Bread Ties

This isn't so much a craft as just general life advice. Whenever I finish a loaf of bread, I toss these things into my cutlery drawer. Why? because the cursed things are always disappearing when I go to put my bread away. It can be handy to have a little back up drawer of spare bread ties for these moments.

You can knit with anything!

Knitting is a stupidly expensive hobby. Anyone who has bought material to knit a sweater will tell you that it's usually cheaper just to buy one.

That being said, it's also a very fun and can be a great way to feel less horrible about yourself for spending the day in front of the T.V. Yes, the best part about knitting is that you can knit yourself a blanket while watching The Mindy Project.

But how will you know if knitting is for you without dropping $50 on materials?

 I'm here to tell you that you can knit with anything even remotely stick shaped and anything even remotely yarn shaped. Back in the stone ages, old timey people used to knit with whatever they had on hand, so there's no reason why you can't do the same.

For this project you will need:

• Something remotely stick shaped. I have use pencil crayons in the tutorial, but you can get creative. Bamboo skewers would probably work well.

• Something remotely yarn shaped. Root around your  house for a bit. Some old twine would work well, or I have used a ribbon. You'll probably get frustrated if you try to use something as thin as thread, but you're the crafter so you can make the call.

Okay so we have assembled the materials we will need, now how do I knit? First you will need to cast on. This video gives a great demonstration of how to do this:

Okay, that was easy enough

I would suggest casting on just two or three stitches since we're not really trying to make anything here and fewer stitches gives you less opportunity to mess up.

It's kinda slow. Personally I would skip to the two minute mark

And that's it. Just repeat until you get to the end of your yarn substitute, rip it out and try again. I won't bother casting off since this is really just a useless little piece of nothing, but I'll include a video on it just so that I can say I gave you a well rounded education:

I hope you found this to be a useful tutorial. One more thing I'd like to add is that you should never let anyone tell you that arm knitting is a thing. It will invariably end like this:

nailed it!

Are wood pallets safe to repurpose?

There are some beautiful and creative projects that reuse wooden pallets. These DIY's appeal to the environmentalist, the cheapskate and the design enthusiast all at once. However, with the popularity of this material, it's worth asking:

Are wood pallets safe to reuse?

Maybe.

The problem is that pallets are used in the shipping process and you might have no way of knowing where they've been or what they've been in contact with. Some pallets have even been treated with chemicals that make them unsafe for indoor use. 1001 Pallets has a great guide to tell if the pallets you are looking at could have been treated this way.

Even if you pick out a pallet that isn't toxic, you have to keep in mind that it may have developed some issues before being chosen by you to become a one of a kind kitchen table. Pallets are often left outside and exposed to the rain and weather so there's possibility that it could have mold hiding in it's porous surface. If it's been used to ship produce, you should be concerned that it may be harboring food born pathogens like E. Coli or Listeria: very real concerns. Even washing the wood with bleach can't be guaranteed to get rid of the potential pathogens and painting over it doesn't help either.

So are pallets out of the question?

No!

 I would give a pass on that beautiful pallet kitchen table, but you can still use pallets for outdoor projects.

This tool rack by fix lovely is one way to safely re-purpose pallets at home.

As is this DIY pallet fence from Hometalk

TL;DNR Wooden pallets may not be recommended for indoor use, but should be fine for outdoors.

DIY Fake Moss

This DIY tutorial can be used to create realistic looking fake moss. To make this tutorial you will need:

• A Pine tree
• A pair of pruning shears or I guess you could try to use scissors
• A blender
• White glue
• A rock or clay pot that you want to put fake moss on
• a paintbrush

Step 1: Using the pruning sheers, snip a branch from a pine tree.

Step 2: Snip off manageable pieces of the branch and stuff them in your blender. Blend on "ice crush mode" until a fine powder is achieved.

Step 3: Using the paintbrush, cover the surface of what you want mossy in white glue.

Step 4: sprinkle or roll on the fake moss

I inadvertently discovered this technique while putting pine trees in my blender for an unrelated project and was excited to put it to use. The total cost of this project was 0$ because I had everything on hand, but you may find that you spend around $10 if you need to get glue, pots or pruning shears. It would look fantastic on stone garden statues if a waterproof glue were used instead of white craft glue. Feel free to share your own uses of this 'moss' in the comments!