Arts and Craft How To Tips:

DIY Pallet Chair Tutorial

Make your own DIY pallet chair with this step by step craft tutorial with photos. Learn how to find wooden pallets for free.

DIY Fashion Video Tutorial | Sequin Elbow Patch Jumper

With the most basic sewing skills you can turn a second hand sequin skirt or top into a glorious sequin elbow pad jumper. Or even a sequin booby jumper!

101 Make your own Christmas gift ideas

Make your own Christmas presents: If you love crafting, you're feeling a bit thrifty and want to make your own Christmas present, we have 101* Christmas gift ideas that are cheap, fun and crafty to give you inspiration.

How to have a merry Gothic Christmas

Is Christmas starting to annoy you? Did you ever find those little knock-knock jokes in the christmas cracker funny? DID ANYONE? For a Gothic Christmas, read on...

How to make Christmas candy cane bath salts

This is a really charming homemade gift idea for Wintermas, that can be dressed up or down to suit your tastes. These bath salts are simple to make and won't make you go over your budget. Huzzah for peppermint oil!

10 Ideas for Mooky Christmas Presents

10 Ideas for Mooky Christmas Presents, from geocaching days and personalised photo rock wristbands from Thor's Hammer to tiny short stories printed onto canvas. Sod Amazon and their pink-hued Christmas gift ideas for girls.

10 Ways to customize a T-Shirt

From the scissors only T Shirt Hack to turning old tees into cardigans, we explore ten crafty new ways to mangle and evolve your clothing.

How to Make a Foam Rose

This step by step crafting tutorial shows you how to make a rose out of foam. A bit like origami, really. But with foam.

How to Make a Tea Caddy

This step by step crafting tutorial shows you how to make a tea caddy for your treasured collection of unusual teas.

How to Make a Cute Raccoon Doll

Step by step photos showing you how to make a raccoon doll out of lint or felt.

18 Selling on Etsy Tips

Tips on taxes, promotion, packaging and more if you're thinking of selling on Etsy...

DIY Body Spray Recipe

How to make a body mist perfume with a very simple body spray recipe that can be stored in the fridge - and also used as a DIY room freshener.

17 Crafty Uses for Wire Hangers

Arts and crafts are underpinned by appreciation of the basic things in life - and what could be more basic or splendid than a wire hanger? Here are 17 clever, crafty things you can do with them. None of them involve Batman.

A floral revolution: Basic flower arranging tips

Taking a DIY punk ethic to alternative flower arranging. Basic flower arranging that's high on creativity and low on budget.

Crafty DIY - Jewellery beading ideas for Christmas party season

Arts and crafts tips on making chokers, earrings, 1920s necklaces, pendants and broochers. Christmas/Yule/Other is the perfect time to make statement home made jewellery for yourself - or pearlescent stocking stuffers for others.

Crafty crochet hat pattern

Craft Tutorial - First, we'll teach you how to crochet (slip knot, chain stitch, knit stitch, double crochet). Then we'll teach you how to crochet a hat. A beanie hat. BOOM.

Craft Ideas: How to do screen printing at home

Practice screen printing at home and you can print your own bold stencil designs onto anything from bags to tea towels (the latter making an ideal crafty Christmas gift). With this tutorial, make your own screen (or buy a screen printing starter kit) and beat crafty Warhol at his own game...

How to make your own (magickal or crafty) inks and oils

Whether you love arts and crafts - or spellwork - or both, we'll show you how to make your own crafty inks and oils. If you wish, we'll also show you how to imbue them with magickal properties for spell crafting.

How to make your own DIY perfume

Making your own DIY perfume is easy and inexpensive, and sure beats spending money to smell like everyone else. Learn how to choose from the 5 perfume categories, choose your perfume notes and oils, and put it all together. Viva the handmade movement.

How to customise leather jackets

Crafting tips - how to paint leather jackets with spray paint or acrylic, paint stencils on jackets, and how to customise them with studs and spikes. Sweet.

