for you guys. You can print them out and make your own tiny little record label marbles! Also, I've been using these decorative floral marbles in other ways, such as *putting them on the fat end of a snappy clip (you can buy a 12 pack by Goody for about $2, these look like those expensive winky & dutch ones!) *putting the pictures on the back, and decorating a jewelry box, like a mosaic. *on blank rings (another winky & dutch rip off! *on blank, flat charms with jumprings, for a necklace *on just about anything you can use glue safely on...Your turntable (even on the needle head to weigh it down!), planters, dull trim on household items, ANYTHING! Just use E600 Glue! Print and Enjoy!

It seems as of late, I am hearing more and more people ask me all sorts of questions about stenciling. I thought I would make this easy and do a tutorial on it. Stenciling is one of my favorite hobbies, I've used it in reguards to etching glass, making shirts, doing urban art, and ahem...on the streets (Be careful!) On this tutorial, I will walk you step by step through doing a simple stencil. The more stencils you make and the more you experiment, the better you become! You will need: A photo editing program (I am using photoshop 7) An xacto knife/craft knife Material to make your stencil out of, I suggest one of the following -Card stock (this is good for one-run stencils. These tend to have foggy edges, but it is very easy to cut) -Acetate (great for running off with thicker media like acrylic. You MUST use on a horizontal surface though. Sort of difficult to cut) -Plastic sheets that can be purchased in the quilting section of your local craftstore (these last for FOREVER. Great for spraying, great for any sort of media. Crisp lines. However, these are VERY difficult to cut, but definitely worth it)

STEP TWO: I am starting off with this photo. I googled "upsetter" because I wanted the infamous lettering. First, I will desaturate it. (Photoshop: Image->Adjustments->Desaturate) I do not want Lee Perry's face on this. I'm keeping it simple! Just crop down to the letters using your cropping tool on your tool bar. (Left: source of stencil)

STEP THREE: The background noise is unneeded, so I'm just going to brush that out with the paint tool. After I am done with that, I will invert the colors, so when I print out the final pre-stencil, it will just be plain letters. (Photoshop: Image->Adjustments->Invert) (Left: Photo cropped and inverted)

STEP FOUR: Now, I don't want it vertical. I want this to be horizontal. I will create a new canvas that is much larger than what I need, so I have room to work with. I do mine at about 500x300. One at a time, copy each letter onto the new canvas by just selecting an area, or using the magic wand. Paste onto the new canvas straight across or in the offset manner like on the label. Once you're pleased with your results, crop the giant canvas down to size. You're almost done with editing! Here's the most important part to not screwing up your stencil. I do this in the editing process because if I don't, I always manage to forget. Look for "islands" in your stencil! Where any area you do not want media in that could get cut off. I chose to do letters as my example in the simple stencil because they are the best starter for looking for "islands". Islands are the holes in letters, like in "UPSETTER", "islands" are in the letter P and R. I am going to make a little connecter so there is no island in these letters. (Above: Final stencil product)

STEP FIVE: Once you are done checking for islands and think through your stencil (making sure all the pieces will pop out individually and not disrupt any other piece) you'll go ahead and do the last step of the editing process- Resizing. Think about what you would like to use your stencil on, and how large you would want it to be. I would like to use mine on clothing, so I will think about how wide it should be on say, a shirt, or a bag. I will resize my final edited image to that amount in inches (Photoshop: Image->Image size) Finally, print your final stencil image out on paper. If you are using a non-transparent media, I would suggest you take a pencil and scribble a good amount on the opposite side of the paper where your image lays at. Lay the final stencil image face up to you, and face down to your stencil media, and trace the image. The lead on the backside will transfer onto your stencil media. If you are using a transparent media, just trace right through. Tips & Techniques for cutting out your stencil: *If you would like sharper corners, try cutting in one direction around the perimeter of each shape or letter. *Cut in the same pressure throughout your whole stencil. *If you are working with something very light and tear-able, such as acetate sheets, when removing a piece from your stencil, make a slit in the center of the piece and pull it out that way, instead of ripping at a corner. Trying to remove a piece at a corner can cause tears in such a delicate material. *Practice! Your first stencil probably will not end up how you expect. Do not take something on too complicated. *NEVER cut in the direction toward your body. You could slip (especially using acetates and plastics) and hurt yourself. Practice extreme caution with xacto knives, they are much sharper than they seem! If anyone has any questions about this, contact me! I'll be more than happy to help you out!

STEP ONE: Gather materials: Those floral marbles that have a flat bottom (in any size), Magnetic buttons (to match size of floral marbles), Strong clear-drying glue, scraps from magazines with designs you like, scissors.