How to make a Cabinet of Curiosities

Do you have a collection of strange and beautiful lovelies that you’d like to display? Do you like to stare at beautiful, odd things that evoke a sense of wondr? Then you need a Cabinet of Curiosities.

The urban art of wheatpasting

The modern world can look dim and dour, so combine arts and crafts with activism and urban art. Experiment with wheatpasting as an ecological alternative to flyposting. Wheatpasting recipe, application tips and ideology ahoy!

Make a heart-shaped massage bar to show your love

Beauty: Well 'tis the season to be jolly, if one has gone over the overdraft in this consumer-fest formally known as Christmas, and is also the season of giving. So why not give something you've lovingly handcrafted yourself? It'll save both bank balance and planet if we grab our whisks and create a decadent potion which will make the grateful recipient feel a zillion dollars (but only costing a few of your finest English sterling).

How to make your own lavender moisturizer

Beauty: Poison potion alert! Ever read the ingredients on an average bottle of shampoo or face cream? Would your skin really benefit from being plastered in petrochemical slime and preservatives? And what about the environmental consequences of those toxic products going down your plughole? Your 'nice' herbal product could actually be a mini chemical weapon - so make your own version instead!

How to make Voodoo dolls

Crafting tiny string Voodoo dolls is terribly easy and satisfying. Even if you put them to no particular purpose. Fear not, we'll talk you through the history of Voodoo dolls while we're at it...

How to make fluffy leg warmers

Soft, cute, fluffy leg warmers! Essentials for all-season Harajuku and Cybergoth lovers. Quite expensive online, fluffy leg warmers can be made so simply at home. Here's how to make your own.

DIY craft ideas: Gifts to make for musicians

If you know someone in a band, use that band practice time to use your arts and crafts skills and make something that shows your appreciation...

Customising clothes - DIY craft ideas

Charity shop clothes tend to be almost - but not quite - right. These crafty DIY clothes customisation tips will help you fix shoes that are too small, add a lacy twist, create eighties shoulder pads and a few other bits and bobs...

The joy of silly putty

Science fact - silly putty was first marketed for adults not children! We look at the history and science of silly putty, and discover some extraordinary things one can do with it.

How to decoupage

If you're looking for arts and crafts ideas, learn how to decoupage with every crafter's dream: Mod Podge. As both beginner and Master Crafter, you'll be able to enhance furniture, picture frames and more. Decoupage for all!

Needlepoint kits

Arts and crafts: Felicity Hall does great needlepoint kits for the modern stitcher, complete with needlepoint stitches and patterns. Make your own needlepoint pillows, like, now!

Needlepoint instructions

Arts and crafts: These handy needlepoint visual guides will help you nail your needlepoint stitches - from basket weaving to blocking. Get stitching!

Knitting ideas: Curious cat toy

Arts and crafts: Knitting ideas and knitting patterns - Knit this little pink cat as a charming and quirky knitted gift.

How to make a record bowl

A record bowl is recycled consumables so it's cheap and ethical to make and you don't need any special equipment. Record bowls make great gifts, plant pots or picture frames and they say something about who you are.

How to make an octopus hoodie

Halloween costumes: Forget about the sexy bunny and kitten outfits! Forget any other advice we've ever given! The only thing you should even consider wearing this Halloween is a home-made octopus hoodie.

How to make a T-shirt dress

Indie arts and crafts: Jo Anne Yada shows you how to take two old T-shirts and turn them into a flattering T-shirt dress. Hooray for arts and crafts.

How to turn an old dress into a skirt

Indie arts and crafts: Isn't it nice to have an indie craft tutorial that truly embraces *all* style subculture? Well, nearly all of you have got an old dress. Even the men. And you can turn it into a skirt. Simple, eh? Good times, good times...

How to tie-dye

Indie arts and crafts: Transform humble jeans or hoodies with our guide on how to tie dye. Once you know how to tie dye correctly you can be as sophisticated or as messy as you please...

DIY Piercing craft: How to make plugs from wooden dowels

Indie arts and crafts: Face it, neat-looking plugs are hard to find and can be a bit pricy. Wooden dowels are inexpensive and can be found at craft stores universally! Yes, people will think you are very bizarre when you're in the craft isle and remove your plug to see which dowel fits in your ear...

How to make your own pair of skinny jeans

Indie arts and crafts: Apart from your health, your soul and your actual best friend, jeans are a mook's best friend. Now learn how to make gorgeous skinny jeans yourself by customising an old pair of generously boot-cut jeans or flares...

How to make a lolita blouse

Indie arts and crafts: Do those cute ruffles on that shirt make your heart ache with longing? Loli-mooks of the world, help has arrived. Yes, it's a simple sewing tutorial on making a Lolita blouse that is still indie enough to pass as standard daywear in your wardrobe.

How to make a gothic lolita headdress

Indie arts and crafts: How to make an elegant Gothic Lolita headdress. With lace, ribbon and love your DIY lolita fashion will rival any Lolita brand site. Kawaii!

Get crafty - punk up your wedge sandals or boots

Indie arts and crafts: Get crafty! Attack your summer sandals with acrylic paints and collages to let their little sandal souls flourish!

How to make a gothic lolita parasol

Indie arts and crafts: Come summertime, every little gothic lolita needs the chaste and dainty protection of a pretty lace and ribbon parasol. Forget pricy lolita fashion - turn your old umbrella into a thing of loligoth beauty!

How to make a skull butterfly hair clip

Indie arts and crafts: Rossana shows you how to make a cute skull butterfly hair clip from scratch. Whether you love Mexico's Day of the Dead, or candy colours, or have watched Blue Velvet too many times and associate blue skies and cute robins with Bad Things, these charming skull accessories will delight your fiercely beating little heart. And Rossana not only sells these pretty things, she has one to give away to the first person who emails her!

How to make a detachable collar

Indie arts and crafts: Detachable collars are a super-easy way to transform an outfit. They work particularly wellwith a plain black or grey t-shirt, but can be worn over strapless dresses or worked into any style with custom embellishment.

How to make record art

Indie arts and crafts: Do you look through your record collection and wonder how the hell 'Hooked on Classics' ended up there? Fear not. Your moment of aural foolishness can be turned to good use, because there's a way to transform it into art.

Crafting ideas - Turn a book into a jewelry box!

Indie arts and crafts: Our crafting tips guru turned an old book into a jewelry box using a couple of leftover Altoids tins for drawers. Whether your literary heart belongs to pulp fiction, victorian diaries or 1940s wartime codebooks, express yourself through arts and crafts with this nifty booky jewelry box.

How to make a hooded scarf

Indie arts and crafts: Mookychick shows you how to customise an old sweatshirt to make a scarf with a hood attached. It's handy when you don't have a hood on your jacket, and it adds interest to a normal scarf when the hood is down.

How to make a goth sunglasses case

Indie arts and crafts: Sunglasses are huge but sunglasses cases don't seem to have got any bigger. Stupid cases! Here's how to make one large enough to house a huge pair of sunnies. It's coffin-shaped, so you can pretend you'll turn to ash if you take the sunnies off in the daytime.

The ancient paper mache art of cartapesta

Indie arts and crafts: An intricate process, Cartapesta was originally developed for creating church statuary and architectural detail. Use cartapesta to make sumptuous hand-torn roses or bead necklaces that weigh like popcorn but look like stone. Find out more.

Knitting for absolute beginners

Indie arts and crafts: You may be tired of buying clothes that are made badly and rip or tear. You may be considering cheap and meaningful presents for Christmas. The chances are that if you don't knit, you'd like to, or will know someone that does. Knitting is no longer a symbol of the stereotype of the housebound woman - it's a wonderful and emancipating hobby. Learn to knit a simple rectangle, and we'll show you a few creative things you can do with it.

Got your own craft trading stall? Now build your clientele and find gigs!