STEP TWO: Once you have a heap of magazine clippings, take the floral marble you're using and scope out how it'll look. Hold the floral marble over each picture, just so you'll get a good idea of the finished product. Once you're pleased with certain clippings, take your strong glue and put a TINY dab on the back of the marble. Then, carefully place the clipping with the desired design onto the marble. Let dry for an hour or so. I also suggest you have your clippings a bit bigger than the floral marble so when you cut away the excess when its dry, it'll turn out a bit cleaner.

STEP THREE: Once the paper and marble are sealed together and dry, cut away the excess paper. Do you like my laundry basket in the background?

STEP FOUR: Put a tiny dab of glue on the magnet and press onto the back of the marble. You're pretty much guaranteed to get glue all over you at this point. Let these babies dry overnight for best results. If you put them on your fridge too soon, the magnet will stay on and the glass marble will slide right off.

STEP FIVE: CREATE AN ARMY OF THESE TO PUT ON YOUR FRIDGE.

TIP: If you don't think I'm that great at descriping things, here's a diagram. Its just pretty much sandwiching things all together.

STEP ONE: This barely passes the line of "DIY" but I still think its pretty damn cool, myself. If you're like me and like things to be interesting down to the last detail, I think I've found something that will take that one step too far. SKINAMP, a program where you can easily make your own skin for your winamp is super easy to use and has great results. You just kind of have to mess around with things, turning options on or off. The best thing about this program is that you can choose your own background (I used a photo of speakers from Sir Coxsones downbeat). If you're interested in this, GO HERE! Its free and super easy to use. Isn't about time to get rid of that ugly black and neon background, anyway?

STEP ONE: Gather materials: Old record you'll never ever listen to, cookie sheet, a large bowl, a small bowl, and an oven preheated at 200*f. Set up supplies like in the picture, using the small bowl underneath the record.

STEP TWO: With the oven preheated at 200*f, shove that baby in there on the cookie sheet. Don't worry, its not used to catch excess drippings, its just used to easily take the setup out. The record won't get hot enough to completely melt...that is if you're not impatient and keep the oven at 200*! Keep it in there for five minutes to get a good flimsy record.

STEP THREE: So the five minutes is up..Now, this is where you'll have to work fast! Take the whole setup out of the oven and quickly flip the record over into the larger bowl. It should be about warm, but not too hot to the touch. This larger bowl is to just help you form the record into a more bowl-like shape. It hardens very quickly, so you'll have to work fast. If you're still not happy with it, you can throw it back in the oven and try again.

TIP: You can use these as goodie bowls to put crap in for your friends if you're too poor to go shopping or if you totally forgot it was their birthday or something. They'll think its sweet cause its homemade and neat, and you'll think "holy crap, this only cost me about 50 cents." OR you can make one for yourself and stash your crap in there..I use mine to put jewelry in. and bills. and make up. I love these things.

STEP ONE: Gather materials: An old LP sleeve, Xacto Knife (or scissors will do), Ruler, Clothes pins, and Very strong glue.

STEP TWO: Cut sleeve into separate sides, so both front and back are free pieces. Right now would also be a good time to trim off excess and jagged edges, so your box looks nicer and measurements are more precise.

STEP THREE: Measure 2 Inches off every edge of the front part of the LP sleeve. Make sure that each edge is 2 inches, because you don't want your box to be crooked! NOTE: I dashed the lines in this diagram because you will be cutting on them, these will be your tabs in which you'll put glue on a few steps ahead!

STEP FOUR: This is one of the most tricky steps-You'll want to put the edge of your ruler onto the lines in which you just created. Fold up gently, especially if it is an older record sleeve (they're more prone to "flaking"). Do this on all four lines. This will create the edges and sides to your box.

STEP FIVE: Cut along the dashed lines to create the tabs. Fold upward like in photo.

STEP SIX: On the front (where the image is) on each tab, put a few dabs of the strong glue and press the longer side to each tab. Then, clip your clothespins on the edges above the tabs to hold the box together until it sets up.

STEP SEVEN: When you've got all the tabs and sides glued together, your own box should look like the one pictured.

STEP EIGHT: For the bottom of the box, follow steps three through seven, except while measuring in, measure in 2 5/8" instead. It needs to be smaller so it can fit inside the top!

STEP NINE: Your glue should be allowed to set up over night or so, so its nice and strong. There's also many extras you can do to this box, such as put a coat of polyurethane on it, to give it a nice glossy coat (like in the photo, but beware, older LP covers tend to be more porous, and absorb the liquid and become spotty!) Or even line it with some vintage fabric you've saved but never use for anything else. Just use the same cutting directions as above, and glue in with tacky glue and trim off excess when dry. Enjoy!