Indie arts and crafts: Now that you've learned how to start an indie business, and how to build your own craft trading stall, Leslie explains her methods for finding gigs and building up a list of clientele.

Indie crafters: Make your own craft stall!

Indie arts and crafts: Calling all indie crafters with an eye for business! Today's lesson will tell you how to build your own portable trading stall so you can start getting your business out there...

How to make a binbag dress

Indie arts and crafts: With Halloween coming up, everyone is looking for (cheap) original costumes. A binbag dress has an enticing aura of punk promise, it's more tacky than all the eighties put together and it's almost free!

How to shorten a pair of trousers

Indie arts and crafts: If you're shopping for second hand denim you usually get the dilemna - go for the right waist size or the right trouser length? Thus you end up with long hemmed jeans that fray to feckery as they get dragged underfoot. Pretend you always intended them to be that way - or do something about it.

Make your own paper

Indie arts and crafts: Making paper is rewarding and creative. DIY businesswomen take note - it can also be a great way to prevent identity theft, save the environment and cut rising business costs, all in one! Leslie Crews shows you how to make paper, spending as little money as possible.

Make your own decorative fairy lights

Indie arts and crafts: Most people (and shops) have cottoned onto the idea that fairy lights are a pretty, creative and inexpensive form of secondary lighting that shouldn't just be reserved for the Winter season. Here's a great way of making your own, with no need to sew.

How to make a cushion cover

Indie arts and crafts: A cushion cover is one of the easiest things you can make if you're willing to do a bit of sewing and stick in a zip. And it's high on the kudos - everyone will see your cushion cover the minute they walk into your room and look around for somewhere to sit down. Which will happen often - people are lazy that way.

How to make a pillowcase skirt

Indie arts and crafts: Pillowcases come in lovely fabrics, so why not make a skirt out of one - either elastic waisted or zipper? Oh, and it's probably a fine idea to make one out of a pillowcase that isn't see-through...

Get hooked: make your own beaded brooch

Indie arts and crafts: A wired brooch is cheap and easy to make, and can feature your personal touch - from tiny glass beads to lucky plastic butterfly charms. Esme from Paisley Chainsaw tells you how to make your own...

Rug hooking made simple

Indie arts and crafts: Rug hooking is a simple craft to learn. It recycles rags and old T-shirts to make pretty, decorative rugs and mats. Etsy's Islandsweet (Shawn O'Hagan' learned the skill in Newfoundland, and tells you how.

How to make a personalised leather belt

Indie crafts: Making a leather belt from scratch and personalising it with the right equipment could be cheaper than personalising it through a shop. And you get to keep the tools and work leather as a hobby! Allison from 'Sunny Rising Leather' shows you how.

How to make a felt fashion bug

Indie crafts: Felting is an ancient way of mixing fibres together. Learn how to make a felt fashion bug in bright colours, non caveman-style...

How to make a felt cupcake keyring

Indie crafts: Learn how to make an extra sweet cupcake key ring out of felt thanks to etsy crafter Dotty Ral. This cute felt cupcake is easy to make could also be used as a zipper pull on a coat, purse or bag...

How to decorate your room for a black light party

Throwing a themed party? Or want to turn your room/toilet into an unearthly glowing dream? The Mookychicks give you the lowdown on decorating your room so it glows under a UV black light...

How to make a cute message board out of egg cartons

The only downside to making this charming message board is that you'll need to get through a lot of eggs. Mookychick suggests a massive cake-bake (then sell the proceeds to charidee. Or store the cake in your freezer. For a day will come when you're starving. And it's winter. And the wolves are scraping at your door).

Vintage OOAK doll restoring

Meet DollyD, the mastermind behind Dollytopia OOAK doll restoration. Her workshop is stuffed with vintage and modern barbies rerooted with blue punk hair and customised with alternative clothes and accessories. View her work and find out more.

Mooky Tips for a DIY Halloween

If you don't have the cash to splash out on a cliché Halloween costume this year, why not dive in and make your own? From medieval maiden to burlesque tease queen, here are just a few ideas to get the ball rolling... the rest is up to you!

101 Make your own Christmas gift ideas

Make a Juice pouch bag!

This lunch bag is brightly-coloured, waterproof, easy to make and durable. It makes great use of Kool-Jammer or Capri Sun pouches.

DIY Gift ideas

From memory gifts for your best friends to party kits for tiny babybugs, Ruby Mae comes up with homemade gift kit ideas that won't cost a bomb and have a lot of heart. Make love, not war - DIY-style.

5 Ways to live green without breaking the piggy bank

Being a hippie doesn't have to be a dirty secret any more. Living green is a solid worldwide trend, opening up a new world to people who believe it's possible to combine their big-city 'live more want more' life with eco-friendliness and thriftiness. Check these five basic suggestions for green living on a budget, then check out our green-living articles below.

Craft tips: How to make your own kanzashi flowers

Kanzashi are hair ornaments used in traditional Japanese hairstyles. One of their main features is the application of intricate little fabric flowers. With a step-by-step photo tutorial and video provided by uber-craftette Spangle, we show you how to make your own cute kanzashi flowers. These can go on brooches, bags, hairpins, fridge magnets... oh, how kawaii!

Decorate your dorm room on a student budget

We all want a room like the one in magazines, but when you're a poor college student existing on handouts from the bank of mom and dad, those dreams are too many paychecks in the future. Creativeness can go a long way to making your room look chic and hot by transforming it into a proper hangout for you and your closest buds.

How to make a duct tape purse

When it comes to affordable DIY style, duct tape has always been a girl's best friend. It comes primarily in black or silver (tasteful), it's incredibly strong and it sticks to itself. Perfect for customising just about anything - jeans, bracelets, you name it... and this week, Stella Rivet shows you how to make an entire purse out of duct tape. Is there no end to its glory?

How to make a button bracelet

A cute button bracelet has a chunky vintage feel and is an easy gift you can make with all those leftover buttons you have lying around.

How to make and customise a denim belt

You don't need to be a genius at sewing to make customised and recycled denim belts. You do need to exercise your imagination about how to customise them. It also helps if you have a sewing machine - but a pair of scissors, some nail polish and superglue will do.

How to make a plastic bag rug

The wonderful Stella Rivet shows you how to make a rug that is pretty and really cool, it's extremely easy and it costs next to nothing to make. And it's ethical - because it's made entirely from recycled plastic bags!

How to make a choker and more... with velcro

You've seen velcro on trainers, sofa covers, clothing - the list is endless. It is a great way to quickly open and close something, and although it has an industrial look there are all sorts of ways to get crafty with velcro if you want to make your own clothes and jewellery.

How to go dumpster diving

The DIY ethic is an anti-consumerist stance that says you don't have to buy to get what you need. Dumpster diving is a legal, easy and much-fun way to start rejecting consumer sensibilities.

Make your own Victorian Christmas decorations

Make your own Christmas decorations: Oh, do let's have a Victorian Christmas! We show you how to make pretty little Victorian decorations as Christmas gifts to make your tree feel like it stepped into the late 19th century.

How to make your own Christmas crackers

Indie arts and crafts: Why not make your own Christmas crackers this year? They're slightly cheaper - especially if you make more of them. More importantly, it means you decorate them to suit you (black and pink crepe paper would be the Mookychick choice) and you can fill them with your own gifts and sillies, from skull rings and candy necklaces to cherry lip balms and beautiful poems...

How to recycle toilet rolls

Indie arts and crafts: Aren't toilet rolls amazing? Christ, yes. They're little cardboard treasures. Next time you're riding the porcelain bus, print this article out and flick through our nearly 101 uses for a recycled toilet roll. From DIY christmas crackers to making lampshades, you'll be amazed and occasionally bewildered.

Arts and Craft How To Tips

Browse crafty ideas and tutorials from craftivists and thrifty gals who use knitting needles in peace, not anger.